{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43032/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43032","id":"gutenberg_43032","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43032","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Journals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Catholic Church -- Periodicals","The Catholic World"],"text":"[Transcriber's notes]\n\n  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly\n  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred\n  in the original book.\n\n[End transcriber's note.]\n\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\n\n_A Monthly Magazine_\n\nof\n\nGENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.\n\n\n\nVOL. IV.\n\nOCTOBER, 1866, TO MARCH, 1867.\n\n\n\nNEW YORK:\n\nLAWRENCE KEHOE, PUBLISHER.\n\n145 Nassau Street.\n\n1867.\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n  A\u00ebrolites, 536.\n  Andorra, The Republic of, 561.\n\n  Books, Rise and Progress of, 104.\n  Books and Hymns, Mediaeval, 804.\n\n  Cervantes y Saavedra, Miguel de, 14.\n  Connecticut, Divorce Legislation in, 101.\n  Cowardice and Courage, 160.\n  Count Julian and His Family, Legend of, 211.\n  Celtic Anthology and Poetic Remains, 389.\n  Charity and Philanthropy, 434.\n  Christmas with the Baron, 446.\n  Conversion, The Philosophy of, 459.\n  Christ is Born, 496.\n  Christmas Story, Little Sunbeam's, 515.\n  Christmas Day, The Little Birds on, 584.\n  Christmas Eve, What Came of a Laugh on, 542.\n  Christmas, Catholic, 565.\n  Catholic Church, How my Aunt Pilcher found the, 667.\n  Christine, 681.\n  Catholic Ceremonial, The, 721.\n\n  De Vere, Aubrey, 73.\n  Divorce Legislation in Connecticut, 101.\n  Doubt, Victims of, 550.\n\n  European Events, Recent, 217.\n\n  French Unity, Founders of, 197.\n  French Watering-Place, A Month at a, 405.\n  Flowers, Sea-Side, 621.\n  Fra Angelico, A Portrait of, 671.\n\n  Godfrey Family, The, 30, 174, 320, 473, 598, 750.\n  Holy Land, The, 500.\n  Heart of Man, What Most Rejoices the, 559.\n\n  Lake Dwellings, 398.\n  Labor, The Source of, 593.\n  Limerick, The First Siege of, 708.\n\n  Miscellany, 138, 281, 424, 570, 853.\n  Montpensier, Mademoiselle de, 360.\n  Monarchy, The Church and, 627.\n  Mediaeval Books and Hymns, 804.\n\n  Nationalities, Development of, 245.\n\n  Old Owl, The, 264.\n  Origen at Caesarea, 772.\n\n  Problems of the Age, 1, 145, 289, 519, 652.\n  Paris, The Mus\u00e9e Retrospectif in, 275.\n  Painting, Missal, 303.\n  Proselytism, Protestant, in Eastern Lands, 342.\n  Pope and the Revolution, The, 577.\n  Parisian Attic, Genius in, 685.\n\n  Robert; or, The Influence of a Good Mother, 641, 824.\n  Rossetti, Christina G., 889.\n  Ritualism, What I Heard About, in a City Car, 850.\n\n  Saint Catharine at Florence, 129,\n  Science, Physical and Christian Revelation, 253, 372.\n  Syracuse and AEtna, 701.\n  Swetchine, Madame, 736.\n\n  The Age, Problems of, 1, 145, 289, 519, 652.\n  The Church, Independence of, 51,\n  The Thatched House, The Mystery of, 65.\n  Traveler's Tales, 111.\n  Tombstone, The Tale of a, 792.\n\n  Unconvicted; or, Old Thorneley's Heirs, 87, 223.\n\n  Woman, 417.\n\n------\n\nPOETRY\n\n  A Summer Sorrow, 103.\n  Anniversary, 128.\n  Autumn, 341.\n  Ave Maria Sine Labe Concepts, 415.\n\n  Barabas and I, 535.\n  Bartimeus, On the Cure of, 771.\n\n  Christmas Song, A, 433.\n  Christmas Bells, 471.\n  Charity, Christian, 518.\n  Christmas Tree, My, 533.\n  Christmas Dream, A, 549.\n\n  Delia, 359.\n  Dying Year, The, 499.\n  Deliverance, 541.\n  Deo Opt. Max., 640.\n\n  Epigram, 457.\n\n  Home at Last, 263.\n  Herodias, Request of the Daughter of, 626.\n\n  I Am the Way, 680.\n  \"Inconsolabile,\" 838.\n\n  Lucifer Matutinus, 110.\n  Light, 803.\n\n  My Soldier, 100.\n  My Fears, 210.\n  My Two Mites, 423.\n\n  Our Lord, Apparition of, to His Disciples, 514.\n  One Moment, 651.\n\n  Pea-Blossom, 404.\n  Poem, 597.\n  Pardon, 620.\n\n  \"Quare Tristis es Anima Mea et Quare Conturbas Me?\" 397.\n\n  Resurrection, The, 72.\n\n  Silent Grief, 29.\n  Song, 159.\n  Saint Lucy, 172.\n  Summer Days are Gone, 227.\n  Sonnet, 274.\n  St. Peter's Denial, On, 499.\n\n  The Fairest Fair, 818.\n  The Virgin's Cradle Hymn, 388.\n  The Christmas Tree, 458.\n  The Cry, 748.\n  The Answer, 749.\n  The Test, 846.\n  The Barren Fig-Tree and the Cross, 852.\n\n  Work-Box, My Aunt's, 666.\n\n------\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS\n\n  Allie's See of St. Peter, 139.\n  Alphonso, 144.\n\n  Church History, Darras, 575.\n  Curious Questions, 428.\n\n  England, History of, for the Young, 144.\n\n  First Principles, 288.\n  Frederick the Great and His Court, 575.\n\n  Holt, Felix, 141.\n  Harkness' Latin Book, 143.\n\n  International Law, Wheaton's Elements of, 282.\n  King Ren\u00e9's Daughter, 859.\n\n  Jesus, Sufferings of, 576.\n  Jesus Crucified. The School of, 858.\n\n  Laurentia, a Tale of Japan, 287.\n  Letters, Beethoven's, 574.\n  Lydia, 719.\n\n  Mormon Prophet and his Harem, The, 144.\n  Moral Evil, Origin of, 432.\n  Men, Light and Life of, 576.\n  Mouthful of Bread, History of a, 720.\n  McAuley, Catherine, Life of, 854.\n  Manual, The French, 858.\n\n  Philip Earnescliffe, 143.\n  Pastoral Letter of Second Plenary Council, 425.\n  Poems, Alice Carey's, 572.\n  Poems, Buchanan's, 574.\n  Paulists, Sermons of the, 718.\n  Pictorial Histories, Goodrich's, 720.\n  Physiology of Man, The, 859.\n\n  Rise and Fall, The, 431.\n\n  See of St. Peter, Allie's, 139.\n  Six Months at White House, Carpenter's, 142,\n  Sunday-school Class-Book, Improved Catholic, 143.\n  Saint Cecilia, Life of, 286.\n  Spanish Papers, Irving's, 286.\n  Shakespeare, Authorship of the Works of, 429.\n  Scientific Subjects, Herschel's Lectures on, 430.\n  Saint Vincent de Paul, Life of, 576.\n  Severne, Robert, 857.\n\n  The Sham Squire, 288.\n  The Conditioned, Philosophy of, 432.\n  Town, Out of, 860.\n\n  Vignettes, Miss Parke's, 287.\n\n  Woman's Work, Essays on, 142.\n  Women, Higher Education of, 575.\n  Welte, Alte und Neue, 576.\n\n----\n\n{1}\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\nVOL. IV., NO. 19.--OCTOBER, 1866.\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nPROBLEMS OF THE AGE.\n\n\nVII.\n\nTHE DOGMA OF CREATION--THE PRINCIPLE, ARCHETYPE,\nAND END OF THE CREATIVE ACT.\n\n\nThe next article of the creed is, \"Creatorem coeli et terrae:\" Creator\nof heaven and earth.\n\nThe mystery of the Trinity exhausts the idea of the activity of God\nwithin his own interior being, or _ad intra_. The dogma of creation\nexpresses the idea of the activity of God without his own interior\nbeing, or _ad extra_. It is an explication of the primitive idea of\nreason which presents simultaneously to intelligence the absolute and\nthe contingent in their necessary relation of the dependence of the\ncontingent upon the absolute. Being an explication of the rational\nidea, it is rationally demonstrable, and does not, therefore, belong\nto the super-intelligible part of the revelation, or that which is\nbelieved simply on the veracity of God. That portion of the dogma of\ncreation which is super-intelligible, or revealed truth in the highest\nsense, relates to the supernatural end to which the creation is\ndetermined by the decree of God. Nevertheless, although the idea of\ncreation, once proposed, is demonstrable on purely rational\nprinciples, it is fairly and fully proposed to reason under an\nadequate and explicit conception adequately expressed, only by divine\nrevelation. Wherever this adequate formula of revelation has been\nlost, the conception has been lost with it, and not even the highest\nphilosophy has restored it. Plato's conception of the formation of the\nuniverse went no higher than the impression of divine ideas upon\nmatter eternally self existent. In all philosophy which is not\nregulated by the principles of revelation, the ideas of necessary\nbeing and contingent existence and of the relation between them are\nmore or less confused, and the dogma of creation is corrupted.\n\nThe pure, theistic conception gives at once the pure conception of\ncreation.\n\nNot that the idea of creation can be immediately perceived in the idea\nof God, which has been shown to be impossible; but that it can be\nperceived in the idea of God by the medium of the knowledge of finite\nexistences given to the intellect together with the knowledge of\ninfinite being, in the {2} primitive intuition. When the idea of\ninfinite being is fully explicated and demonstrated in the perfect\nconception of God, the existence of real entities which are not God,\nand therefore not included in necessary being, being known, the\nrelation of these things extrinsic to the being of God, to the being\nof God itself, becomes evident in the idea of God. It is evident that\nthey have no necessary self-existence either out of the divine being\nor in the divine being, and therefore have been brought out of\nnonentity into entity by the act of God.\n\nThis creative act of God is that by which he reduces possibility to\nactuality. It is evident that this possibility of creation, or\ncreability of finite existences extrinsic to the divine essence, is\nnecessary and eternal. For God could not think of doing that which he\ndoes not think as possible, and his thoughts are eternal. The thought\nor idea of creation is therefore eternal in the divine mind. It is a\ndivine and eternal archetype or ideal, which the externised, concrete\nreality copies and represents. The divine essence is the complete and\nadequate object of the divine contemplation.\n\nIt is, therefore, in his own essence that God must have beheld the\neternal possibility of creation and the ground or reason of\ncreability. It is the divine essence itself, therefore, which contains\nthe archetype or ideal of a possible creation. As an archetype, it\nmust contain that which is equivalent to finite essences, capable of\nbeing brought into concrete, actual existence by the divine power, and\nmultiplied to an indefinite extent God's eternal knowledge of the\npossibility of creation is, therefore, his knowledge of his own\nessence, as an archetype of existences which he is capable of enduing\nwith reality extrinsic to the reality of his own being, by his\nomnipotent power. The eternal possibility of creation, therefore,\nexists necessarily in the being and omnipotence of God. It is the\nimitability of the divine essence as archetype by finite essences,\nwhich are its real and extrinsic similitudes, and which are\nextrinsecated by an act of the divine will. The ideal or archetype of\ncreation is evidently as necessary, as eternal, as unchangeable, as\nGod himself. God cannot create except according to this archetype, and\nin creating must necessarily copy himself, to give extrinsic existence\nto something which is a concrete expression of the divine ideal in his\nown intelligence. This ideal which creation copies being, therefore,\neternal in the divine intelligence, and the interior activity of the\ndivine intelligence, or its interior ideal life, being inexplicable\nexcept in the relation of the three persons in God, creation is\nlikewise inexplicable, except in relation to the distinct persons of\nthe Trinity.\n\nThe Son, or Word, proceeds from the contemplation of his own divine\nessence by the Father, who thus reproduces the perfect and coequal\nimage of himself. In this act of contemplation, the knowledge of the\narchetype of creation, or of the creability of essences resembling the\ndivine essence, is necessarily included. The expressed ideal or\narchetype of all possible existences is therefore in the Word, as the\npersonal image of the Father, and he contains in himself, in an\neminent and equivalent manner, infinite similitudes or images capable\nof being reduced to act, and made to reflect himself in a countless\nvariety of ways. The Son thus communicates with the Father in creative\nomnipotence. The spiration of the Holy Spirit, from the Father and the\nSon, consummating the act of contemplation by which the Son is\ngenerated in love, and thus completing the interior, intelligent, or\nspiritual life of God within himself, is perfectly correlated to the\neternal generation of the Son. The complete essence of God is\ncommunicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, and with it\ncreative omnipotence as necessarily included in it. The object of\nvolition in God is identical with the object of intelligence. The\nessence of God as being the archetype of a possible creation, {3} that\nis, the ideal of creation, or the idea which creation copies, being\nincluded in the term of the divine intelligence, or in the Word, is\nalso included in the term of the divine love, or the Holy Spirit. The\nideal of creation is therefore included in the object of the eternal,\nintelligent, living contemplation in which the three persons of the\nblessed Trinity are united. The power of illimitable creation\naccording to the divine archetype is a necessary and eternal predicate\nof his divine being, which he contemplates with complacency. The idea\nof creation is therefore as eternal as God; it is coeval with him, and\nthe object of the ineffable communications of the divine persons with\neach other from eternity. God has always been pleased with this idea,\nas the artist delights himself in the ideal of beauty, to which he\nfeels himself capable of giving outward form and expression in\nsculpture, painting, or architecture.\n\nThe decree of God to reduce this possibility of creation to act, or\nthe creative purpose, is likewise eternal; since all divine acts are\nin eternity, and there is no process of deliberation or progress from\nequilibrium to determination possible in the unchangeable God. God is\n_actus purissimus_, most pure act, and there is in him nothing\npotential or reducible to act which is not in act from eternity; since\nin him there is no past or future, and no succession, but _tota, simul\nac perfecta possessio vitae interminabilss_, a complete, simultaneous,\nand perfect possession of interminable life.\n\nThe necessity of his own self-existent being does not determine him to\nthe creative act, but merely to the exercise of supreme omnipotence in\nchoosing freely between the contemplation of creation in its ideal\narchetype alone, and of creation in its ideal archetype determined to\noutward actual expression. The inward life of God is necessary, and\nthe interior act of beatific contemplation is of the essence of the\ndivine being. Nothing beyond this, or outside of the interior essence\nof God, can be necessary, and the creation cannot therefore be\nnecessary, or it would be included in the idea of God, and be\nidentical with the essence of God. God does not create, therefore, by\nnecessity of nature, but by voluntary choice. It is the only exercise\nof voluntary choice possible to him. It is a choice, however, which\nthough free is determined from eternity. He might have eternally\nchosen the contrary, that is, to leave the possible creation\nunactualized in its ideal archetype. He did eternally choose, however,\nto create.\n\nThe learned expositor of St. Thomas, F. Billuart, says that the\npurpose to create is communicated by the Father to the Word,\nconcomitantly with the intelligence of the divine essence by which he\nis generated. [Footnote 1] Creation is no afterthought, no capricious\nor sportive play of omnipotence, like the _jeu d'esprit_ which a poet\nthrows off from a sudden impulse of fancy. The creative purpose has\nbeen the theme of the mysterious communications of the three persons\nof the blessed Trinity, from all eternity. In God, purpose and act,\nconsultation and decree, are one. The decree of creation and the\ncreative act are identical. The creative act, therefore, _a parte\nDei_, is eternal. It is an illusion of the imagination to conceive of\ntime as having existed before creation. \"In the beginning, God created\nthe heavens and the earth.\" That beginning was the first moment of\ntime, which St. Thomas says God created when he created the universe.\nTime is a mere relation of finite entities to each other and to\ninfinite being, arising from their limitation. The procession of\ncreated existences is necessarily in time, and could not have begun\n_ab aeterno_ without a series actually infinite, which is impossible.\nNevertheless, the first instant of created time had no created time\nbehind it, and no series of instants behind it, intervening between it\nand eternity, but touched immediately on eternity.\n\n  [Footnote 1: Tract. De Trin. Diss. V. Art III. ]\n\n{4}\n\nThe procession of created existences from God is a finite similitude\nof the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father. Creation\nis an expression of that archetype in finite form which is expressed\nin the infinite image of the Word. He is \"the splendor of the glory,\nand the express image of the substance\"  [Footnote 2] of the Father;\nand creation is a reflection of this splendor, a reduplication in\nminiature of this image. It is an act of the same infinite\nintelligence by which the infinite Word is generated. For although\nfinite itself, it is the similitude of an infinite archetype which\nonly infinite intelligence can possess within itself. It is also an\nact of the same infinite love whose spiration is the Holy Spirit. The\nsanctity of the divine nature consists in the perfect conformity of\nintelligence and volition. Volition is love, a complacency in good.\nLove must therefore concur with intelligence in every divine act, that\nit may be holy. The Holy Spirit, or impersonated love, must concur\nwith the Father and the Son, as principle and medium, to consummate or\nbring to its final end the creative act. Creation is therefore\nessentially an act of love; proceeding from intelligence and ordained\nfor beatitude; proceeding from God as first cause, and returning to\nhim as final cause. [Footnote 3]\n\n  [Footnote 2:  Heb. i. 3.]\n\n  [Footnote 3:  Final cause is the same as ultimate end. It is the\n  cause or reason of the determination of God to create.]\n\nThe final cause of creation must be God, just as necessarily as its\nfirst cause must be God. The creative decree being eternal, all that\nconstitutes its perfection, including its end and consummation, must\nbe eternal, and must therefore be in God. He is the principle and\nconsummation of his own act _ad intra_, and of his act _ad extra_,\nwhich imitates it perfectly. God creates, because he freely chooses to\nplease himself by conferring the good of existence through the\ncreative act on subjects distinct from himself. The adequate object of\nthis volition of God is himself as the author of created good, or the\nterm of the relation which created existences have to him as their\ncreator. The possession of good by the creature is inseparable in the\nvolition of God from the complacency which he has in the exercise of\nthe power of bestowing good by creation. Although he is necessarily\nhis own final end in creating, yet this does not prevent creation from\nbeing an act of pure and free love, but on the contrary makes it to be\nso; because it is as infinite love that God is the end of his creative\nact. A charitable man, who confers good upon another, is moved by a\nprinciple of love in himself, which causes him to take delight in the\nhappiness of his fellow-creatures. This movement originates in\nhimself, and returns back to himself, being consummated in the pure\nhappiness which the exercise of love produces. Yet the possession of\ngood by another is the real object which elicits the act of love, and\nit is therefore pure, disinterested charity. Love makes the good as\ngiven, and the good as received, one identical object, and unites the\ngiver and receiver in one good. Selfishness is inordinate self-love,\nor a love of others merely so far as they serve as instruments of our\nown pleasure and advantage, and not as themselves subjects of\nhappiness. But the just love of self and of others is identical in\nprinciple, proceeding from the _amor entis_, or love of being. The\nbenignant father, prelate, or sovereign, the generous benefactor of\nhis fellow-men, is not less disinterested in his acts on account of\nthe pure happiness which comes back to himself, filling his heart with\nthe purest happiness of which it is capable. Thus in God; his\ncomplacency in his creative act, or sovereign pleasure in creating, is\nthe purest and most perfect love to the creature. That which he\ndelights in as creator is the bestowal of existence, which\nparticipates in the infinite good of his own being.\n\n{5}\n\nThe mode and degree in which existences participate in this infinite\ngood which God distributes from the plenitude of his own being,\nspecificates and determines their relation to him as final cause, and\nconstitutes the ultimate term to which their creation is directed.\nThis ultimate term or final end of creation as a whole, includes the\nends for which each part taken singly is intended, and the common end\nto which these minor and less principal ends are all subordinated in\nthe universal creative design. The end of a particular portion of the\ncreation, taken singly, is attained, when it makes the final and\ncomplete explication of that similitude to the divine perfections\nwhich constitutes it in its own particular grade of existence. The end\nof the universe of existences is attained, when they collectively\nreach the maximum of excellence which God proposed to himself in\ncreating. That is, when the similitude of the perfections of God is\nexpressed in the universe in that variety of distinct grades, and\nraised to that altitude in the series of possible states of existence,\nwhich God prefixed in the beginning as the ultimate term of the\ncreative act. Whatever the maximum of created good may be, whatever\nmay be the predetermined limits of the universe of existence, whatever\nmay be the highest point of elevation to which it is destined, it is\nevident that the accomplishment of the creative act brings the\ncreation back to God as final cause. It has its final end in God,\nwherever that finality may have been fixed by the eternal will of God.\nThis is very plain and obvious. But it leads into one of the most\nabstruse and, at the same time, one of the most unavoidable questions\nof philosophy, that which relates to the end of creation\nmetaphysically final. What is the end of creation, or the relation of\nthe universe of created existences to the final cause, which is\nmetaphysically final? How far ought the actual end of created\nexistences to coincide, or does it really coincide with the end\nmetaphysically final?\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nTHE END OF CREATION METAPHYSICALLY FINAL--THE ASCENDING SERIES OF\nGRADES IN EXISTENCE--THE SUMMIT OF THIS SERIES IS A NATURE\nHYPOSTATICALLY UNITED TO THE DIVINE NATURE OF THE WORD--THE\nINCARNATION, THE CREATIVE ACT CARRIED TO THE APEX OF POSSIBILITY--THE\nSUPERNATURAL END TO WHICH THE UNIVERSE IS DESTINED COMPLETED IN THE\nINCARNATION.\n\nBy the end of creation metaphysically final, is meant a relation of\nthe universe to God as final cause which is final in the divine idea,\nor the one which God beholds in his own infinite intelligence as the\nultimatum to which his omnipotence can carry the creative act. It is a\nrelation which brings the creature to the closest union and similitude\nto the creator in the good of being which the nature of the infinite\nand of the finite will admit.\n\nWe have already established the doctrine that God is by nature free to\ncreate or not to create, and eternally determines himself to creation\nby his own sovereign will to confer the pure boon of existence. We\nhave also established, that since God determines himself from eternity\nto create, he necessarily creates in accordance with his own nature or\nessence, in accordance with the eternal archetype and idea reflected\nin the person of the Word; and for his own glory, or for an end in\nhimself to which the creature is related, and which he must attain if\nhe accomplishes his destiny. But we must inquire further, whether in\ndetermining himself to create according to the archetype contained in\nhis own essence, he necessarily carries out this idea to the most\nperfect and complete actualization in the real universe? That is, does\nhe necessarily create for an end metaphysically final, and carry the\ncreative act to its apex, or the summit of possibility? Or is there\nany degree of existence or {6} grade of resemblance and relation to\nGod as archetype which must be supposed in order to conceive of an end\naccomplished by creation which is worthy of the divine wisdom and\ngoodness? Or, on the contrary, is it just as free to God to determine\nany limit, however low, as the term of creation, as it is to abstain\nfrom creating? For instance, can we suppose it consistent with the\ndivine wisdom to create only a grain of sand? On the one hand, it may\nbe said that creation being a free act, the creation of a grain of\nsand does not take away the liberty of the divine will to abstain from\ncreating anything else. On the other hand, God, as being in his very\nessence the infinite wisdom, must have an adequate end in view, even\nin creating a grain of sand. It may be said that the creation of a\ngrain of sand is truly an infinite act, and that a grain of sand\nrepresents the omnipotence of God as truly as the universe itself.\nYet, it is difficult to see any reason why Almighty God should make\nsuch a representation merely for his own contemplation. For the same\nreason, it is equally difficult to suppose any adequate motive for the\ncreation of a merely material universe, however extensive. The wisdom\nand power of God are manifested, but manifested to himself alone. The\nvery end of such a manifestation appears to be to manifest the\nattributes of God to intelligent minds capable of apprehending it.\nSuppose the material universe filled with sentient creatures, and,\nalthough its end is thus partially fulfilled, by the enjoyment which\nthey are capable of receiving from it, its adaptation to the\nmanifestation of the divine attributes to intelligence is still\napparently without an object. The sentient creation itself manifests\nthe wisdom and goodness of God in such a way that it seems to require\nan intelligent nature to apprehend it, in order that God may be\nglorified in his works, and that the love which is the essential\nconsummating principle of the creative act may be reflected back from\nthe creation to the creator, and thus furnish an adequate term of the\ndivine complacency. This complacency of God in himself as creator, as\nwe have seen, is complacency in the communication of good, or pure,\ndisinterested love delighting in the distribution of its own infinite\nplenitude. The material creation can only be the recipient of this\nlove _in transitu_ or as the instrument and means of conveying it to a\nsubject capable of apprehending it. The sentient creation can only be\nthe recipient of it as its most imperfect term, and as an end most\ninadequate to the means employed. The wisdom and goodness of God in\nthe creative act cannot therefore be made intelligible to us, except\nas we consider it as including the creation of intelligent natures,\ncapable of sharing in the intelligent life of God. As soon as the mind\nmakes this point, it is able to perceive an adequate motive for the\ncreation, for it apprehends a good in the finite order resembling the\ninfinite good which is necessary and uncreated. It is approaching to a\nfinality, for it apprehends that the rational nature is that nature in\nwhich the finality must be situated, or in which the ultimate relation\nof the universe to the final cause must exist. In other words, it\napprehends that God has created a _universe_, including all generic\ngrades of existence explicated into a vast extent and variety of\nsubordinate genera and species multiplied in a countless number of\nindividuals, all subordinate to a common order, and culminating in\nintelligent life. It apprehends the correspondence of the actual\ncreation to its ideal archetype, or the realization in act of the\nhighest possible nature which omnipotence can create after the\nresemblance of his own essence impersonated in the Word, and of every\ninferior nature necessary to the constitution of a _universe_, or a\nworld of composite order and harmony comprising all the essential\nforms of existence whose infinite equivalent is in the divine idea.\n\n{7}\n\nIt is evidently befitting the wisdom and grandeur of Almighty God,\nthat the created universe should represent to created intelligence an\nadequate and universal similitude of his being and perfections; that\nits vast extent and variety, the multiplicity of distinct existences\nwhich it contains, its complicated relations and harmonies, the\nsublimity and beauty of its forms, the superabundance of its sentient\nlife and enjoyment, the excellence and perfection of its intelligent\ncreatures, should be adapted to overwhelm the mind with admiration of\nthe might and majesty, the wisdom and glory, the goodness and love of\nthe Creator; that, as far as possible, the procession of the divine\npersons within the essence of God should be copied in the procession\nof created existences; that the ineffable object of the divine\ncontemplation, or the Word going forth from the infinite intelligence\nof the Father and returning to him in the Holy Spirit, should be\nrepresented in created similitudes by the communication of being,\nlife, and intelligence, in every possible grade, and the completion of\nthese in the most sublime manner of union to God of which finite\nnature is capable. This consummation of the creative act is worthy of\nthe wisdom of God; for it is the most perfect act of the divine\nintelligence _ad extra_, or extrinsic to the _actus purissimus_ by\nwhich the Word is generated in the unity of his eternal being, which\nis possible. It is worthy of the goodness of God; for it is the most\nperfect act of love _ad extra_, or extrinsic to the _actus purissimus_\nof the spiration of the Holy Spirit, consummating the interior life of\nGod in eternal, self-sufficing beatitude, which omnipotence can\nproduce.\n\nLet us now analyse the composite order of the universe, and examine\nits component parts singly, in reference to the final end to which\nthis order is determined. We will then proceed to examine more closely\nthe mode by which the end of the universe is attained in the rational\nnature, and the relation of this rational nature to the end\nmetaphysically final.\n\nTheologians distinguish in the divine nature _esse, vivere_, and\n_intelligere_, or being, life, and intelligence, as constituting the\narchetype of the inanimate, animated, and rational orders of creation\nrespectively.\n\nThe inanimate order, composed of the aggregate of material substances,\nimitates the divine _esse_, considered as concrete and real imply;\nprescinding the idea of vital movement. It imitates the divine being\nin the lowest and most imperfect manner. The good that is in it can\nonly be apprehended and made to contribute to the happiness of\nconscious existence when a higher order of existence is created. God\nloves it only as an artist loves an aqueduct, a building, or a statue,\nas the medium of contributing to the well-being or pleasure of his\ncreatures. Its hidden essence is impervious to our intelligence. The\nutmost that we can distinctly conceive of its nature is that it is a\n_vis activa_, an active force, producing sensible effects or\nphenomena. This appears to be the opinion which is more common and\ngaining ground both among physical and metaphysical philosophers.\n[Footnote 4] By active force is meant a simple, indivisible substance,\nwhich exists in perpetual activity. It is material substance, because\nits activity is blind, unconscious, and wholly mechanical, producing\nby physical necessity sensible effects, such as extension, resistance,\netc. Though not manifest to intelligence in its hidden nature and\noperation, it is apprehensible by the intelligence through the effects\nwhich it operates, as something intelligible. Its sensible {8}\nphenomena are not illusions, or mere subjective forms of the\nsensibility, but are objectively real. Nevertheless, our conception of\nthem must be corrected and sublimated by pure reason, in order to\ncorrespond to the reality or substance which stands under them. Our\nimaginary conceptions [Footnote 5] represent only the complex of\nphenomena presented to the senses. They represent matter as composite,\nbecause it is only through composition, or the interaction of distinct\nmaterial substances upon each other, that the effects and phenomena\nare produced which the senses present to the imagination. The\nsubstance, or active force which stands under them, is concluded by a\njudgment of the reason. Reason cannot arrest itself at the composite\nas something ultimate. The common, crude conception of extended bulk\nas the ultimate material reality, is like the child's conception of\nthe surface of the earth as the floor of the universe having nothing\nbelow it, and of the sky as its roof; or like the Indian conception of\nan elephant supporting the world, who stands himself on the back of a\ntortoise, who is on the absolute mud lying at the bottom of all\nthings. It is the essential operation of reason to penetrate to the\n_altissima causa_, or deepest cause of things, and not to stop at\nanything as its term which implies something else as the reason or\nprinciple of its existence. It cannot therefore stop at anything short\nof the _altissima causa_, in the order of material second causes, any\nmore than it can stop short of the cause of all causes, or the\nabsolute first cause. That which is ultimate in the composite must be\nsimple and indivisible in itself, and divided from everything else, or\nit cannot be an original and primary component. For, however far the\nanalysis of a composite may be carried, it may be carried further,\nunless it has been analysed to its simple constituent parts which are\nnot themselves composite, and therefore simple. It is of no avail to\ntake refuge in the notion of the infinite divisibility of matter. For,\napart from the absurdity of the infinite series contained in this\nnotion, one of these infinitesimal entities could certainly be divided\nfrom all others by the power of God and made intelligible to the human\nunderstanding. And the very question under discussion is, What is the\nintelligible essence of this ultimate entity?\n\n  [Footnote 4: The philosophical works of Leibnitz may be consulted\n  for a thorough exposition of this doctrine. Also the Philosophical\n  Manuals of F. Rothenflue, S.J., and the Abb\u00e9 Branchereau of the\n  Society of St. Sulpice. The philosophical articles of Dr. Brownson\n  in his Review contain some incidental arguments of great value on\n  the same topic. P. Dalgairns of the London Oratory, also treats,\n  with the ability and clearness which characterize all his writings,\n  of this subject, at considerable length, in his work on the Holy\n  Communion.]\n\n  [Footnote 5: By \"imaginary conceptions\" is not meant fanciful,\n  unreal conceptions, but conceptions of the imaginative as and\n  intellectual facility which reflects the real.]\n\nAnother proof that material substance is something intelligible and\nnot something sensible, is, that it has a relation to spiritual\nsubstance, and therefore something cognate to spirit in its essence.\nThe Abb\u00e9 Branchereau defines relation: \"Proprietatem qua duo aut plura\nentia ita se habeat ad invicem, ut unius conceptus conceptum alterius\nincludat aut supponat.\" \"A property by which two or more entities are\nso constituted in reference to one another, that the conception of one\nincludes or suppose the conception of the other.\"  [Footnote 6]\n\n  [Footnote 6: Praelect. Philos. De Relat. Entis. Num. 108, 8.]\n\nThe conception of spirit must contain the equivalent of the conception\nof matter, and the conception of matter must contain something the\nequivalent of which is contained in spirit. Else, they must be related\nas total opposites, which leads to the absurd conclusion that in the\nessence of God, which is the equivalent of all finite essences, total\nopposites and contradictions are contained. The same is affirmed by F.\nBilluart after the scholastic principles of the Thomists. \"Supremum\nautem naturae inferioris attingitur a natura superiori.\" \"The summit\nof the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature.\"   [Footnote\n7] Everything copies the essence of God and exists by its\nparticipation in his being. There is no reason therefore for any other\ndistinction in creatures except the distinction of gradation in a\nseries, or the distinction of a more or less intense grade of\nparticipation in being. God cannot create anything totally {9}\ndissimilar to himself, because the sole archetype imitable in the\ncreative act, whose similitude is externised in creation, is himself.\nAll things therefore being similar to his essence are similar to the\nessence of one another, each to each, each grade in the ascending\nseries containing the equivalent of all below it.\n\n  [Footnote 7: De Augelis. Diss. II. Art. I.]\n\nThe material creation represents the real being of God, as\ndistinguishable in thought from his life and intelligence, in an\nexpress and distinct manner. The being of God is the archetype of the\nmaterial creation, and contains a reason why the material order was\nnecessary to perfect the universe. All geometrical principles are\nintuitively seen by the reason to be eternal truths. As eternal and\nnecessary they are included in the object of the divine contemplation.\nThe complete and adequate object of the divine contemplation is the\ndivine essence. It is therefore in his own essence that God sees these\nnecessary geometrical truths, not as we see them, but as identical\nwith the truth of his own being in some way above our human\nunderstanding. These eternal geometrical principles are the principles\nwhich lie at the basis of the structure of the material universe,\nwhich therefore represents something in the divine essence not\nimmediately and distinctly represented by the spiritual world.\n\nWithout pretending to define precisely what the material universe\nrepresents as equivalently and eminently contained in the divine\nessence, we are only uttering a truism when we affirm that what man in\nhis present state principally apprehends through it, is the idea of\nthe immensity of the divine being. The material universe, which has a\n_quasi_ infinitude to our feeble and limited imagination, is an image\nof God as possessing boundless infinitude, and including an\nimmeasurable ocean of perfections. It is only when the mind becomes so\noverwhelmed with the magnitude of the creation as to forget its\nrelation to the creator, that its judgment is erroneous. And the error\nof judgment does not consist in appreciating the material universe too\nhighly, but in appreciating it too little, that is, in not\nappreciating its highest relation to the spiritual order, with which\nit is cognate in its essence. The physical, visible world is not to be\ndespised. It is no illusion, no temporary phase of reality, no\nperishable substance, but real, indestructible, and of endless\nduration. Its essence and its relation to the final cause are\nincomprehensible. Its essence is, however, so far intelligible that we\ncan understand it to be a real entity, bearing a similitude to the\ndivine nature, endued with active force as a physical second cause,\nthrough which wonderful phenomena are produced in which the divine\nperfections are manifested. Its end is also intelligible as\nsubordinated to the higher grades of existence and to the grand\ncomposite order of the universe.\n\nThe next grade of existence is that which represents the _vivere_ of\nthe divine essence, or presents an animated and living similitude of\nthe life of God. The distinct type of this grade is in the animal\nworld, but it is connected with the inanimate creation by an\nintermediate link, namely, that which is constituted by the world of\nvegetative life. This world of vegetative life represents the\nprinciple of life in an inchoate form, and ministers to the higher\nlife of sentient existences, by furnishing them with the sustenance\nand food of their physical life, and contributing to their enjoyment\nby the beauty of its forms.\n\nThus far, the creation is merely good as means to an end, or as the\nsubstratum of that order of existence which is capable of apprehending\nand enjoying good. In the sentient creation, existence becomes a good\nin itself, or a good capable of terminating the divine will. The\ncountless multitudes of sentient creatures are created that they may\nenjoy life, and attain their particular end in this enjoyment.\nNevertheless this {10} particular end is a minor and less principal\nend in reference to the general end of the created universe. To this\nmore general end the sentient order contributes, by increasing the\nbeauty and perfection of the whole, and ministering to the happiness\nof the higher, intelligent order.\n\nThis third and highest grade of existence represents the divine\n_intelligere_. It includes all rational natures, or intelligent\nspirits, created after the similitude of that in the divine essence\nwhich is the highest archetype imitable in finite existences.\nAccording to the regular series of gradation, man comes next in order\nabove the animal world, and should be first considered. There is a\nparticular reason, however, which will appear hereafter, for\nconsidering the angels first.\n\nThe angels represent most perfectly the order of pure intelligence as\ndistinct from the irrational creation. By their nature they are at the\nsummit of existence, and participate in the most immediate and\nelevated mode which can be connatural to any created essence, in the\ndivine perfections. The perfection of the universe requires that it\nshould contain a grade of existence imitating that which is highest in\nthe essence of God so far as it is an archetype of a possible\ncreation. There is nothing conceivable in the divine essence higher\nthan its intelligence or pure spirituality. The divine life is\nconsummated in the most pure act of intelligent spirit, which is the\nprocession of the Word and Holy Spirit from the Father. This divine\nprocession within the divine essence being the archetype of the\nprocession of created existences without it, the latter ought to\nimitate the former by producing that which represents the intelligent\nact of God as closely as possible. This intelligent act of God being\nconsummated in love, or complacency in that infinite good which is the\nobject of intelligence, creation, which imitates and represents it,\nought to contain existences which are the recipients of love and are\ncapable of its exercise in the highest possible manner which can be\nessential to a created nature. The creative act would therefore be\nmost imperfect and incomplete if it stopped short with the material or\neven the sentient creation. Supposing that God determines to carry out\nhis creative act by creating a universe or a world in which the\npotential is actualized in a universal manner by representing the\n_esse, vivere_, and _intelligere_ of the divine essence in every\ngeneric mode, this universe must evidently contain intelligent\nspirits. Intelligent spirit alone can apprehend the image of God in\ncreation, apprehend itself as made in the image of God, apprehend the\ninfinite attributes of God by the intuition of reason, and become\nfully conscious of the good of existence, capable of enjoying it, and\nof returning to the creator an act of love, worship, and\nglorification, for his great boon of goodness conferred in creation.\nCreation is an overflow of the plenitude of good in the divine being\nproceeding from the complacency of God in the communication of this\ngood. This communication can be made in a manner which appears to our\nreason in any way adequate to terminate the divine complacency, only\nby the communication of intelligence.\n\nThe type of intelligent nature is most perfectly actualized in the\nangels, whose essence and operation are purely spiritual, so far as\ncreated, finite nature and operation can be purely spiritual. Whatever\nis intelligible or conceivable of finite, intellectual activity as\nconnatural, or intrinsically included in the essence of created\nspirit, is to be attributed to them.\n\nThe notion of any composition of nature in the angels, or hypostatic\nunion of their pure, spiritual substance with another material\nsubstance distinct from it, is wholly gratuitous. It destroys the\ndistinctive type of the angelic nature and the specific difference\nbetween it and human nature. It has no foundation in reason except the\nbaseless supposition that a distinct {11} corporeal organization is\nnecessary to the exercise of created intelligence. Nor has it any\nsolid support from tradition or extrinsic authority.\n\nSome of the fathers are cited as maintaining it. Their language is,\nhowever, for the most part explained by the best theologians as\nindicating not the union of the angelic spirit to a distinct subtle\ncorporeity, but the existence of something analogous to matter in the\nangelic spirit itself. The angels are called corporeal existences,\nbecause their essence is extrinsic to the divine essence, and\nextrinsecation attains its extreme limit in matter; also because their\npotentiality is not completely reduced to act, and their operation is\nlimited by time and space. This appears to be also the notion\nadvocated by Leibnitz, and the exposition of the nature of material\nsubstance given above, in accordance with his philosophy, removes all\ndifficulty from the subject.\n\nThe conception of the angelic essence as completely free from all\ncomposition with a distinct material substance, is also at least more\nevidently in harmony with the decree _Firmiter_ of the Fourth Council\nof Lateran, than any other. \"Firmiter credimus et simpliciter\nconfitemur, quod unus est solus verus Deus aeternus. . . . .  qui sua\nomnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis, utramque de nihilo\ncondidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et\nmundanam; ac deinde humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore\nconstitutam.\"\n\n\"We firmly believe and confess with simplicity, that there is one only\ntrue eternal God . . . . who by his own almighty power simultaneously\nfrom the beginning of time made out of nothing both parts of the\ncreation, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelical and\nthe mundane: and afterwards the human creature, as it were of a nature\nin common with both, constituted from spirit and body.\"\n\nNevertheless, by the principle of the Thomist philosophy above cited,\nthat the lowest point of any nature touches the highest of the nature\nbeneath it, there may be something even in the spiritual operation of\nthe angels cognate to material operation, and coming within the sphere\nof the sensible. We will venture to give a little sample of scholastic\ntheology on this head from Billuart.\n\n\"It may be said with reason that the angels operate two things in the\ncelestial empyrean. The first is the illumination by which the\nintrinsic splendor of the empyrean is perfected, according to St.\nThomas and various testimonies of Holy Scripture in which certain\nplaces are said to have been sensibly illuminated by the angels. For\nalthough an angel cannot immediately produce alterative qualities, as\nheat or cold, he can produce light, because light is a celestial\nquality and the highest of corporeal qualities, and the summit of the\ninferior nature is touched by the superior nature.\n\n\"In the second place, the angels operate on the empyrean heaven, so\nthat it may more perfectly and efficaciously communicate a suitable\nperpetuity and stability to all inferior things. For as the supreme\nangels who are permanently stationed there have an influence over the\nintermediate and lowest angels who are sent forth, although they\nthemselves are not sent forth, so the empyrean heaven, although it is\nitself motionless, communicates to those things which are in motion\nthe requisite stability and permanence in their being. And that this\nmay be done more efficaciously and permanently the angels aid by their\noperation in it. For, the whole universe is one in unity of order; and\nthis unity of order consists in that by a certain arrangement\ncorporeal things are regulated by those which are spiritual, and\ninferior bodies by the superior; therefore, as this order demands that\nthe empyrean spheres influence the inferior ones, it demands also that\nthe angels influence the empyrean sphere.\"   [Footnote 8]\n\n  [Footnote 8: De Angelis. Diss. IL Art. I.]\n\n{12}\n\nWhatever may be thought of this as philosophy, it is certainly\nbrilliantly poetical, as is the whole treatise of the learned\nDominican from which it is extracted. The physical theory of the\nuniverse maintained by the scholastics was a magnificent conception,\nalthough it has been supplanted by a sounder scientific hypothesis.\nThere appears to be no reason, however, for rejecting the notion of\nangelic influence over the movement of the universe. The modern\nhypothesis of a central point of revolution for the universe being\nsubstituted for the ancient one of the empyrean, the entire scholastic\ntheory of the influence of the angels upon the exterior order of the\nuniverse may remain untouched in its intrinsic probability.\n\nThe consideration of man has been reserved, because, although he is\ninferior to the angels in intelligence, he sums up in himself the\nthree grades of existence, and therefore the consideration of the\nthree as distinct ought to precede the consideration of their\ncomposition in the complex human nature. The human nature includes in\nitself the material, vegetative, animal, and intelligent natures,\nwhich represent respectively the divine _esse, vivere_, and\n_intelligere_. For this reason man is called a microcosm or universe\nin miniature. In certain special perfections of the material,\nsentient, and intelligent natures, he is inferior to each; but the\ncombination of all gives him a peculiar excellence and completeness,\nand qualifies him to stand in the most immediate relation to the final\ncause of the universe, or to the consummation of its end.\n\nWhat this end is, we must now more closely examine. It is plain at\nfirst sight that this end must be attained by creation through its\nintelligent portion, or through the angelic and human natures. As God\nis final cause as well as first cause; of necessity, these intelligent\nnatures in themselves, and all inferior natures through them, must, in\nsome way, terminate on God as their ultimate end. God is final cause\nas the supreme good participated in and attained to by the creation,\nthrough the overflow of the plenitude of the divine being. The divine\ncomplacency in this voluntary overflow of the fount of being and good\nwas the ultimate and determining motive to the creative act. The good\nof being thus given is a similitude of the divine _esse, vivere,_ and\n_intelligere_. As it is real, or existence in act, it must copy, as\nfar as its grade of existence permits, the most pure act of God in the\nblessed Trinity. That is, the creature must reflect from its own\nessence an image of the divine essence, or a created similitude of the\nuncreated Word, in which its existence is completed and its act\nconsummated. In the material world this is a mere dead image, like the\nrepresentation of a living form made by a statue or picture. In the\nsentient world, so far as we can understand this most inscrutable and\nbaffling of all parts of the creation, there is an apprehension by the\nsensitive soul of a kind of shadow of the intelligible object in\nsensible forms, and the imperfect resemblance of the life and felicity\nof an intelligent nature which corresponds to this imperfect\napprehension. In the intelligent creature, its spiritual essence, by\nvirtue of the rationality in which it is created, and is its\nconstitutive principle, reflects an image of the divine Word in the\ncontemplation of which its intelligent life is completed. So far as\nintelligent nature is merely potential, it is potential to this act of\nintelligent life; and when its potentiality is reduced to act, so as\nto produce the nearest similitude to the divine intelligence in act,\nwhich God has determined to create, intelligent nature, and in it all\nnature, has attained its finality. Intelligent nature has attained the\nhighest good attainable; and, the different intelligent species and\nindividuals existing together in due order and harmony in the\nparticipation of the common good, with all inferior grades of\nexistence subordinated to them, the universe has unity and is\ndetermined to a common final end.\n\n{13}\n\nThus, creation returns back to the principle from which it proceeded\nby the consummation of the creative act. As the Father is united to\nthe Word in the Holy Spirit, or in love and complacency, so the\ncreation is united to God by the possession of good and the\ncomplacency of God in this good. It is actualized in the intelligent\nnature capable of knowing and loving God, and therefore having a\nsimilitude to the Son or Word. When it is ascertained what the highest\nunion to the Father, or that approaching nearest to the union of the\nSon to him of which created nature is capable, is, it will be\nascertained what is the end metaphysically final to which created\nnature can attain, if God wills to bring it to the summit of\npossibility. When it is ascertained what this summit of possibility\nis, it is ascertained what the end of creation is which is\nmetaphysically final; and when it is ascertained how far toward this\nsummit God has actually determined to elevate his creation, it is\nascertained what is the end of creation actually final, and how far it\ncoincides with the end metaphysically final.\n\nThis knowledge cannot be deduced from any first principle given to\nreason. It is communicated by revelation, and by this revelation we\nlearn that God has determined to bring the creation to the end\nmetaphysically final in the incarnation of the Word.\n\nThe revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation is concomitant with\nthe revelation of the mystery of the Trinity; therefore, in the creed,\nthe same terms which propose the dogma that the Word is of God and is\nGod, propose the dogma that the Word is incarnate in human nature. The\nname given to the Second Person in the Trinity, in the creed, Jesus\nChrist, is the name which he assumed with his human nature. \"Et in\nunum Dominum nostrum, Jesum Christum Filium Dei unigenitum, Deum de\nDeo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum,\nconsubstantialem Patri, per quern omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos\nhomines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis, et incarnatus\nest etiam pro nobis de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus\nest.\"\n\n\"And in one Jesus Christ our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, God\nof God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made,\nconsubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for\nus men, and for our salvation, descended from heaven, and was\nincarnate also for us by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was\nmade man.\"\n\nThe mystery of the incarnation presents to us the idea, that the Word\nhas assumed human nature, not by assuming all the individuals of the\nrace, but by assuming humanity individuated in one perfect soul and\nbody into a union with his divine nature, in which it terminates upon\nhis divine person as the final complement of its existence, without\nany confusion of its distinct essence with the divine essence to which\nit is united. By this union, the Word is a theandric person, or one\ndivine person in two natures, divine and human, really distinct from\neach other in essence and existence, but with one common principle of\nimputability to which their attributes and operation are to be\nascribed. This is the union, called in theological language\nhypostatic, of the creature to the Creator, which is metaphysically\nfinal, or final to the divine intelligence and power; beyond which\nthere is no idea in God of a possible act _ad extra_, and which is\nnext in order to the procession of the divine persons _ad intra_.\nThrough this hypostatic union, created nature participates with the\nuncreated nature impersonated in the Son in the relation to the Father\nas principle, and the Holy Spirit as consummation, of intelligence and\nlove; that is, in the divine life and beatitude. The incarnation\nhaving been in the view and purpose of Almighty God from eternity,\n{14} as the ultimatum of his wisdom and omnipotence, is the apex of\nthe creative act, or the terminus at which the creative act reaches\nthe summit of possibility. In it the creation returns to God as final\ncause, from whom it proceeds as first cause, in a mode which is\nmetaphysically final. It is therefore certain that God, in his\neternal, creative purpose, determined the universe to an end\nmetaphysically final; and that this end is attained in the\nincarnation, or the union of created with uncreated nature in the\nperson of the Word.\n\n--------\n\nFrom The Dublin University Magazine.\n\n\nMIGUEL DE CERVANTES Y SAAVEDRA.\n\n\nNotwithstanding the value of the precious metals extracted from the\nAmerican mines, the Spanish exchequer had not been in a satisfactory\ncondition for a long time. War had scourged the kingdom since the\nconquest by the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella had indeed dislodged\nthem and their unlucky King Boabdil from their little paradise in\nGranada and Andalu\u00e7ia, about a century before the poor Don made his\nfirst sally; but it was at a dread sacrifice of money and men's lives.\nCharles V. was engaged in ruinous wars during the greater part of his\nreign, and Philip II., his successor (unwillingly indeed), was put to\ntrouble and expense while uniting with other Christian powers to\nprevent the ferocious sultan from bringing all Europe under the\nMussulman yoke. The victory of Lepanto, gained by his half-brother,\nDon John, somewhat crippled the Sublime Porte and the terrible\nrenegade Uchali, but did not prevent the Algerine and other African\npirates from doing infinite mischief to all the Christian states\nbordering the Mediterranean. Ceaselessly they intercepted their\nmerchant vessels, made booty of the freight and slaves of the crew,\nand obliged all in the rank of merchants or gentlemen to find heavy\nransoms. Now what should have prevented Spain and France and the\nItalian kingdoms from collecting a large fleet and army at any one\ntime, and battering down the strongholds of these ruthless plunderers,\nand effectually putting it out of their power to annoy their Christian\nneighbors? Philip was often urged to co-operate in such a good work,\nbut he preferred to expend time and money, and his subjects' blood and\nproperty, on other projects.\n\nAn extract from the work mentioned below,  [Footnote 9] in reference\nto the state of Spain toward the latter years of Philip II., is well\nworth transcribing. The author is speaking of Cervantes in prison,\nsome time between 1598 and 1603:\n\n  [Footnote 9: Michel de Cervantes, sa Vie, son Temps, son OEuvre\n  Politique et Litt\u00e9raire. Par \u00c9mile Chasles. Paris: Didier et Cie.]\n\n  \"He distinctly perceived, through the splendor and apparent unity of\n  the Spanish monarchy, a muttering and stormy confusion, a thousand\n  strange and opposed groupings;--politicians who in fact were mere\n  favorites, austere gentlemen mixed with _galant_ writers,--grave\n  inquisitors condemning errant Bohemians, applying a barbarous law to\n  barbarous hordes, and cauterizing but not curing wounds. Through\n  this assemblage of contrasts he could see a wide separation between\n  the social classes. Two distinct groups existed united by any common\n  idea or sympathy, extra-social world of Gitanos (gipsies), rogues,\n  and mystics, whose lives were independent, and that of the alcaids\n  and corregidors.\n\n{15}\n\n  \"Between these two camps hovered a mixed population so frequently\n  treated of in Spanish letters,--the alguazil, the sacristan, the\n  deserter, the refugee, a hybrid people attached to the law or the\n  church, but affiliated to the _hampa_ (illegal bond of union) by\n  character, by nature, by origin, or by interest.\n\n  \"In a country where poverty was every day increasing, necessity\n  threw thousands every day on a career of adventure. It depopulated\n  Spain in exiling to the Indies her best soldiers. It flung away\n  innumerable renegades to the coast of Africa. It decimated that\n  nobility erewhile so valiant, so full of pride and patriotism.\n  Impoverished gentlemen soon formed a large class of honorable\n  paupers. They endured, with a stoicism purely Spanish, the\n  exigencies of honor and poverty, along with the necessity of living\n  and dying useless to their country.\"\n\nLet pity be awarded to the poor gentlemen who took his promenade\ntoothpick in hand, to impress on his world that he had dined.\nCervantes had no need to go beyond his family recollections for\nmaterials for this sketch:\n\n  \"Behold the hidalgo coming out of his house with unquiet eye. His\n  suspicious humor inclines him to believe that every one knows his\n  shoes are pieced, that perspiration has left marks on his hat, that\n  his cloak is threadbare, and that his stomach is empty. He has taken\n  a draught of water within closed doors, and just come forth\n  displaying his hypocritical toothpick,--dolorous and deceptive\n  exhibition, which has grown into a fashion.\"\n\nPolitical principles and social institutions\nprevalent during the long wars between\nthe Christians and the Moors were\nstill in vigor at the end of the sixteenth\ncentury, when the circumstances\nof the country had undergone a thorough\nchange.\n\n  \"During the the centuries when Spain was struggling against the\n  Arabs, the she condition of the nationality was the purity of blood\n  and the Christian faith. The Old Christian (Christiano Viejo), the\n  irreproachable Castilian alone, could be intrusted with the defense\n  of the soil or the government of the country. And now when the enemy\n  was expelled the usage remained. The alcaid (magistrate) did not\n  know the law, perhaps he could not read, but 'he had,' as he said,\n  'four inches of the fat of an Old Christian on his ribs, and that\n  was sufficient.'\"\n\nIn the interlude of the Election of the Alcaids of Daganzo, Cervantes\nspecifies the personal gifts sufficient to qualify for the post. An\nelector proposing Juan Verrouil, thus dwells on his good qualities:\n\n  \"At all events Juan Verrouil possesses the most delicate\n  discernment. The other day, taking a cup of wine with me, he\n  observed that it smacked of wood, of leather, and of iron. Well,\n  when we got to the bottom of the pitcher, what did we discover but a\n  key fastened by a strap of leather to a piece of wood!\n\n  \"_Secretary_.--Wonderful ability, rare genius. Such a man might rule\n  Alanis, Cazalla, ay even Esquivias.\"\n\nFrancis de Humillos is considered fit for the magistracy because of\nhis nearness in soling a shoe. Michael Jarret is voted worthy, as he\nshoots an arrow like any eagle. Peter the Frog knows every word of the\nballad of the \"Dog of Alva\" without missing one, but Humillos stands\nthe examination with rather more credit than the rest; he knows the\nfour prayers, and says them four or five times per week.\n\nThe number of wandering gipsies and brigands and thieves of all\ndescription was out of all rational proportion with the honest and\nrespectable population. These were united under the hampa, and it was\na matter of extreme difficulty to obtain information against any\ndelinquent from a brother of the order.\n\nLittle is said about the mercantile or manufacturing classes in books\nconnected with the time of Cervantes. Enough is told of the pride, and\nluxury, and generally perverted tastes of the great, and hints are\ngiven of the kind and considerate demeanor of the nobility residing on\ntheir estates to their dependents.\n\n{16}\n\nDON QUIXOTE'S PREDECESSORS.\n\nSpain is not the only country which for a time has set an extravagant\nestimate on some books or class of books. Even in our own days and in\nthose of the last generation, have not literary furors prevailed for\npicturesque banditti, and feudal castles, and caverns, and awful\nnoises in vast and dimly lighted bedchambers, for poetry beckoning its\nvictims to despair and suicide, for novels stamped with the silver\nfork of high life, and lastly, for those which enlarge on the\nphysiology of forbidden fruit? M. Chasles will pleasantly explain the\nliterary _penchants_ of the peninsula two hundred and sixty odd years\nsince:\n\n  \"We have seen the France of the seventeenth century enthusiastic for\n  the Astrea and the Clelia,  [Footnote 10] and the England of the\n  eighteenth assume shield and spear for Clarissa Harlowe,  [Footnote\n  11] but in 1598 and in Spain, the extraordinary popularity of the\n  Amadises resembled a brain fever at which no one dared laugh. One\n  day a certain nobleman coming home found his wife in tears. 'What is\n  the matter? What bad news have you heard?' 'My dear, Amadis is\n  dead.' They could not suffer the writers to put their heroes to\n  death. The infant Don Alonzo personally interceded with the author\n  of the Portuguese Amadis to rewrite the chapter in which the Signora\n  Briolana was sacrificed. These creatures of the imagination assumed\n  a personal reality among the people of that era in the mind of every\n  one. Every one was convinced that Arthur of Britain would one day\n  return among men. Julian of Castile, who wrote in 1587, affirmed\n  (could we believe him) that when Philip II. espoused Mary of\n  England, he was obliged to reserve the claims of King Arthur, and\n  engage to yield him the throne when he returned. Chivalric fictions\n  became an article of faith. A certain gentleman, Simon de Silveyra,\n  swore one day on the Holy Gospel that he held the history of Amadis\n  de Gaul [Footnote 12] for true and certain.\"\n\n  [Footnote 10: For information concerning these slow romances and\n  their contemporaries, and the great Honore d'Urfy. see University\n  Magazine for February, 1844.]\n\n  [Footnote 11: A school of simple and warm-hearted working-class folk\n  nightly assembled at a forge in Windsor to hear the perilous trials\n  of Pamela read out to them. They watched with unflagging interest\n  her progress through her ticklish trials, and showed their joy in\n  her final triumph by running in a body to the church and ringing the\n  bells.]\n\n  [Footnote 12: This first and best of the chivalric romances was\n  composed by Vasco de Lobeira of Oporto, who died in 1406. It was\n  written between 1342 and 1367, and first printed between 1492 and\n  1500. There is some uncertainty concerning the given dates.]\n\nSuch were a few characteristics of Spanish life when Cervantes thought\nof writing his Don Quixote. In his numerous works he had it in purpose\nto improve the state of things in his native country, and to correct\nthis or that abuse, but he obtained no striking success till the\npublication of this his greatest work. Alas! while it established his\ncharacter as master in literature, it excited enmities and troubles in\nabundance.\n\n\nYOUTH OF CERVANTES.\n\nMiguel de Cervantes y Saavedra was born in 1547 at Alcala de H\u00e9nar\u00e8s.\nHis parents, both of gentle birth, were Rodrigo de Cervantes and\nLeonor de Cortinas. Their other children born before Michael were\nRodrigo, Andrea, and Luisa. His family belonged to the class of\nimpoverished gentlefolk, poor but intensely proud of their descent\nfrom one of those hardy mountaineers the Saavedras, who, five\ncenturies before, so heroically defended the northern portion of Spain\nagainst the Moors. While the hereditary possessions were growing less\nand less, the heads of the family would endeavor to compensate for\npresent privations, by relating to their children the noble deeds and\nthe great estates of their ancestors.\n\nCervantes' paternal roof was probably surrounded by some of the\npaternal fields, and it is likely that the domestic economy was\nsimilar to that described in the first chapter of Don Quixote, where\ntranslators have still left us at a loss as to the Saturday's fare,\n_duelos y quebrantos_ (griefs and groans), some, guessing it to be\neggs and bacon; others, a dish of lentils; others, brains fried in\noil; others, the giblets of fowl.\n\nAlcala de H\u00e9nar\u00e8s  [Footnote 13] was worthy to be the birthplace of\nSpain's best writer. The archbishops of Toledo owned a palace there,\nand there the great Cardinal Ximenes, an ex-student of its {17}\ncollege, returned when somewhat under a cloud, and prepared his\nworld-famous polyglot Bible in Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin. From\nthe date when the great scholar and statesman made the town his\npermanent residence it aimed to become, and did eventually become, the\nintellectual Metropolis of the native country of Cervantes. It\npossessed a University, nineteen colleges, thirty-eight churches, and\nworks of art in profusion.\n\n  [Footnote 13: \"From the Arabic At-Cala-d'el-Nahr, the chateau by the\n  river.\"]\n\nWhether debarred by poverty or negligence, the last an unlikely\nsupposition, Cervantes did not graduate in the University of Alcala or\nin any other, a circumstance that occasioned him much fortification in\nhis manhood and advanced age. \u00c9mile Chasles thus expresses himself on\nthis subject:\n\n  \"The graduated took their revenge. When Cervantes acquired celebrity\n  they recollected that he had taken no degree. When he thought an\n  employ they applied to him by way of iron brand the epithet,\n  _Ingenio Lego_, 'He is not of ours,' said they; 'he is not a\n  cleric.' The day when he attracted the attention of all Europe their\n  anger was excessive towards the writer who possessed talent without\n  permission, and genius without a diploma. Cervantes gaily replied,\n  that he admired their pedantic learning, their books bristling with\n  quotations, the complements they paid each other in Greek, their\n  erudition, their marginal notes, their doctors' degrees, but that he\n  himself was naturally lazy, and did not care to search in authors\n  for what he was able to say without them; and finally, that when\n  there is a dull or foolish thing to be expressed, it will do in\n  Spanish as well in Latin.\"\n\nHe was smarting under the contempt of the learned asses of his day\nwhen writing the preface to his Don Quixote:\n\n  \"Alas, the story of Don Quixote is as bare has a rush! Ah, if the\n  author could do as others,--cite at the head of the book a litany\n  of authorities in alphabetic order, commencing with Aristotle and\n  ending with Xenophon or Zoilus! But the poor Cervantes can find\n  nothing of all this. There he sits, paper before him, the pen behind\n  his ear, his elbow on the table, his cheek in his hand, and himself\n  all unable to discover pertinent sentences or ingenious trifles to\n  adorn his subject. Happily a humorous and intelligent friend enters\n  and brings relief. 'Quote,' said he, 'and continue to quote; the\n  first sentence that comes to hand will answer. \"Pallida mors aequo\n  pede\" is as good as another. Horace will come in well anywhere, and\n  you can even make use of the Holy Scriptures. The giant Golias or\n  Goliath was a Philistine, whom David the shepherd slew with a stone\n  from a sling in the valley of Terebinthus, as is related in the Book\n  of Kings in the chapter where it is to be found.'\"\n\n\nTHE FIRST PLAYS AT WHICH HE ASSISTED.\n\nThe earliest instructors of our brave romancer and poet were the\nexcellent clergyman Juan Lopez de Hoyos, who took pride and pleasure\nin expanding the intellects of clear-headed pupils, and the talented\nstrolling actor, Lope de Rueda, who at a time (middle of sixteenth\ncentury) when neither Alcala nor even Madrid could boast a suitably\nappointed theatre, went from town to town, and amused the inhabitants\nfrom his rudely contrived stage. This consisted of a platform of loose\nplanks supported by trestles, and a curtain as respectable as could be\nafforded, doing duty as permanent scene, and affording a hiding-place\nbehind it to the actors when not performing, and to the few musicians\nwho occasionally chanted some romantic ballad.\n\nRueda had been in his youth a gold-beater at Seville, whence, finding\nin himself a strong vocation for the mimetic art, he made his escape,\ncarrying some of the popular satiric stories in his head, and moulding\nthem into farces. His troupe consisted of three or four male actors,\none or two occasionally presenting female characters, and these were\nfound sufficient to present a simple story in action, the manager\nhimself being an actor of rare ability. These open air performances\ntook a very strong hold on Cervantes' imagination. An outline is given\nof one of these acted fables, the precursors of the voluminous\nrepertory furnished some years later by Lope de Vega.\n\nRueda himself, presenting an old laborer, tired and wet, and carrying\na fagot, appears before his door, and calls on his wife, who should\nhave his supper ready. His daughter (represented by {18} a beardless\nyouth) acquaints him that she is helping a neighbor at her skeins of\nsilk. She is called, and a fierce scolding match ensues, he demanding\nhis supper and vaunting the severity of his labor, she vilifying the\nfagot he has brought home. By-and-by the discourse falls on a little\nplantation of olive trees which he has just put down, and the Signora\nAgu\u00e9da de Toruegano forgets her anger in the anticipation of the large\nprofits to accrue from her seedlings:\n\n  \"_Wife_.--Do you know, my dear, what I've been just thinking? In six\n  or seven years our little plantation will produce four or five\n  fan\u00e8ques (about fifteen barrels) of olives, and putting down a plant\n  now and again, we shall have a noble field all in full bearing in\n  twenty-five or thirty years.\n\n  \"_Husband_.--Nothing more likely; it will be a wonder in the\n  neighborhood.\n\n  \"_Wife_.--I'll gather the fruit, you'll take them to market on the\n  ass, and Menciguela (the daughter) will sell them; but mind what I\n  tell you, girl! you must not sell them a maravedi less than two\n  reals of Castile the celemin (bushel).\n\n  \"_Husband_.--Two reals of Castile! O conscience! a real and a half\n  [Footnote 14] will be a fair price.\n\n  [Footnote 14: This has been substituted for fifteen deniers,\n  about three farthings, the amount in M. Chasles' version.]\n\n  \"_Wife--Ah_, hold your tongue! They are the very best kind--olives\n  of Cordova.\n\n  \"_Husband_.--Even so, a real and a half is quite enough.\n\n  \"_Wife_.--Ah, don't bother my head! Daughter, you have heard me; two\n  reals of Castile, no less.\n\n \"_Husband_.--Come here, child. What will you ask--the bushel?\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--Whatever you please, father.\n\n  \"_Husband_.--Just a real and a half.\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--Yes, father.\n\n  \"_Mother_.--Yes, father! Come here to me. How will you sell them the\n  bushel?\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--Whatever you say, mother.\n\n  \"_Father_.--I promise you, my lass, two hundred stripes of the\n  stirrup leathers, if you don't mind my directions. Now what'll be\n  the price?\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--Whatever you like, father.\n\n  \"_Mother_.--How! Ah, here's for your 'whatever you like.' (_She\n  beats her_.) Take that, and maybe it'll teach you to disobey me.\n\n  \"_Father_.--Let the child alone.\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--Ah, mother, mother, don't kill me! (_Cries out; a\n  neighbor enters_.)\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--What's this, what's this? Why do you beat the little\n  girl?\n\n  \"_Wife_.--Ah, sir, it's this wasteall that wants to give away all we\n  have for nothing. He'll put us out of house and home. Olives as\n  large as walnuts!\n\n  \"_Husband_.--I swear by the bones of my ancestors that they are no\n  bigger than grains of millet.\n\n  \"_Wife_.--I say they are.\n\n  \"_Husband_.--I say they're not.\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--Will you please, ma'am, to go inside? I undertake to\n  make all right (_She enters the house_.) Now, my friend, explain\n  this matter. Let us see your olives. If you have twenty fan\u00e8ques, I\n  will purchase all.\n\n  \"_Father_.--You don't exactly comprehend. The fact is--do you\n  see?--and to tell the honest truth, the olives are not just in the\n  house, though they are ours.\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--No matter. Sure it's easy to get them brought here.\n  I'll buy them at a fair price.\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--My mother says she must get two reals   [Footnote 15]\n  the bushel.\n\n    [Footnote 15: The Spaniards keep their accounts in piastres,\n    reals, and marvedis, the first-named being worth about 8s. 6d. of\n    our money. Thirty-four marvedis make a real, eight reals a\n    piastre. The real mentioned in the text was probably a piece of\n    eight or piastre.]\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--That's rather dear.\n\n  \"_Father_.--Now isn't it, sir?\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--My father only asks a real and a half.\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--Let us see a sample.\n\n  \"_Husband_.--Ah, don't ask to talk about it farther. I have to-day\n  put down a small plot of olives. My wife says that within seven or\n  eight years we'll be able to gather four or five fan\u00e8ques of fruit\n  from them. She is to collect them, I to take them on the ass to\n  market, and our daughter to sell them, and she must not take less\n  than two reals. She says yes, I say no, and that's the whole of it.\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--A nice a fair, by my faith! The olives are hardly\n  planted, and yet your daughter has been made to cry and roar about\n  them.\n\n  \"_Daughter_.--Very true indeed, sir, what you say.\n\n  \"_Father_.--Don't cry any more, Menciguela. Neighbor, this little\n  body is worth her weight in gold. Go, lay the table, child. You must\n  have an apron out of the very first money I get for the olives.\n\n  \"_Neighbor_.--Good-by, my friend; go in and be agreeable with your\n  wife.\n\n  \"_Father_.--Good-by, sir. (_He and his daughter go in_.)\n\n  \"_Neighbor, alone_.--It must be owned that some things happen here\n  below beyond belief. Ouf! quarrel about olives before they're in\n  existence!\"\n\n{19}\n\nThe reader will easily recognize the \"Maid with the milking pail\" at\nthe bottom of this illustration. Before the production of any of the\nregular pieces of De Vega, or Calderon, or Alarcon, or Tirso de\nMolina, the easily pleased folk of country or town were thoroughly\nsatisfied with Rueda's repertory. When the talented stroller died in\n1567, he was honored with a costly funeral, and solemnly interred in\nthe cathedral of Cordova. Strange contrast between his posthumous\nfortune and that of Moli\u00e8re!\n\nThe impression made on Cervantes by the performances on Rueda's\nplatform was strong and lasting. He ever retained a high respect for\nthe talent of observation, the native genius and the good sense of\nLope de Rueda.\n\nIn the preface to his own plays, Cervantes left an inventory of the\ntheatrical properties of the strolling establishments in his youth:\n\n  \"All the materials of representation were contained in a sack. They\n  were made up of four jackets of sheepskin, laced with gilt leather,\n  four beards, as many wigs, four shepherd's crooks. The comedies\n  consisted of eclogues or colloquies between two or three shepherds\n  and one shepherdess. They prolonged the entertainments by means of\n  interludes, such as that of the _Negress_, the _Ruffian_, the\n  _Fool_, or that of the _Biscayan_,--four personages played by Lope\n  as well as many others, and all with the greatest perfection and the\n  happiest natural ability that can be imagined.\"\n\nOne evening in the old age of Cervantes, the company around him were\ndiscussing the living actors and the present condition of the theatre.\nAmong other things they treated of the infancy of the Spanish stage,\nand the artist who first essayed to make it something better than a\nplatform for tumbling. Cervantes at once brought forward the claims of\nhis early master:\n\n  \"I remember having seen play the great comedian Lope de Rueda, a man\n  distinguished for his intelligence and his style of acting. He\n  excelled in pastoral poetry. In that department no one then or since\n  has shown himself his superior. Though then a child, and unable to\n  appreciate the merit of his verses, nevertheless when I occasionally\n  repeat some couplets that have remained in my memory, I find that my\n  impression of his ability is correct.\"\n\n\n\nHIS FIRST STEP IN LIFE.\n\nThe young admirer of Lope de Rueda exhibited in his temperament and\nappearance more of the soldier than the poet. With his high forehead,\nhis arched eyebrows, his hair flung behind, his firm-set mouth, he\nseemed to present little of the imaginative dreamer. However, there\nwas that in the delicate contours of the countenance, in the searching\nlook, in the fire of the large dark eyes, which betrayed the ironical\npowers of the observant man of genius. No doubt he had the literary\ninstincts somewhat developed by the practical lessons of Rueda, but\nmilitary aspirations had the ascendant for the time. Though his\nbrother Rodrigo had departed for the war in Flanders, and it seemed as\nif he was destined to remain at home with his family, fate and\ninclination were against this arrangement. However, the first step he\ntook in life was not in the direction of the battle-field. An Italian\ncardinal took him to Rome in quality of secretary. The brave Don John,\nhalf-brother of Philip II., was appointed general of the league arming\nagainst the Grand Turk at the same time, and the young and ardent\nMiguel eagerly took arms under him, and was present at the memorable\nnaval engagement of Lepanto. Philip did not enter with much good-will\ninto this strife, and prevented any advantages that might result from\nthe glorious victory by shortly withdrawing his brother from the\ncommand of the allied forces of Christendom. The enthusiastic young\nsoldier received three wounds as well as a broken arm in the fight.\nThis was in the year 1571, and until 1575 we find Cervantes attending\nDon John in his contentions with the Mohammedan powers on the coast of\nAfrica, in which the chivalric commander was hampered by the ill-will\nof his brother, Philip II. He went into the Low Countries much against\nhis will, and after several victories met a premature death there in\n1578, when only thirty-two years old.\n\n{20}\n\nCAPTIVE IN ALGIERS.\n\nCervantes received from his great-souled commander written\ntestimonials of his valiant conduct and moral worth, and sailed for\nSpain from Naples in the year 1578. On the voyage the vessel was\nattacked by three Turkish galliots; those who fell not in the\nengagement were made prisoners, and our hero became the slave of a\nlame renegade called the \"Cripple,\" in Arabic, Dali Mami.\n\nThe Algerians, rigid Mussulmans as they were, killed as few Christians\nin these attacks as they could. Slaves and ransoms were the cherished\nobjects of their quests, and as soon as could be after the landing in\nAlgiers, the classification was made of \"gentles and commons.\" The\ncaptors were cunning in their generation, and this was the process\nadapted for the enhancement of their live property.\n\nThe captive's owner proceeded with wonderful skill to raise the value\nof his goods. While the slave declared his poverty, and lowered his\nstation in order to lower the terms of his ransom, the master affected\nto treat his victim with the greatest respect. He gave him almost\nenough of nourishment, and professed he was ruining himself for the\nother's advantage through pure deference and good-will; and slipped in\na word as to his hopes of being repaid for his outlay. The prisoner\nmight undervalue himself as much as he chose, \"he was merely a private\nsoldier.\" Ah, his master knew better; the man of the ranks was a\ngeneral, the man before the mast a _caballero_, the simple priest an\narchbishop.\n\n  \"As for me,' said the captive Dr. Sosa, 'who am but a poor clerk,\n  the need me bishop by their own proper authority, and _in\n  plenitudine potestatis_. Afterward they appointed me the private and\n  confidential secretary of the Pope. They assured me that I had been\n  for eight days closeted with His holiness in a chamber, where we\n  discussed in the most profound secrecy the entire affairs of\n  Christendom. Then they created me cardinal, afterwards governor of\n  Castel Nuovo at Naples; and at this present moment I am confessor to\n  Her Majesty the Queen of Spain.' In vain Dr. Sosa renounced these\n  honors. They produced witnesses, both Christian and Turks, who swore\n  to having seen him officiating as cardinal governor.\"\n\nThe letters of of Don John of Austria having been found on Cervantes,\nthe poor soldier of Lepanto became at once a great lord, from whom a\nlarge ransom might be expected. They began with genuflexions, and\nfrequently ended with the scourge, not in his case, however. Many poor\nwretches, to save themselves from the horrible treatment they endured,\nor expected to endure, became Mohammedans, on which they immediately\nobtained their liberty, were set on horseback, with fifty Janissaries\non foot, serving as cort\u00e8ge, the king defraying the expense of the\nceremony, bestowing wives on the hopeful converts, and offering them\nplaces among his Janissaries.\n\nCervantes became the centre, round which the hopes of many poor\ncaptives were grouped. He made several attempts at evasion, and,\nstrange to say, was not in any instance punished by his otherwise\ncruel master.\n\nSeveral Christians enjoying the benefit of safe conduct were free to\ncome and go among these Algerines, and the Redemptorist Fathers\nenjoyed thorough freedom, as through them the ransoms were chiefly\neffected. A Spanish gentleman being set at liberty, carried a letter\nfrom our hero home to his family, and in consequence the brave old\nhidalgo, his father, mortgaged his little estate, took the dowries of\nhis two daughters, and forwarded all to his son for the liberation of\nhimself and his brother, who was also in captivity. When he presented\nhimself to Dali Mami with his sum in his hands the renegade cripple\nonly laughed at him. He and Rodrigo were men of too much importance to\nbe ransomed for so trifling a sum.\n\n{21}\n\nThe cruel viceroy of Algiers having spent his allotted time in charge\nof that nest of vultures, was replaced by a governor still more cruel,\nunder whom Cervantes made a desperate effort to escape, and carry off\nforty or fifty fellow-captives with him. He paid his brother's ransom,\nand he, when set at liberty, managed to send a vessel near the spot\nwhere Miguel had his companions in safety in a grotto of a certain\ngarden. Through some mismanagement the descent failed, and the\nhiding-place was revealed by the treachery of a trusted individual.\nAll were brought before the new Viceroy Hassan, and Cervantes avowed\nhimself the chief and only plotter among them. Hassan used flattery,\npromises, and threats to induce the intrepid Spaniard to criminate a\ncertain brother Redemptorist as privy to the plot, in order that he\nmight come at a much coveted sum of money which he knew to be in his\npossession. All was in vain. Cervantes was not to be turned from the\npath of loyalty, and when every one expected sentence of death to be\npronounced on him at the moment, Hassan became suddenly cool, and\nmerely ordered him to be removed.\n\nThe bagnio of Hassan was a sufficiently wretched place, but while our\nhero sojourned there, he made it as cheerful as he could by composing\npoetical pieces and reciting them, and getting up a Spanish comedy.\nThere were forty priests in it at the time, and these performed their\nclerical duties as if at liberty. They celebrated mass, administered\nholy communion, and preached every Sunday. When Christmas approached,\nhe arranged a mystery, such as he had seen performed in his native\nAlcala under the direction of the ingenious Lope de Rueda. All were\nprepared,--the shepherds' dresses, the crib, the stable, etc.; the\nguardian admitting outsiders at a small charge, and a shepherd\nreciting the opening verses of the entertainment, when a Moor entered\nin hot haste, and shouted out to all to look to their safety, as the\nJanissaries were rushing through the streets, and killing the\nChristians. Some clouds on the northern horizon had been taken for the\nChristian fleet under Don John, and the terrible guards determined to\nput it out of the Christian captives' power to aid the attack. The\nmassacre ceased on the clearing away of the vapors.\n\nAbout that time, Philip II. was collecting a large naval force in the\nMediterranean for the ostensible purpose of storming Algiers, though\nin reality his intent was merely to seize on the kingdom of Portugal.\nIts romantic sovereign, Don Sebastian, the hero of one of Miss\nPorter's romances, had just been slain in Morocco, and his successor\nHenry, whose days were numbered, was unable to cross his projects. The\nreport of Philip's meditated descent inspired Cervantes with a project\nof a general rising of the slaves. He even addressed to the sombre\nking, through his secretary Mateo Vasquez, a remonstrance and\nencouragement, of which we present a few extracts:\n\n  \"High and powerful lord, let the wrath of thy soul be enkindled.\n  Here the garrison is numerous, but without strength, without\n  ramparts, without shelter. Every Christian is on the alert; every\n  Mussulman is watching for the appearance of the fleet as the signal\n  for flight. Twenty thousand Christians are in this prison, the key\n  of which is in your hands. We all, with clasped hands, on bended\n  knees, and with stifled sobs, and under severe tortures, beseech\n  thee, puissant lord, to turn your pitying looks towards us, your\n  born subjects, who lie groaning here. Let the work courageously\n  begun by your much loved father be achieved by your hand.\"\n\nHassan employed the slaves in building fortifications for his\ngarrison, but he kept Cervantes strictly guarded. \"When my disabled\nSpaniard,\" said he, \"is under guard, I am sure of the city, the\nprisoners, and the port.\" But though well watched, the restless\ncaptive made three other attempts at escape, for each of which he was\nto receive, but did not, two thousand bastinadoes. In the fourth\nattempt, two merchants who were compromised, and feared he might\nbetray them under the torture, offered to pay his ransom, and thus\nsecure his departure, but he did not accept the terms. He braved the\nexamination, and would {22} not reveal the names of any accomplices\nexcept four who were already out of danger. Strange to say, even this\ntime he escaped without punishment. A renegade, Maltrapillo, high in\nHassan's confidence, and who seems to have entertained great esteem\nfor the fearless and generous character of Cervantes, probably saved\nhis back sundry stripes on these different occasions. On this subject\nwe quote some lines from M. Chasles:\n\n   \"Either through the interference of Maltrapillo or the influence\n   exercised by the noble character of Cervantes on all around him,\n   this time again he was spared by Hassan. How was he enabled to many\n   times to escape his master's rage? In following his fortunes\n   through these years of trial, I am struck by the mysterious\n   influence of his noble character on the events and the persons by\n   whom he was surrounded. In the mixed of a diverse population\n   incessantly changing, among a crowd of soldiers and captive\n   doctors, he occupied an exceptional station. Brothers of Mercy,\n   Christian merchants, renegades, all recognize in him a moral\n   superiority. 'Every one,' says the eye-witness Pedrosa, 'admired\n   his courage and his disposition.'\"\n\nThe acts of kindness done by the renegades to the captives were not\nsmall nor few. Nearly all of them had conformed through the immediate\nprospect of promotion, or fear of punishment, and there was scarcely a\nconscientious Mussulman among every hundred of them. In general they\nwere anxious to obtain from the captives about to be ransomed\ncertificates of their own good offices towards them. These were\nintended to be available for some possible future contingencies.\n\nThe poor sorrowful father continued to make unavailing efforts for his\nransom. He even disturbed the court officials with representations of\nhis son's services and sufferings; but \"circumlocution\" was a word\nunderstood even in Madrid and in the days of Philip II. The afflicted\nand impoverished gentleman died in dragging his suit through the lazy\nand unpatriotic officials, and if ever a death resulted from\nheartbreak his was one. Still his mother, his brother Rodrigo and his\nsister Andrea exerted themselves, and dispatched to Algiers 300\ncrowns. A strong representations at the court insured in addition the\namount of a cargo then consigned to Algiers, which produced only 60\nducats, say \u00a330. These sums were not sufficient, and the heart sick\ncaptive would have been carried by Hassan to Constantinople, his\nviceroyalty having expired, only for the deficiency being made up by\nthe Brothers of Mercy, Christian merchants, etc., who were \"tightly\ntarged\" for that purpose by the good-hearted and zealous brother\nsuperior, Gil. This providential redemption occurred in 1580.\n\nBefore he quitted his abode of little ease he had the forethought to\ndemand a public scrutiny of his conduct by the Christian authorities.\nWitnesses in great number came forward to testify to his worth. The\nfollowing facts were irrevocably established. He had rescued one man\nfrom slavery only for the treachery of Blanco. The pure morality of\nhis life was attested by a gentleman of high standing. Others proved\nhis many acts of charity to the unfortunate and to children, all done\nas secretly as possible. He had contrived the escape of five captives.\nA gentleman, Don Diego (James) de Benavides, furnished this testimony:\n\n  \"On coming here from Constantinople, I asked if there were in the\n  city any gentlemen by birth, I was told there was one in\n  particular--a man of honor, noble, virtuous, well-born, the friend\n  of caballeroes, to wit, Michael de Cervantes. I paid him a visit. He\n  shared with me his chamber, his clothes, his money. In him I have\n  found a father and a mother.\"\n\nThe declarations of Brother Gil and of Rev. Dr. Sosa solemnly\nconfirmed the facts brought forward by numerous captives. Sosa wrote\nhis declaration while still in irons, and avowed with a mixture of\ndignity and feeling that his principles would have prevented him from\nallowing himself such {23} intimacy with Cervantes, had he not\nconsidered him in the light of an earnest Christian, liable to\nmartyrdom at any moment.\n\nA scrutiny was also made in Spain at the request of the elder\nCervantes, in 1578, and both the justifying documents, signed by\nnotaries, are still in existence.\n\n  \"Ah!\" says Haedo (himself an eye-witness of the sufferings of the\n  Christians in that vulture's nest), \"it had been a fortunate thing\n  for the Christians if Michael Cervantes had not been betrayed by his\n  own companions. He kept up the courage and hopes of the captives at\n  the risk of his own life, which he imperilled four times. He was\n  threatened with death by impaling, by hanging, and by burning alive;\n  and dared all to restore his fellow-sufferers to liberty. If his\n  courage, his ability, his plans, had been seconded by fortune,\n  Algiers at this day would belong to us, for he aimed at nothing\n  less.\"\n\nCervantes did not put his own adventures in writing. The captive in\nDon Quixote said with reference to them, \"I might indeed tell you some\nstrange things done by a soldier named Saavedra. They would interest\nand surprise you, but to return to my own story.\" The disinterested\nhero had more at heart the downfall of Islamism than his own\nglorification.\n\n\nHIS RESTITUTION TO HIS NATIVE LAND.\n\nCervantes touched his native land again with no very brilliant\nprospect before him. His father was dead; his mother could barely\nsupport herself, his brother was with the army, and his friends\ndispersed. Still the first step on his beloved Spain gave him great\njoy, afterwards expressed through the mouth of the captive in Don\nQuixote:\n\n  \"We went down on our knees and kissed our native soil, and then with\n  eyes bathed in tears of sweet emotion we gave thanks to God. The\n  sight of our Spanish land made us forget all our troubles and\n  sufferings. It seemed as if they had been endured by others than\n  ourselves, so sweet it is to recover lost liberty.\"\n\nAt the time of his arrival king and court were at Badajos, watching\nthe progress of the annexation of Portugal. He joined the army, and\nduring the years 1581, '2, '3, shared in the battles between Philip\nand the Prior Antonio de Ocrato, the latter being assisted by the\nFrench and English. In one of these fights the Spanish admiral ordered\nthe brave Strozzi, wounded and a prisoner, to be flung into the sea.\nAt the engagement of the Azores, Rodrigo Cervantes and another captain\nflung themselves into the sea, and were the first to scale the\nfortifications, thus giving their soldiers a noble example.\n\n\nMARRIAGE AND SUBSEQUENT TROUBLES.\n\nHe lived in Lisbon a short time and composed his Galatea there. Next\nyear he returned to Madrid, and married the lady Dona Catalina de\nPalacios y Salazar y Vomediano. She was of a noble family, but her\ndowry consisted of a few acres of land. In the marriage contract,\nsigned in presence of Master Alonzo de Aguilera, and still in\nexistence, mention is made of half a dozen fowl forming part of the\nfortune brought by her to the soldier and poet. The marriage was\ncelebrated 12th December, 1584, at the bride's residence, Esquivias, a\nlittle town in the neighborhood of the capital.\n\nHe now betook himself seriously to literature, published the Galatea,\nand began to write for the theater. At first he was very successful,\nbut on a sudden Lope de Vega came on the scene, and exhibited such\ndramatic aptitude and genius and mental fertility, that managers and\nactors and audience had no ears for any other aspirant to dramatic\nreputation, and poor Cervantes found his prospect of fame and\nindependence all at once clouded. The pride of the Spanish hidalgo and\n\"Old Christian\"  [Footnote 16] had been much {24} modified by his life\nin the army and bagnio, and his good common sense told him that it was\nhis duty to seek to support his family by some civil occupation rather\nthan indulge his family pride, and suffer them and himself to starve.\n\n  [Footnote 16: One unsuspected of having Moorish or Jewish blood in\n  his veins.]\n\nBut oh, Apollo and his nine blue stockings! what was the occupation\ndropped over our soldier-poet's head, and doing all in its power to\nextinguish his imaginative and poetic faculties? Nothing more nor less\nthan the anti-romantic duties of a commissary. Well, well, Spain was\nno more prosaic than other countries, and Cervantes had brothers in\nhis mechanical occupations. Charles Lamb's days were spent in adding\nup columns of \"long tots.\" Burns gauged whiskey casks and kept an eye\non private stills; Shakespeare adjusted the contentions of actors, and\nsaw that their exits and entrances did not occur at the wrong sides;\nperhaps the life of the mill-slave Plautus furnished as much happiness\nas any of the others. The mill-stones got an occasional rest, and he\nwas in enjoyment for the time, when reading comic scenes from his\ntablets or scrolls, and listening to the outbursts of laughter that\ncame from the open throats of his sister and brother drudges.\n\nThe Invincible Armada, while preparing to make a hearty meal on\nEngland, had need meantime of provender while crossing the rough\nBiscayan sea, and four commissaries were appointed to collect\nprovisions for that great monster, and for the behoof of the Indian\nfleets. Cervantes was one of the four, Seville appointed his\nheadquarters, and his time most unpoetically employed collecting\nimposts in kind from all tax-paying folk.\n\nThe regular clergy (houses of friars and monks) were at the time at\ndeadly feud with his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip II., and refused to\npay him tribute. They founded their refusal on a papal bull; and on\nthe other aide, the alcaids produced the royal warrant. Between the\ncontending powers the author of Galatea found himself sufficiently\nembarrassed.\n\nFor some years Cervantes endured a troubled and wretched existence in\nsuch employment as the above, in purchasing corn for the use of the\ngalleys, and in making trips to Morocco on public business. He\nsolicited the government for an office in the Indies, and was on the\npoint of obtaining it when some influence now unknown frustrated his\nhopes. He describes his condition and that of many other footballs of\nfortune in the Jealous Estremaduran:\n\n  \"In the great city of Seville he found opportunities of spending the\n  little he had left. Finding himself destitute of money, and not\n  better provided with friends, he tried the means adopted by all the\n  idle hangers-on in that city, namely, a passage to the Indies, the\n  refuge of the outcasts of Europe, the sanctuary of bankrupts, the\n  inviolable asylum of homicides, paradise of gamblers who are there\n  sure to gain, resort of women of loose lives, where the many have a\n  prospect, and the few a subsistence.\"\n\nOur poet not being born with an instinct for regular accounts and\nbeing charged to collect arrears of tax in Granada to the amount of\ntwo millions of maravedis, say \u00a31,500, found his task difficult among\npeople who were slow in committing to memory the rights of the crown.\nHis greatest mistake was the intrusting of a considerable sum to a\nmerchant named Simon Freire de Luna in order to be deposited in the\ntreasury at Madrid. Simon became bankrupt, and Cervantes was cast into\nprison for the deficiency in his accounts. He was soon set at liberty,\nbut the different appearances he was obliged to make before the courts\nof Seville, Madrid, and Valladolid were sufficient to turn his hair\ngrey before its time. The judges reproached him for his deficit, the\npeople gave him no praise. The alcaids of Argamasilla in La Mancha\ngave him particularly bad treatment. Perhaps he recollected it when\nwriting his romance.\n\n{25}\n\nSubjected to the interrogatories of the royal councillors, judges, and\neven alcaids, a servant to all merely for means to live, and always\nmoving about, poor Cervantes appears at last to have given way. From\n1594, when sent to collect arrears in Granada, to 1598, little can be\ngathered concerning him, but from this last date till 1603 nothing\nwhatever is known of his fortunes. The probability is that he spent\npart of the time in a prison of Andalu\u00e7ia or La Mancha, and there\nmeditated on the vanity of human expectations, and wrote the first\npart of Don Quixote.\n\n\nHIS LITERARY LIFE.\n\nWherever he spent this interval his brain had not been idle--he had\npassed in review the defects of the Spanish government and of the\nSpanish character. He had been unable to rouse the king to crush the\npower of the Algerine pirates, either by the memorials he had\nconsigned to his friend the secretary, or by the vigorous pictures he\nhad presented on the stage (after his return from captivity) of the\ncruelties inflicted by them on their unhappy captives. He had failed\nin his great and cherished object, but there remained one reformation\nyet to be made, namely, of taste among those Spaniards, ladies and\ngentlemen, to whom reading was a pleasure, and who could afford to\npurchase books. To substitute a relish for healthier studies was a\ndarling object of our much worried poet for years. It was cherished in\nprisons, and the first part of his great work written, or nearly so,\nat the time when we find him again mixing with society in Valladolid,\nwhere Philip II. held his court. This was in the year 1603. The\nfollowing extract concerning his residence and his mode of life in\nthat city, is taken from the work of M. Chasles:\n\n  \"There is at Valladolid a poor looking house, narrow and low, hemmed\n  in among the taverns of a suburb, and near the deep and empty bed of\n  a torrent called Esgu\u00e9va. There Cervantes came to live in 1603, in\n  the fifty-seventh year of his age. With an  emotion which I cannot\n  express I hare visited this dwelling, which stands outside the city,\n  and which remains unmarked by stone or inscription. A well-used\n  staircase conducts to the two modest chambers used by Cervantes.\n  One, in which he slept, no doubt, is a square room with a low\n  ceiling supported by beams. The other, a sort of ill-lighted kitchen\n  looking on to the neighboring roofs, still holds his _cantarelo_ or\n  stone with three round hollows to hold water jars. Here lived with\n  him his wife, Dona Catalina, his daughter Isabelle, now twenty years\n  old, his sister Dona Andrea, his niece Constanza, and a relation\n  named Dona Magdalena. A housekeeper increased the family. Where did\n  all sleep? However that was arranged, they all did their work\n  together. The ladies earned money by embroidering the court-dresses.\n  Valladolid, adopted for abode by the new king and by the Duke of\n  Lerma, was then incumbered, as was Versailles afterwards, with\n  gentlemen, with the grandees, and with generals. Our impoverished\n  family was supported by this affluence. The Marquis of Villafranca,\n  returning from Algiers to the court, got his gala-suit made by the\n  family of the soldier-poet, with whom he had erewhile been\n  acquainted. Cervantes was occupied either with keeping the books of\n  people in business, or regulating the accounts of some people of\n  quality, or striving to bring his long lawsuit with the government\n  lo a close.\n\n  \"In the evening, while the needles of the women flew through the\n  stuffs, he held the pen, and on the corner of the table he put his\n  thoughts in writing. There it was he composed the prologue of that\n  work which had been a labor of love in the composition, and in which\n  he employed all the force of his genius. In bringing it with him to\n  Valladolid, he experienced alternations of hope and fear, being\n  fully sensible that it was his masterpiece. 'Idle reader,' said he\n  in the first page, 'you may credit my word, for I have no need to\n  take oath, that I wish this book, child of my brain, were the most\n  beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most witty that any one could\n  imagine.' He had published nothing since the Galatea, which had\n  appeared twenty years before and was an amiable apology for the\n  taste of the times. The book about to be printed was a flagrant\n  attack on the same literature.\"\n\nThose who despise the old books of chivalry, and have probably never\nopened one, are too ready to undervalue Cervantes' apprehension about\nbringing out his book, and the service it eventually rendered to\nsociety and literature. We recommend an indifferent individual of this\nway of thinking to peruse about the eighth of the contents of one of\nthe condemned {26} volumes of Don Quixote's library, and work himself\ninto the conviction that the body of the Spanish readers of 1603,\nladies and gentlemen, not only admired such compositions more than\nliving readers admire the most popular writings of our times, but in\nmany instances believed the contents to be true.\n\nLet us hope that there is some mistake about the non-accommodation\nafforded to the seven individuals of Cervantes' family, six of whom\nwere of gentle blood. It is easy to imagine what delightful evenings\nthey would have enjoyed if tolerably comfortable with regard to\nfurniture and space, the soldier-poet reading out some passages from\nthe Don, or the Exemplary Novels, or one of his plays, and the\nwell-bred women plying their needles, listening with interest, and\noccasionally breaking out into silvery laughs at the comic misfortunes\nof the knight, or the naive pieces of roguery of the squire.\n\nWe can readily imagine the desolation of Cervantes' spirit during the\ntroubled years of his official wanderings, his superiors urging him to\ngrind the faces of his countrymen and fellow-subjects, and these\nentertaining most unfriendly feelings toward himself. The ladies of\nhis family--where were they during this nomadic life of his, and how\nwere they situated? Separation from their society and anxiety about\ntheir privations must have added much to the present suffering, and\nforebodings of things still worse, the companions of his lonely hours.\n\nA pleasant interruption to the monotony and privations of the family\nlife must have been the appearance of the first part of the Don in\n1604, and the popularity it soon attained.\n\n\nHIS LABORERS AND THEIR REQUITAL.\n\nSome who merely neglected the author till found by fame, were soon\nready to do him disservice by passing censure on the execution of the\ngreat work, and even searching for subjects of blame in his past\ncareer. Lope de Vega, as we have seen, had put it out of his power to\nturn his dramatic talents to account. Further, he did not act in a\nkind manner towards him in private, though outwardly friendly. But\nLope's friends and admirers so deeply resented an honest and judicious\ncriticism on the works of the prolific dramatist by Cervantes, that\nthey ceased not during the remaining dozen years of his life to do him\nevery unfriendly act in their power. One was so full of malice and so\nunprincipled, that towards the end of Cervantes' life he wrote a\nsecond part of the Adventures of Don Quixote, distinguished by\ncoarseness, dullness, and inability to make the personages of the\nfirst part of the story act and speak in character. The impudent and\ntalentless writer called himself Don Avellaneda of some town in La\nMancha, but one of De Vega's admirers was supposed to be the real\nculprit. Suspicions fell on several, but the greater number centered\nin Pere Luis de Aliaga, a favorite of the Duke of Lerma, and the\nconfessor of Philip III. He was call, meagre, and dark-complexioned,\nand had got the sobriquet of _Sancho Panza_, by antithesis.\n\n\n\nThe wretched attack, for it was no better, was published in 1614, two\nyears before the death of Cervantes, Though suffering from illness,\nand overshadowed by the expectation of approaching death, the\nappearance of the impudent and worthless production acted on him as\nthe bugle on the nerves of the old battle-steed. In the order of\nProvidence good is extracted from mere human evil, and to the false\nAvellaneda the world is indirectly indebted for the second part of Don\nQuixote, the wedding of Gamacho, the wise though unsuccessful\ngovernment of Barataria by Sancho, the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and\nall the delightful adventures and conferences that had place at the\nducal chateau, province unknown.\n\n{27}\n\nBut between the publishing of the first part of Don Quixote in 1605,\nand the second in 1614, how had the great heart and head been\noccupied? Probably with little pleasure to himself. On his return from\nthe wars of Portugal in 1584, he had the pleasure and profit of seeing\nseveral of his plays acted, some expressly written to direct public\nspirit towards a crusade on the Algerines.  [Footnote 17] Of these he\nthus speaks in the prologue to his dramatic works, published 1613:\n\n    [Footnote 17: Between the days of Lope de Rueda and those of\n    Cervantes' debut, Naharra of Toledo had made considerable\n    improvement in the mechanics of the art. The sack was rejected,\n    and chests and trunks held the properties. The musicians came from\n    behind their blanket, and faced their customers. He rejected the\n    beards except in the case of disguisements, and invented or\n    adopted thunder, lightning, clouds, challenges, and fights. He\n    himself was a capital personator of cowardly bullies.]\n\n  \"In all the playhouses of Madrid were acted some plays of my\n  composing, such as the Humors of Algiers, the Destruction of\n  Numantia, and the Naval Battle, wherein I took the liberty of\n  reducing plays to three acts which before consisted of five. I\n  showed, or, to speak better, I was the first that represented the\n  imaginations and secret thoughts of the soul, exhibiting moral\n  characters to public view to the entire satisfaction of the\n  audience. I composed at that time thirty plays at least, all of\n  which were acted without anybody's interrupting the players by\n  flinging cucumbers or any other trash at them. They ran their race\n  without any hissing, cat-calling, or any other disorder. But\n  happening to be taken up with other things, I laid aside\n  play-writing, and then came on that prodigy of nature, that\n  marvellous man, the great Lope de Vega, who raised himself to be\n  supreme monarch of the stage. He subdued all the players, and made\n  them obedient to his will. He filled the world with theatrical\n  pieces, finely and happily devised, and full of good sense, and so\n  numerous that they take up above ten thousand sheets of paper all of\n  his own writing, and, which is a most wonderful thing to relate, he\n  saw them all acted or at least had the satisfaction to hear they\n  were all acted.\"\n\nGood-hearted, generous Cervantes, who could so dwell on that success\nin a rival which condemned himself to the wretched life of an inland\nrevenue officer, to the hatred of non-payers of tax, to prosecutions,\nand to the discomforts of an Andalu\u00e7ian or Manchegan dungeon, and\nseparation from his niece, sister, daughter, and wife, whom, in\nabsence of data to the contrary, we take to be amiable and\naffectionate women.\n\nWhen the court returned to Madrid he and his family followed it, but\nwe find no employment given by him to the printing presses of that\ncity from 1604 to 1613, when he got published the collection of plays\nand interludes before mentioned. In the same year he published his\ntwelve Exemplary Novels,  [Footnote 18] dedicating them to his patron,\nDon Pedro Fernandez de Castro, count of Lemos. This nobleman, in\nconjunction with Archbishop Sandoval, and the actor, Pedro de Morales,\nhad succeeded (let us hope) in cheering the poet's latter years. In\nthe preface he gives a portrait of himself in his sixty-sixth year,\ndistinguished by his own charming style, always redolent of\nresignation, good-will, and good-nature. He pretends that a friend was\nto have got his portrait engraved to serve as frontispiece, but, owing\nto his negligence, he himself is obliged to supply one in pen and ink:\n\n    [Footnote 18: The Lady Cornelia, Rinconete and Cortadillo, Doctor\n    Glass-case, the Deceitful Marriage, the Dialogue of the Dogs\n    Scipio and Berganza, the Little Gipsy Girl, the Generous Lover,\n    the Spanish-English Lady, the Force of Blood, the Jealous\n    Estremaduran, the Illustrious Scullery-Maid, and the Two Damsels.]\n\n  \"My friend might have written under the portrait--This person whom\n  you see here, with an oval visage, chestnut hair, smooth open\n  forehead, lively eyes, a hooked but well-proportioned nose, a\n  silvery beard that, twenty years ago, was golden, large moustaches,\n  a small mouth, teeth not much to speak of, for he has but six, all\n  in bad condition and worse placed, no two of them corresponding to\n  each other; a figure between the two extremes, neither tall nor\n  short, a vivid complexion, rather fair than dark, somewhat stooped\n  in the shoulders, and not very light-footed: this I say is the\n  author of Galatea, Don Quixote de la Mancha, . . . commonly called\n  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. He was for many years a soldier, and\n  for five years and a half in captivity, where he learned to have\n  patience in adversity. He lost his left hand by a musket-shot in the\n  battle of Lepanto, and ugly as this wound may appear, he regards it\n  as beautiful, having received it {28} on the most memorable and\n  sublime occasion which passed times have ever scene, or future times\n  can hope to equal, fighting under the victorious banners of the son\n  of that thunderbolt of war, Charles V. of blessed memory. Should the\n  friend of whom I complain have no more to say of me than this, I\n  would myself have composed a couple of dozen of eulogiums, and\n  communicated them to him in secret,\" etc.\n\n\nTHE CLOSING SCENE.\n\nCervantes' Voyage to Parnassus, in which he complains to Apollo for\nnot being furnished even with a stool in that poets' elysium, was\npublished in 1614, the second part of Don Quixote in 1615, and that\nwas the last book whose proofs he had the pleasure to correct. He was\nemployed on his Troubles of Persiles and Sigismunda,   [Footnote 19]\nand wrote its preface, and the dedication to his patron the Count of\nLemos, while suffering under his final complaint, the dropsy, and\nhaving only a few day to live. From the preface to the Persiles he\nappears to have received extreme unction before the last word of it\nwas written. From the forgiving, and patient, and tranquil spirit of\nhis writing, even when annoyed by much unkindness and injustice on the\npart of the Madrid coteries, from the spirit of religion and morality\nthat pervades his writings, and the care he appears to have taken to\nmeet his summons as a sincere Christian, we may reasonably hope that\nhis sorrows and troubles for time and eternity ended on 23d April,\n1616 the day on which a kindred spirit breathed his last at\nStratford-on-Avon.\n\n  [Footnote 19: It was published by his widow, Dona Catalina, la 1617.]\n\nAnd indeed in our meditations on the characteristics of the author and\nman in Cervantes, we have always mentally associated him with\nShakespeare and Sir Walter Scott. We find in all the same versatility\nof genius, the same grasp and breadth of intellect, the same gifts of\ngenial humor and the same largeness of sympathy. The life of Cervantes\nwill be always an interesting and edifying study in connexion with the\nliterature and the great events of his time. We find him\nconscientiously doing his duty in every phase of his diversified\nexistence, and effecting all the good in his power. When he feels the\nneed of filling a very disagreeable office in order to afford\nnecessary support to his family, he bends the stubborn pride of the\nhidalgo to his irksome duties--and it is not easy for us to realize\nthe rigidity of that quality which he inherited by birth, and which\nbecame a second nature in every gentleman of his nation. In advanced\nyears he still vigorously exerts his faculties, and endures privations\nand disappointments in a resigned and patient spirit; and when\ncomplaints are wrung from him they are neither bitter nor ill-natured.\nEven his harmless vanity has something amiable and cordial about it.\nWhen he has just reached his sixtieth year he effects a salutary\nrevolution in the corrupt literary taste of his countrymen and\ncountrywomen, and save a few coarse expressions separable from the\nliterature of his day, a deathbed examination would have found few\npassages in his numerous writings which it would be desirous to find\nomitted. He closed an anxious and industrious life by a Christian\ndeath.\n\n\n\nNOTE.\n\nTowards the end of Cervantes' life he belonged to the third order of\nTrinitarian monks, and was buried in their church with his face\nuncovered. These brothers having quitted their convent in 1633, the\nsite of the interment could not be discovered when a search was\nafterwards made. The house he occupied in Madrid being pulled down\nabout twenty years since, his bust has been placed in a niche in front\nof the new building.\n\n------\n\n{29}\n\n\nSILENT GRIEF.\n\n\n  You bid me raise my voice,\n             And pray\n  For tears; but yet this choice\n  Resteth not with me. Too much grief\n  Taketh the tears and words that give relief\n             Away:\n  Though I weep not, silent and apart,\n        Weeps and prays my heart\n\n  You like not this dead, calm,\n            Cold face.\n  So still, unmoved, I am.\n  You think that dark despair begins\n  To brood upon me for my many sins'\n            Disgrace:\n  Not so; within, silent and apart,\n       Hopes and trusts my heart.\n\n  Down underneath the waves\n          Concealed\n  Lie in unfathomed graves\n  A thousand wrecks, storm never yet--\n  That did the upper surface madly fret--\n            Revealed.\n  Wreck'd loves lie deep; tears, with all their art,\n       Ne'er could show my heart.\n\n  Complaint I utter not.\n            I know\n  That He who cast my lot,\n  In silence also bore His cross.\n  Nor counted lack of words or tears a loss\n            In woe.\n  Alone with Him, silent and apart,\n        Weeps and prays my heart.\n\n--------\n\n{30}\n\nOriginal.\n\nTHE GODFREY FAMILY;\nOR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\nMR. GODFREY AND HIS FAMILY.\n\nAbout the time the events of the era 1792 were creating a panic\nthroughout the European world, an English gentleman sat at breakfast\nwith his wife and children in a noble mansion on the south eastern\ncoast of his native island. The newspaper was unfolded with more than\nusual interest, for the Honorable Mr. Godfrey's sister had married a\nFrench nobleman, and the daily accounts from France struck every day\nnew terror to the heart of this gentleman. Until now, he had been what\nis termed a liberal in his politics, and, alas! an unbeliever in his\nreligion, and had prided himself on bringing up his family free from\nall bigotry and superstition; he had kept up correspondence with men\nof science all over the world, and fondly hoped that the reign of\nintellect \"would emancipate the world from evil.\" His children had\nbeen brought up under all these influences, and thus far with success\nto his scheme. Accustomed from infancy to refinement, elegance,\ndomestic happiness, and intellectual culture, these young people felt\nthat in their case goodness and happiness were synonymous. All that\nwas beautiful they loved, for they had cultivated tastes; all that was\nnoble in sentiment they admired, for their father prided himself, and\ntaught them to pride themselves, on their noble ancestry, whose deeds\nof daring and renown he was never weary of recounting. Fame, honor,\nand glory were their idols. Brought up among such genial influences as\nfoster agreeable manners and bring out the most lovable of earth's\ndispositions, together with an intellectual expression of beauty, and\na poetic appreciation of nature's charms, it was little wonder that\nthey mistook strong impulses for principle, thought themselves firm in\nintegrity of purpose, and were disposed fearlessly to launch their\nvessel on the ocean of life, secure that intelligence and high aims\nwould guard them for ever against shipwreck. But now a change seemed\npending. The fear engendered by the French Revolution had somewhat\nrevolutionized Mr. Godfrey's mind, he was becoming more cautious in\nhis theories, and more morose in his temper than he had ever been\nbefore. His wife hesitated ere she asked: \"Any news of the countess\nto-day?\"\n\n\"No; though affairs are getting more desperate every hour. Would she\nand the count were safe in England.\"\n\n\"But, in that case, their estates, would be confiscated, would they\nnot?\"\n\nMr. Godfrey rose uneasily and paced the room. \"What is the world\ncoming to?\" he said.\n\nA loud ring at the outer gate prevented reply; it was early for\nvisitors at the front entrance. They paused, and listened; soon a\nservant announced \"M. de Villeneuve.\"\n\n\"M. de Villeneuve! why, what can bring him here? Where have you shown\nhim to?\"\n\n\"He is in the library, sir.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey hastened to receive his visitor. \"I thought you were in\nAmerica,\" he said, after the first greetings were over.\n\n\"I went back to France to finish arranging some affairs for my father;\n{31} and well for me that they were settled before these scenes of\nblood had crazed the populace, or we should have lost everything.\"\n\n\"And now------\"\n\n\"Now, everything of ours has been favorably disposed of, and my father\nand his family are settled in America without loss of property; my\nfather is delighted at the prospects of the new world, where every man\nis to be EQUAL before the laws; you know he is an enthusiast.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it is an untried experiment yet, and France is presenting a\nvery fearful spectacle at this moment in endeavoring to follow in the\ntrack.\"\n\n\"It is of that I came to speak to you. You have relations there?\"\n\n\"My sister--do you know anything about her?\"\n\n\"I and some other friends brought her and her husband's daughter\nacross the Channel last night.\"\n\n\"Last night! across the Channel! And her husband----\"\n\n\"Has perished by the guillotine!\"\n\n\"Great God!\" Mr. Godfrey hid his face in his hands. \"My poor sister!\nhow did she bear it? where is she? how did you come?\"\n\n\"We came over in an open fishing boat--the Countess de Meglior,\nEuphrasie, the priest of the old chateau, and myself; it was all we\ncould do to escape detection. I, of course, passed unnoticed, as an\nAmerican citizen; but the Countess of Euphrasie and M. Bertolot had to\ndisguise themselves and to suffer many hardships. The countess now\nlies ill in the little inn at New Haven; she sent me on to tell you of\nher situation.\"\n\n\"My poor sister! My poor sister! Has she lost all?\"\n\n\"Nearly so. The estate is confiscated, and save a little money and a\nfew jewels she was able to save nothing; indeed she was too much\nterrified to think. Mademoiselle de Meglior had been sent for on the\nfirst alarm from the south of France, where she had been educated; she\narrived in time to throw herself into her father's arms as the\nofficers were taking him from his house; and in less than a week he\nwas no more. Secret intimation was sent to the countess that she and\nher daughter were both denounced, and they fled, as I have told you.\"\n\nTo hasten to his sister's aid was, of course, the first thing to be\nthought of. It was some days before the countess was sufficiently\nrecovered to be able to be removed to her brother's house; and even\nafter removal she was for a long time confined to her room.\n\nEuphrasie, her step-daughter, tended her most assiduously, but the\npoor lady could scarcely be comforted. To have, lost everything at\nonce--husband, estate, wealth, power, and position, and to be reduced\nto depend upon a brother's bounty--it was not wonderful that she\nshould feel her situation acutely. She had lived exclusively for this\nworld's honors; every duty of domestic life had given place to her\nlove of the court and its pleasures. Euphrasie, brought up at the\nconvent and under the guardianship of her paternal grandmother, was\nalmost as much a stranger to her as the nieces to whom she was now\nnewly introduced.\n\n. . . . . .\n\nIt was a long time ere the Countess de Meglior rallied sufficiently to\nappear in the drawing-room of the mansion, and meantime her\nstep-daughter, Euphrasie, was simply her slave. Madame never\nconsidered her welfare, or seemed to think she was in any way\nconcerned in the misfortune that bad overtaken them; yet never,\nperhaps, was a child more fondly attached to a father than had been\nour heroine. Although since the death of her own mother she had for\nthe most part resided away from him, yet her father's frequent visits\nto his ancestral chateau, and the still more frequent correspondence\nwith his mother and daughter, had kept up a warm interest. At the\ndeath of her grandmother she had received her education at a\nneighboring convent, for her step-mother {32} declined taking charge\nof her. She was summoned home at last in consequence of the troubles\nof the times; arrived in time to be torn by force from the arms of her\nfather, into which she had thrown herself; passed days of agonizing\nsuspense, which were terminated only by hearing of his death.\n\nParis was no longer safe; advertised of her own proscription, Madame\nde Meglior, almost in a state of frenzy, excepted the kind offices of\nM. de Villeneuve, and, with the old family chaplain, had fled the\ncountry, taking with her Euphrasie, with whom she so suddenly became\naware she was connected, though a stranger alike to her character and\ndisposition.\n\nEuphrasie, though overwhelmed by the blow, was constrained to hide her\nown emotions, the better to console one who seemed so inconsolable as\nthe countess, her step-mother. Truly, the poor girl did feel she was\nas a stranger in a strange land. Until the storm broke forth which\ndrove the nuns from the convent, and let infidelity and irreligion\nlike \"the dogs of war\" loose over the fated kingdom, Euphrasie had\ndwelt in happy ignorance of all grosser evil, and with light and merry\nheart, chastened by earnest piety, pursued her innocent way; but\nsuddenly awakened by such horrors to the knowledge of crime, vice, and\ntheir concomitant miseries, she shrank from entering into a world\nwhich contrasted with the abode she had left, seemed to her\nover-excited imagination filled with mysterious terrors, and fraught\nwith indescribable dangers.\n\nShe met, then, the advances of her entertainers with constraint; kept\nthe young people absolutely at a distance, and would more willingly\nshut herself up in the apartment of her peevish, unloving stet-mother,\nto whom she manifested the affection and paid the respect of a\ndaughter, than join with Adelaide or Annie either in study or\namusement.\n\nAdelaide, the eldest daughter of Mr. Godfrey's family, was within two\nmonths of her eighteenth year--Eugene, the only son and heir, was then\nsixteen--while her sister Annie was but a year younger; and the merry,\nlaughing Hester had scarcely counted thirteen years. With the\ncompassionate eagerness of youth they crowded round Euphrasie, whom\nthey persisted in saluting as \"cousin,\" and were not a little\nchagrined to find their advances met in so chilling a manner; they\nspared no pains to distract her from her moodiness, or hauteur, or\nill-temper, or whatever it might be, that made her so different from\nthemselves. Yet moodiness it scarcely could be, for the young French\ngirl was cheerful in society, so far as the expression of her\ncountenance went; and when surprised in solitude, a calm serenity sat\non her youthful brow, and she bore the ill-temper of the countess with\nwonderful sweetness; her mother's impatience, indeed, seemed but to\nincrease her patience, and the harshness she underwent served but to\nmake her more gentle. She was a mystery to her animated young friends,\nwho, loving a life of excitement and intellectual progress, could not\nunderstand how Euphrasie could exist in so stupid and monotonous a\ncourse.\n\nYet was the young French girl far from being deficient in those\nbranches of accomplishments which are especially feminine. She played\nand sang with taste and feeling, but I the airs were generally of a\nsolemn character. She loved, also, to exercise her pencil, but it was\nto delineate the head of the thorn-crowned Saviour, of the penitent\nMagdalene, or of, \"Mary, highly favored among women.\" Earthly subjects\nand earthly thoughts had no attraction for her, yet there were moments\nwhen, as if unconsciously, she gave utterance to fancies which\nstartled her young companions. She would walk with them by the\nsounding shore, and while they were busy gathering and classifying\nshells and sea-weed and geological specimens, she, too, would seem to\nstudy' and listen and learn a lesson, but a far {33} different lesson\nfrom the one they sought. The young ladies Godfrey were scientific,\nthough in a playful way; there was aim, object, utility, in short, in\nall their seekings. \"Knowledge is power,\" was the axiom of the family;\nand the members of it might fairly challenge the world for the\nconsistency with which they sought to carry that axiom into practice.\nBut Euphrasie would wonder and ponder, and philosophize unconsciously.\nShe did not decompose the fragments of the mighty rocks with acids as\nher young friends did; she did not classify and dissect the lovely\nflower; but she stood in mute wonderment at the base of the rocks, and\nheard their disquisitions on its strata having been once liquid and\ngradually consolidating, and said: \"What a wondrous history! what a\nsight for the angels to behold the atomic attraction forming the\nworlds grand order! A true theory of geology would be like a chapter\nof the _life of God_--a true revelation of his spirit to man.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Adelaide; \"science will yet and if superstition from the\nearth.\"\n\n\"Superstition!\" said Euphrasie. \"Yes! if superstition means false\nviews of God's relation to the human soul. True science is mystic, and\nmust reveal God interiorly; but true science can scarcely be attained\nby guesses or dissection. You destroy a beauteous flower by pulling it\nto pieces, but I do not see how its separate petals and crushed leaves\ncan speak so plainly to the soul as the living plant on the stem, or\nhow your anatomy is a revelation.\"\n\n\"Nay, we discern the uses of the different parts thereby, and admire\nthe structure, seeing how each organ fulfils its office duly, in\nminuteness as in grandeur.\"\n\n\"But your long words,\" said Euphrasie; \"do they too reveal God? To me\nthey hide him in a cloud of dust. I feel the order, I love the beauty,\nI am elevated by the grandeur of creation, because nature is a\nmetaphor in which God hides himself and reveals himself at once, but I\ndistrust a mere human key. How can we be sure of systems, unless we\nspend a life in verification? Did not Pythagoras teach astronomy in\nthe Copernican fashion? and yet the world did not receive the teaching\ntill centuries after. The world receives the theory of Copernicus now\non trust; would it be wise to spend a life in verifying it?\"\n\n\"Have you any other key?\" asked Annie.\n\n\"There is a key to the lesson which nature teaches,\" said Euphrasie,\nin a low tone; \"but not so much as to its formation as to its being a\nmanifestation of God. We must not speak of these things; they are too\nhigh for us.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Eugene; \"they are the very things to speak about,\nespecially if, as you say, they lead to higher things; my idea of\nscience is utility. The old Magian astrologers, the Chaldean sages and\nEastern sophists, studied cloudy myths and wrapped up their theories\nin a veil of obscurity; but the modern idea is usefulness; an\nabridgment of man's toil, and promotion of his comfort. Do you reject\nall human research?\"\n\n\"I reject nothing that God has given,\" said Euphrasie; \"but truth is\none, error is many. The science first to be taught, is how to discover\ntruth--the next, how to apply it. You say the ancients applied\nscience to other purposes than we; if they applied it to learn the\nqualities of their own souls, and we apply it to the comfort of our\nbodies merely, which is the highest object?\"\n\n\"What, then, would you do?\" said Adelaide, a little impatiently; \"shut\nup our books, and sit and dream on the sea-shore on matters beyond all\npractical use?\"\n\nEuphrasie answered very gently, as she rose to walk to the seaside, \"I\nam not a teacher, _ma cher cousine_, but I think mind has its laws as\nwell as matter, and as on the government of our minds so much depends,\neven in {34} our researches after material knowledge, it is likely\nthat the science of mind is more important than that of matter, and\nnecessary for the truth-seeker to study first. But I am getting quite\nout of my depth; let us go and throw pebbles into the sea.\"\n\n. . . . . .\n\nMrs. Godfrey was a kind-hearted and very reasonable woman, in the way\nin which she understood reasoning. She was bent on rousing her young\ninmate to energy and action. She was but a _girl_, she said--a girl of\nseventeen could not have been so spoiled by the insipidities of a\nconvent as to be beyond reclaiming for the tangible world surrounding\nher; or was it that her thoughts were with the dead, and that the deep\nsorrow she had undergone had penetrated to the depths of her being?\nWhatever the cause, Mrs. Godfrey was dissatisfied with the result, and\nher motherly warmth of heart yearned to comfort the young orphan in\nher desolation. She let a few weeks pass away in hopes of witnessing a\nchange, but when none came, or seemed likely to come, she thought it\nher duty to remonstrate with Euphrasie, the more so as the countess\nbeing now recovered sufficiently to join the family circle, Euphrasie\nhad no plausible excuse for passing hours together in the solitude of\nher own chamber.\n\n\"It is not good for you, my dear, to be so much alone,\" said Mrs.\nGodfrey to her, as one day she intruded on the young girl's privacy.\n\"Rouse your energies to some good purpose, and employ your mind in\nsome definite pursuit; it is very injurious, I assure you, to let your\nfaculties lie dormant so long.\"\n\nEuphrasie laid aside the embroidery on which she had been employed,\nand answered meekly, \"What shall I do to please you, my dear madam?\"\n\n\"Why, exercise your mental faculties--study.\"\n\n\"I am most willing to do so, madam; but what shall I begin?\"\n\n\"Why, languages if you will; but you know enough of these, perhaps;\nyour own language and that of this country may content you. Or will\nyou study German and Italian?\"\n\n\"I will, if you wish it, though I confess I have no great inclination.\nIt seems to me as if to learn different names for the same thing were\nnot very profitable; and unless I had occasion to visit the countries\nin which these languages are spoken, I think it would be time thrown\naway.\"\n\n\"How time thrown away? Could you not read the literature of the\nlanguages? That will expand your mind.\"\n\n\"Literature? Do you mean poetry and fiction--such as your daughters\nread? I do not care for them. I want to study truth.\"\n\n\"Truth? Yes, but fiction may be covert truth. Tales show us mankind as\nthey are. Literature has a refining tendency, and gives us elegance of\ntaste.\"\n\n\"I should defer to your opinion, madam,\" replied Euphrasie, with a\nresigned air; \"and when you wish, I will begin.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mrs. Godfrey, \"but not as a punishment; it is as a source\nof attraction, of interest, that I wish you to cultivate literary\ntastes.\"\n\n\"I cannot feel interest, madam, in that which will unfit me for my\nduty.\"\n\n\"Unfit you for your duty! what do you mean?\"\n\n\"Pray, madam, pardon me; I, of course, defer to you.\"\n\n\"I want no deference, child, save what your reason gives. Explain your\nmeaning.\"\n\n\"I only mean, dear madam, that too much refinement and elegance might\nmake us forget our inherent weakness; teach us to set too high a value\non exterior accomplishments, and to forget the tendency to sin ever\nabiding within us.\"\n\n\"The girl is raving! Now, Euphrasie, do you honestly believe in the\ncorruption of your heart?\"\n\n{35}\n\n\"I know I am prone to evil in many ways, and that I must keep a\nconstant watch over all my dispositions. I suppose I do not know the\nextent of evil in my own heart--that were a rare grace, vouchsafed to\nfew--but I see nothing in myself to lead me to suppose that I am\nnaturally better than the men who murdered my father.\"\n\n\"Do you feel disposed to murder, then?\"\n\n\"No; but the very indignation I often feel at their crimes teaches me\nnot to trust myself. Did we give way to our passions, and had we\npower, who can tell what we should do? Nero showed good dispositions\nwhen he began his reign. Alfred the Great was a licentious youth till\nAlmighty God chastened him by adversity, and humbled him through life\nby inflicting him with an incurable disease, which kept him ever\nmindful of his former delinquencies.\"\n\n\"Do yon think that disease was a good to Alfred?\"\n\n\"Decidedly; it helped to keep him mindful of the ever-present Deity\nwhom his former life had offended, and probably prevented his\nrelapsing into sin.\"\n\n\"You foolish child! his disease was probably occasioned by the\nhardships he had undergone during his campaign; it was the natural\nconsequence to damp and wet and bad living. You must study science,\nEuphrasie; that will rid you of all these foolish notions.\"\n\n\"I will study what you please, madam,\" replied Euphrasie.\n\nBut Mrs. Godfrey's endeavors to make her young _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_ comprehend\nresults as _inevitable_ signally failed, to her own great\nastonishment. The girl pursued easily and willingly the course of\nstudy marked out for her; was somewhat amused by chemical and other\nexperiments, but could never be brought to declare them necessary\nresults in the absolute sense. \"The action of the same spirit that\nestablished these relationships\" said she \"might at will disturb them;\neven as the chemical relationship between two substances is disturbed\nby the presence of a third substance more potent in its affinities.\"\n\n\"What, then, is a natural law?\" demanded Mrs. Godfrey.\n\n\"A natural law,\" replied Euphrasie, \"is the ordinary mode in which\nDivine Providence causes one portion of insentient matter to act on\nanother portion of insentient matter.\"\n\nHer instructor would object to this. \"Nay, but there are natural laws\naffecting mind also.\"\n\n\"Doubtless,\" said Euphrasie, \"there are ordinary modes of acting upon\nmind, both by the action of matter and by the action of other minds;\nbut as the special object of this life is to reunite, to re-bind man\nto his Creator, supernatural means are ever at work to effect this\nobject, and of these we can predicate nothing certain.\"\n\n\"Supernatural nonsense, child--who put this precious style of\nreasoning into your head?\"\n\n\"Does not religion mean re-binding, madam? Was not man severed from\nGod by disobedience? Was not the whole spirit of religion, both before\nand since our Lord's advent, founded on the fact that the mercy of God\nwished to provide a remedy for that fatal act of Adam and Eve? And has\nnot insentient nature ever been made to depart from her ordinary\nrules, when such departure could forward the cause for which Christ\ndied?\"\n\nMrs. Godfrey was silenced. She did not wish to avow her scepticism and\ninfidelity, but in secret she rejoiced that her own children were free\nfrom such a bar to improvement.\n\nThe arrival of a box of books as a present to Euphrasie from M. de\nVilleneuve, who, in a note addressed to the countess, asked her\npermission \"to be allowed to present to the daughter of his departed\nfriend a few works which, he believed, would suit her taste, and which\nshe would be scarcely likely to find in Mr. Godfrey's library,\nvaluable as that library was in many respects,\" came to help the\nenemy's {36} cause in Mrs. Godfrey's view of the case, for among the\nworks were selections from St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, from Bede, St.\nThomas Aquinas, and others of the fathers of the church. \"I did not\nknow you read Latin, cousin,\" said the girls in surprise. \"Nor do I,\nexcept church Latin,\" said Euphrasie. \"I learnt church Latin on\npurpose to study these books, which my father had promised me as soon\nas I could read them. M. de Villeneuve must have heard of this promise\nfrom M. Bertolot. It was very kind in him to send them to me.\"\n\n\"I wonder you did not say 'it was a special providence',\" bantered\nAnnie; but Eugene looked at her beseechingly and reprovingly, so she\nsaid no more.\n\nIn spite of the new attraction, Euphrasie continued to study the\ncourse appointed by Mrs. Godfrey, but in learning thus there was so\nevidently a want of appreciation of the importance of the\nstudy--science seemed to her so very little higher than a game of ball\nwith a little child--that her instructors were fairly discomfited, and\ninclined to turn her over to the musty old fathers she had the bad\ntaste to prefer to their intelligent elucidations.\n\nThe young people, too, were annoyed, for they could not attribute to\nstupidity the indifference she manifested, and that indifference\nseemed felt as a tacit reproach of their own eagerness.\n\n\"She is not only not stupid,\"' said Adelaide, the oldest of the girls;\n\"she is absolutely clever; she intuitively comprehends what it takes\nme hours to make out. I began to explain algebra to her, and before a\nmonth was up, she knew more of it than I did myself; and when I spoke\nto her of this new discovery of locomotive power, which has taken us\nso long fully to comprehend, she gave me what she calls the course of\nthe ordinary sequences of matter, in proof that the invention must\nsucceed, if this course of sequences be properly applied; and that\nthen we may travel without horses as fast as we can reasonably wish;\n'but,' she added, 'it will be worth no one's while to perfect such an\ninvention, for, travel as fast as we may, we cannot run away from\nourselves by any material means.'\"\n\n\"She is a monomaniac,\" said Mr. Godfrey; \"sensible on all points but\none.\"\n\n\"Unless,\" urged Eugene, \"it be true, as she once said, that there is\nhigher science than the science of matter, and that that science is\nthe necessary one for us to study.\"\n\n\"_Et tu, Brute_,\" shouted the father indignantly. \"Now, children, let\nus have no such trash in my own family. Pity your young friend, and\nwithhold your censure. Remember, she was brought up in superstition\nand ignorance. It cannot be expected that her mind should awaken at\nonce to the beauty of the physical law. But for yourselves, after the\npains that have been taken to keep your minds unfettered by the\ntrammels of superstition, it were a disgrace indeed to see you yield\nto any such worn-out fancies. The close of the eighteenth century must\nwitness higher thoughts.\"\n\n\"The close of the eighteenth century has witnessed terrific doings\nover the water,\" said Eugene.\n\n\"Yes, and see there the effects of superstition,\" answered his father.\n\"Had those poor wretches been taught an enlightened philosophy instead\nof an abject superstition, the reaction would not have produced such\nawful results.\"\n\n\"Do you then believe, father, that when Euphrasie throws off her\nreligion, she will become such as these men are?\"\n\n\"No; Euphrasie is better educated already, even from her intercourse\nwith us; besides, she is refined and elegant.\"\n\n\"But so they say is Robespierre. A Frenchman, and one not friendly to\nhim, said to me the other day that his house is the very picture of\nsimple elegance. Besides, the Roman emperors were excessive in their\nluxurious magnificence at the very time they {37} were murdering by\nwholesale. Nero sang to his lyre the Siege of Troy while Rome was\nburning. What if it were true that he set the city on fire merely to\nrevel in the luxury of a new sensation, and to realize the emotion he\ndeemed he ought to feel at such a catastrophe?\"\n\n\"Why, Eugene,\" said Hester, laughing, \"you, too, are growing\nmetaphysical. What will come next?\"\n\n\"Why, next we will inquire how far metaphysics are true when they\nteach that mental sensation and moral power are distinct from each\nother, and that a man may be consequently imaginatively great--capable\nof every grand mental sensation--and be morally weak; nay, the very\nslave of his lowest propensities. We have many examples of this.\"\n\n\"So says Euphrasie; and therefore she insists that what we call mental\nculture is at best but of secondary value, well enough as an assistant\nagent, but not to be considered as a principal means in attaining the\nultimatum of life.\"\n\n\"Euphrasie is a simpleton,\" said Mr. Godfrey.\n\nEugene rose to quit the room. He was considering within himself\nwhether Euphrasie were not in the right.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE EARTHLY UTOPIA, AND THE LOST EMPIRE.\n\nIn a little country town where society is scarce, it often happens\nthat people associate together whose rank is dissimilar, for the mere\nsake of relieving ennui of solitude. Thus in Estcourt a half-pay\ncaptain, his wife, the clergyman and his family, the lawyer, the\ndoctor, and their incumbrances, were occasionally admitted as visitors\nto Estcourt Hall, as Mr. Godfrey's residence was called; and here,\nthough somewhat restrained by being found in such aristocratic\nsociety, opinions were sometimes broached which plainly manifested\nthat \"the spirit of the time\" was working even in that remote\ndistrict.\n\nSt. Simon, Fourrier, Owen, had not then developed the social system\nwhich is now endeavoring to sap the foundations of all that antiquity\nheld in solemn reverence; but the principles of socialism to which\nthese men afterwards gave a \"shape\" were even then fermenting in the\nminds of many. Disturbed spirits were questioning the rights of landed\nproprietors, while the sudden introduction of machinery was raising a\nfaction among the displaced artisans. Ominous signs were visible on\nthe political horizon, and perhaps an English \"reign of terror,\" that\nwould have vied in horror with that of France, would have been\ninaugurated, had not the threatened invasion of the island by Napoleon\nunited all classes anew to repel the foreign foe.\n\nCertain it is that, early in the nineteenth century, it was found\nnecessary to have government agents in many a petty country town in\nEngland to watch the progress of disaffection, and five or six\nshopkeepers could hardly assemble together without the fact being\nrecorded, and inquiries set on foot respecting the purport of their\nmeeting. Rebellious spirits were mysteriously _pressed_ to man the\nroyal navy, and the magistrates not only connived at such kidnapping,\nbut frequently designated the individuals whom it was desirable to\nremove.\n\nThis process, comparatively easy when it concerned apprentices,\njourneymen, or those belonging to the laboring population, could not\nbe brought to bear upon obnoxious members of the gentry with equal\nfacility. Now, Alfred Brookbank was one of these. His father was\nrector of Estcourt, and, independently of his living, was proprietor\nof a pretty landed estate, the whole of which by right of\nprimogeniture was to fall to the eldest eon, a careless, unprincipled\nprodigal, who had already involved his family in pecuniary\nembarrassment {38} by his reckless expenditure, and brought disgrace\non his father's cloth by his loose morality.\n\nHis brother Alfred was the reverse of this--astute, aspiring,\nambitious, he was smitten with the prevailing mania, and at times\ntalked loudly of the folly and injustice of sacrificing the interests\nof a whole family to one selfish fool. The girls, too, whose fortunes\nhad been injured by the elder brother's extravagance, lent no\nunwilling ear to the doctrine of equal participation of property.\n\nAlfred Brookbank was gifted with an eloquent tongue, an insinuating\nmanner, and a gentlemanly deportment. His figure was good, and his\nfeatures, without being handsome, were agreeable from their animated\nexpression. He was a general favorite; and being prudent enough to\navoid the expression of his opinions before the elder branches of the\nfamily, it was seldom that he was suspected of spreading sedition and\ndisaffection among the young.\n\nOf Mr. Godfrey's three daughters, the second one, Annie, was, at this\nperiod of our tale, by far the most susceptible of these novel ideas.\nShe professed that she would follow truth wherever it should lead her,\neven though it involved the relinquishment of her own superior rank in\nsociety. Mr. Godfrey only laughed at such protestations from a girl of\nseventeen, well knowing they would not stand the test of experience;\nbut however harmless might be her sallies, he had not calculated on\none result of freedom of opinion; Annie began to take pleasure in\nAlfred Brookbank's attentions, and to feel flattered when he\nexpatiated to her on the beauty of such a system of co-operative\nindustry as would banish vice and misery from the globe and renew the\ngolden era.\n\n\"Is it to be wondered at,\" said Alfred, \"that revolutions take place\nin blood, when property is so unequally divided? nay, when oftentimes\nthe property is in the possession of the fool, while the wise man has\nto get his living by hard labor? Look at the _rationale_ of the thing!\nOne man holds wealth, as it is called, and on the strength of it he\nmust compel fifty men to work for him, while be fives at his ease--the\nroasted pigeons flying into his mouth, crying, 'come eat me!'\"\n\n\"But some one must work,\" argued Annie.\n\n\"You mean to say,\" replied Alfred, \"that food most be raised and\nclothing furnished. True. But how many are employed in really useful\nlabor, compared with those whose occupations might be dispensed with\nwithout loss to society, and those who are mere appendages of\nwealth--mere creatures of idleness--men who, by forestalling their\nmaster's wants, make _him_ dependent on themselves; who, by\nsurrounding him with luxuries, effeminate him; and who, by pandering\nto his pleasures, surfeit him, at the same time that by doing these\nthings they degrade themselves; for why should one man be a mere\nappendage to another?\"\n\n\"But if all must work,\" said Annie, \"all cannot work in the same way.\nWe most have hewers of wood and drawers of water, as well as poets and\nphilosophers. A community needs a head, as well as hands and feet.\nSuppose you were elected head of a community, you would need servants\nto do the manual labor?\"\n\n\"True, but I would not badge them for it,\" answered Alfred, glancing\nat the liveried servants, who were then bringing in refreshments. \"All\nmen must work for the common weal; therefore, all labor is honorable;\nand no man need lord it over another, as if himself were made of\nporcelain, and the other of earthenware. An American philosopher has\nlately calculated that in order to supply the world with necessaries,\nif each grown individual were to work four hours a day, the whole\npopulation of the world might be far better provided for than it is\nnow.\"\n\n\"And what would they do with their spare time?\" asked Annie.\n\n{39}\n\n\"What but improve their minds, and employ their energies in loftier\nlabors--what but grow out of the drudge into the man! Oh! we have yet\nto learn the wonders that are to be achieved by a well-regulated\ncommunity. Men are scarcely men yet. Half of them are slaves to the\nmere bread-winning to support their bodies, and the other half are\nseeking phantoms--they are trying to find pleasure in lording it over\ntheir fellows, or they are driven to excess by the mere necessity of\npassing away time. It is an unfair position to place a man in, to set\nhim above that reciprocal dependence which binds man to man as equals.\nIt is a practical injustice to individuals to sever them thus from\ntheir kind, and prevent their feeling their brotherhood.\" Alfred\ncontinued, warming with his subject:\n\n  \"There are, deep seated in the human heart,\n  A thousand thrilling, yearning sympathies--\n  A thousand ties that bind us to our kind--\n  A thousand pleasures only there enjoyed\n  In cheering intercourse with fellow-man.\n  'Tis thus the voice of nature speaks aloud,\n  Proclaims from pole to pole the heav'n-born truth:\n  'Ye are the children of one only God.\n  Learn to acknowledge your fraternity.'\n\nI think you have not seen my poem on Human Brotherhood, Miss Annie?\"\n\n\"I have not, but to judge from the specimen you have just quoted, I\nshould like very much to read it. These truths seem so evident now, it\nis wonderful they have not been discovered before.\"\n\n\"They have been discovered, though not acted on. The fact is that\nmen's minds have been so trammelled with superstition, they have been\nafraid to tread out of the beaten track. They have been afraid to\nreason, I scarce know why, even on their own grounds. Yet matters are\nmending in this respect. I was present the other day when an indignant\norator thus addressed his audience:\n\nShall he, the Author of life and light, who has given to man, as the\nreward of the use of reason, the power of traversing the trackless\ndeep, and of drawing down the lightning innocuous from the\nskies--shall he deny to his creature the privilege of using his own\ngift on themes that more immediately concern man's happiness? Oh no!\nbelieve it not! Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,\nand cometh down from the Father of light, with whom is no\nvariableness, neither shadow of turning.' The audience he was\naddressing shouted applause; so you see the people's cause is\nprogressing, and even Scripture is called in to aid this desirable\nchange.\"\n\n\"I wish Euphrasie could hear you speak,\" said Annie; \"she might begin\nto believe that there is some good in human learning, and that it can\npromote true happiness. I must introduce you to her more particular\nacquaintance.\"\n\n\"No; if she is a votary of ignorance, pray don't. I dislike silly\nunideaed girls--they are the pest of society.\"\n\n\"But Euphrasie is neither; she is only original and opinionated. Ideas\nseem to grow with her indigenously; for no one can tell how she gets\nthem; but they are very crude, and directly contrary to the spirit of\nprogression. I wish you would convert her.\"\n\n\"I doubt it would be difficult, and, to say the truth, I do not wish\nto attempt it. She is not my taste at all. I prefer animation, zeal,\nsympathy. She looks like a marble statue of Contemplation; well enough\nin its way, but possessing no interest for me, who am all for\npractical life.\"\n\n\"Euphrasie is a great thinker, and thought aids practice. You had\nbetter enlist her on your side; for there is no saying how much she\nmight assist you, if once she could be brought to see how happy a\nparadise you have planned for the human race.\"\n\nBut Alfred was by no means anxious for this. He evidently felt that\nEuphrasie would not listen to him. Perhaps he feared that she would\nset Annie against himself, and mar his own schemes in her regard; {40}\nfor different as was their rank in life, and improbable as it was that\nMr. Godfrey should condescend to ally himself with aught save the high\naristocracy, this young man intended, if possible, to secure an\ninterest in Annie's affections. Not that he loved her; his self-love\nwas so absorbing that it was almost impossible for him to love any one\nsave himself; but he thought such an alliance would forward his\nambitious projects, and enable him to begin life under favorable\nauspices.\n\nAnnie had no idea whatever beyond the amusement of the passing hour,\nand was more intent just now on making a convert of the young refugee\nthan in paying regard to the homage tendered her by Alfred. Euphrasie\nwas a difficult subject to deal with; but there are some minds to whom\ndifficulty is an incentive.\n\nShe was one day sitting in the library with Eugene, intent in\ndepicting on canvas the glories of the \"Golden Era.\" Euphrasie\nentered, and sat down to some work. Annie called to her:\n\n\"Now, my dear Euphrasie, come to me. You are a judge of painting; tell\nme what you think of my picture.\"\n\nEuphrasie drew near. \"It is very pretty,\" she said, \"but what does it\nrepresent? Those peasants resting under the fig-trees, those\nvine-dressers plucking the beautiful grapes, have very graceful\nfigures, and most happy and intelligent faces; but what do they belong\nto?\"\n\n\"To the new Utopia,\" said Annie, \"where all are intelligent and\nbeautiful, and where discord enters not.\"\n\nEuphrasie looked dreamily in Annie's face, and said doubtingly:\n\"Heaven? This is no picture of heaven.\"\n\n\"No; it is an earthly paradise, _ma ch\u00e8re amie_. One need not die in\norder to enjoy it,\" laughingly rejoined Annie.\n\n\"Oh! a fancy piece,\" said Euphrasie; \"well, it is very pretty, but I\nam no judge of fiction;\" and she sat down.\n\n\"Fiction or not, I cannot let you off so,\" said Annie; \"do you not\nthink it would be very pleasant to dwell with a goodly number of\nintelligent people, each taking his own share of work, and aiding in\nmaking life happy--all good, all instructed and accomplished?\"\n\n\"Pleasant? Yes, very pleasant I have lived with such,\" said Euphrasie;\n\"but their happiness was of a very different kind to that which is\ndelineated here.\"\n\n\"You have lived with such! Where, in the name of wonder?\" asked Annie.\n\n\"In France,\" said Euphrasie.\n\n\"And what sort of happiness was theirs?\" asked Eugene, now thoroughly\nroused.\n\n\"I cannot tell you--that is, I could not make you understand. Excuse\nme,\" said Euphrasie, evidently sorry she had said so much.\n\n\"And why not? why could we not understand?\" asked brother and sister,\nboth in a breath.\n\n\"Because your principles are so different.\"\n\n\"Nay, then, explain the principles, _ma ch\u00e8re_. You have excited our\ncuriosity; you must gratify it now.\"\n\n\"Nay, I know not how. The principles belong to the interior life, and\non that I cannot speak.\"\n\n\"Why not? are you sworn to secrecy?\" asked Annie. Eugene looked his\nrequest for information, but spoke not.\n\n\"Not so,\" said Euphrasie; \"but, in the first place, I am no teacher;\nand, in the second, there are some subjects which can only be\napproached with reverence, and I am afraid--\" she hesitated.\n\n\"You are right, mademoiselle,\" said Eugene; \"we have too little\nreverence.\"\n\nEuphrasie looked distressed. But Annie broke in with--\"But we can be\nreverent, and we will be reverent when the case demands it. Tell us\nyour principles, dear Euphrasie.\"\n\n{41}\n\nThe young girl, with evident reluctance, said:\n\n\"My friends held that the soul had been originally endowed with power\nover the mental faculties, as also over the senses and the appetites\nof the body, and all inferior nature; and that that empire had been\nlost through man's fault. They believe that no lasting, no high\nenjoyment can be procured until that empire has been regained.\"\n\n\"What kind of empire do you mean?\" said Annie.\n\n\"As thus,\" replied Euphrasie. \"We _will_ our foot to tread here or\nthere, and it obeys us. We _will_ our hands to grasp or to work, and\nit is done. But when we _will_ our feelings to be calm, or our\nappetites to keep within certain limits, they do not always obey. We\nresolve, and find that our resolutions fail. We determine, and do not\nact. When children, nay, when grown people, are taxed with doing\nwrong, they reply, 'I could not help it.' This is a confession of\nfailure in self-government, or, as might be said, a proof of empire\nlost.\"\n\n\"That is, supposing it admitted such empire once existed. But do you\nseriously think that perfect self-government may be acquired, or, as\nyou say, regained?\"\n\n\"At least a near approach to it may, if the proper means are used.\"\n\n\"And those means?\"\n\n\"Are too serious for me to mention; besides, they are paradoxical in\nappearance; for, though impossible to mere humanity, they are\nnevertheless possible. But you must carry your inquiry to a better\nteacher than I am;\" and Euphrasie rose to depart.\n\n\"No; we have no other teacher near us, and I shall not let you go\nuntil you have told me what I want to know;\" and Annie laid her hand\nsomewhat forcibly on the young stranger's arm, and compelled her to\nreseat herself.\n\n\"Well, then,\" faltered out the poor girl, \"when the soul was in\npossession of its pristine empire, it had also the power of communion\nwith high spiritual intelligences--nay, with the highest--even with\nthe creative intelligence. The same fault that lost man the high\nempire over all inferior natures, and over his own appetites and\npassions, by disturbing the equilibrium which primarily existed in the\nhigher part of his soul, also severed the bond of that high spiritual\ncommunion; and that bond must be reunited ere the empire be restored\nto him. Man of himself cannot reunite that severed bond, nor can he be\nhappy without such reunion; because the higher part of man's soul was\ncreated for such high spiritual communion, and can no more be content\nwithout it than could our inferior senses without the gratification\nthey require. But what he cannot do will be done for him, if he\nprepare himself duly. He must build the altar of sacrifice, lay on the\nwood, prepare the victim. Fire from heaven will then descend for his\nenlightenment, for his purification, and more than he had lost may be\nregained.\"\n\n\"You speak oracularly, _ma belle amie_, but I want something more\ntangible yet. Tell me some of the practical rules observed by your\nfriends; may be I shall better understand your sybilline wisdom then.\"\n\nEuphrasie shook her head. \"They are too minute,\" she said. \"You might\neven think them childish.\" But Annie had not yet relaxed her grasp,\nand appeared determined to be satisfied; so Euphrasie continued:\n\"Nevertheless, if you will promise to let me go immediately after, I\nwill give you one of their rules of action.\"\n\n\"One, only one?\"\n\n\"One will be enough at a time. When you have solved one rule, it will\nbe the time to ask for more.\"\n\n\"Solved one rule? What do you mean by that?\"\n\n\"There is a body and a soul to every religious rule--the letter and\nthe spirit. Observance must be yielded to both. I can only give you\nthe body. God only can teach you to understand the spirit of it.\"\n\n{42}\n\n\"Well; proceed with your enigma.\"\n\n\"You promise to let me go, whether you understand it or not.\"\n\n\"Yes, provided the rule is practical,\" said Annie.\n\n\"Well, then,\" said Euphrasie, \"one reason that my friends were so\nhappy together--that though there were fifty of them, there was no\nquarrelling, no ill will, no envy--was, that they constantly\nendeavored, each one of them, to choose for herself the poorest\nthings; in her diet, the poorest fare; in her clothes, the coarsest\nhabit; in her employment, the most humbling functions.\"\n\n\"Impossible!\" said Annie. \"Stay, cousin!\" But Euphrasie had already\nmade her escape, and her reluctance to dwell on these subjects in that\npresence was so evident that Annie did not choose to pursue her, and\nshe was left to conjecture whether the young French girl had been\nplaying on her credulity or not. The mere fact that fifty ladies had\nbeen guided practically by such a principle as that given, was clearly\nbeyond her belief. Not so, however, did Eugene decide. His interest in\ntheir young and mysterious inmate was ever on the increase. Each word\nshe uttered was gathered up as food for thought. The ideas were new to\nhim, and, not only so, they were contrary to those in which he had\nbeen educated, and he had but a faint glimmering of their meaning. Yet\nthey worked strangely within him, and fain would he have sought\nexplanation from that pale sybil, but that for to-day she had\nforbidden it.\n\nWhen Annie also had left the apartment, he walked up and down in deep\nthought repeating to himself:\n\n\"Man has lost the empire over himself and over inferior nature.\"\n\n\"Man has lost the power of high spiritual communion.\"\n\n\"_But these may be regained._\"\n\n\"If this be true, any privation or sacrifice may be undergone for\ntheir repossession; too small the price, whatever the cost. But then,\nhow can contentment with the meanest things, or filling the humblest\noffices, assist this conclusion? And this is but one rule; are the\nothers of a like fashion?\" The young man was fairly mystified; that\nthe oracle had emitted truth, he doubted not; but a clue to the\nmeaning of that truth was wanting, and where should he find that clue?\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE \"MARIAGE DE CONVENANCE.\"\n\nThere was a visible excitement in the house; even Mr. Godfrey, ever so\nsolemn, and latterly so inclined to severity, put on a cheerful\nappearance; people outside the family were _guessing_ at the cause.\nFor a long time, guessing was the only thing they could do; even\nMadame de Meglior was not in the secret until one morning she received\na letter from M. de Villeneuve, which appeared to contain some news,\nfor she said to Mr. Godfrey, who happened to be the only one present:\n\"Brother, can this be true?\"\n\n\"Can what be true, my good sister?\" was the question returned.\n\n\"That the Duke of Durimond is coming here to marry Adelaide?\"\n\n\"Why should it not be true?\"\n\n\"Why, the duke is an old man!\"\n\n\"Not at all; he was quite young when he made proposals for Adelaide;\nsurely you remember them.\"\n\n\"Remember them! Do you mean the agreement you made at the\ndinner-table, when Adelaide was two years old.\"\n\n\"The agreement was made before, between his father and me; it was\nratified, then, by himself; he had just come of age.\"\n\n\"And that is sixteen years ago. Will you give Adelaide to a man of\nseven-and-thirty?'\n\n\"Why not, if she makes no objection?\"\n\n\"Has she ever seen him?\"\n\n{43}\n\n\"Yes, she saw him in town last winter; 'twas there he renewed his\noffer; but, in fact, we have always corresponded. The duke is fond of\nthe arts; 'twas he sent those fine pictures you admire so much.\"\n\n\"He can't know whether he likes Adelaide or not, and she never struck\nme as being in love all this time.\"\n\n\"Pshaw! The duke has proposed; Adelaide is satisfied. The marriage was\nagreed upon years ago; what would you have? I thought you' knew the\nworld by this time.\"\n\nThis was taking madame by her foible, so she said no more. Mrs.\nGodfrey was simply quiescent: she was not accustomed to oppose her\nhusband's will, and, incredible as it may seem, the young girl herself\noffered no objection to the marriage announced to her. To deck her\nbrow with a coronet had charms enough for the deeply fostered pride of\nthat young heart to induce her to forego the prospect of love,\nsympathy, and domestic happiness; she simply coveted rank and power.\nThe duke had immense revenues; he offered ample settlements: what\nmattered it that he was thirty-seven, and she but sweet eighteen?\nMarriages occurred every day in which the disparity was more glaring.\nWhat mattered it that she had scarcely seen the noble duke; that she\nknew little of his private life, or of his tastes and feelings? He was\na nobleman of high birth; he paid her courtly compliments, presented\nher with a magnificent casket of jewels; pleaded his long absence on\nthe Continent in excuse for his apparent want of attention to herself;\nand urged his long friendship and unbroken correspondence with her\nfather as a plea for hurrying on his happiness; and thus, almost\nunwooed, the fair Adelaide was won. Poor girl, the chief idea in her\nhead was that she should like to be a duchess; and thus both she and\nher father contrived to overlook the fact that but little allusion had\nbeen made to the proposed alliance in the sixteen years'\ncorrespondence on art and science that had been maintained between the\ngentlemen. The matter had been settled years ago. There was little\noccasion for the world to interfere, if the parties concerned were\nsatisfied. The father's scientific friend was necessarily a fitting\nhusband for the daughter. And so the preparations went forward. The\nhouse was filled for a time with dress-makers and bandboxes, and when\nthese were dismissed, there came guests to witness the bridal. Among\nthese was the Comte de Villeneuve, whom we have already introduced to\nour readers; a friend of both families was the comte, and had been a\nfriend too of the late Comte de Meglior. This made him welcome also to\nMadame de Meglior and Euphrasie; indeed he treated the latter with\ndistinguished attention, and she seemed more at her ease with him than\nwith any person at the Hall. M. de Villeneuve was thirty-five years of\nage, but good-looking and animated, and Madame de Meglior was in some\nslight degree uneasy at first at the evident friendship he evinced for\nEuphrasie, for she did not approve of disproportionate marriages, and\nshe thought Adelaide's example a bad one. Gradually, however, she\nbecame so absorbed in the duties imposed upon her by Mrs. Godfrey of\ndirecting the embellishments, that she forgot to look after the object\nof her solicitude in the subject which suited her better. Living as\nshe had been wont to do in the gay circles of Parisian exclusives, she\nwas regarded as a very oracle of fashion and elegance, and\nconsequently she willingly took the lead in planning the arrangements\nfor the bridal day.\n\nThe young people were in a puzzle, Annie especially. It was the first\nact of unblushing worldliness she had ever witnessed. She felt as if\nshe did not know the world she lived in. She looked at her mother;\nthere was no joy on her face; she looked at Adelaide; already the\nyoung girl had {44} assumed her rank; the calm hauteur, the majestic\npoliteness, with which she received her guests, astonished every one.\nAdelaide was born to command, every one felt it; none more so than\nAnnie, who had been so fondly attached to that sister from whom she\nfelt already severed.\n\n\"O Euphrasie!\" she said to her cousin, as they were walking together\nin the grounds that surrounded the house, \"you must be my sister when\nAdelaide is gone; it will be so dreary to have no one of my own age to\nlove and talk to; will you not try to love me?\"\n\n\"I love you already, dear; you must not talk in that way--how can I do\nother than love you?\"\n\n\"I was afraid you thought me a reprobate whom it was a sin to love.\"\nThis was said half playfully, but the tears started to Euphrasie's\neyes.\n\n\"You a reprobate! a sin to love you who have been so kind to the poor\norphan girl! O Annie! have I really been so ungrateful as to give you\nthis idea?\"\n\n\"No, dear, no! not so; but I seriously thought you deemed all human\nnature utterly depraved, and did not wish to form strong attachments\nwith those not of your creed.\"\n\n\"If human nature were utterly depraved, how could it hear the voice of\nGod in the soul? and if you here were utterly depraved, would you have\nopened your house and your heart to the wandering outcast?\"\n\n\"Then you do not think religion essential to goodness? How is that,\nthen?\"\n\n\"Man was made in the image of God, my dear Annie, and even his natural\nqualities bear witness to this, unless, indeed, he become utterly\ndepraved.\"\n\n\"You do not, then, exclude us from your heaven,\" said Annie, embracing\nher. \"I am so glad; you will be my friend and sister, Euphrasie.\"\n\nEuphrasie warmly returned the embrace, and said: \"I have no heaven to\nexclude you from, dear Annie, but if you wish for eternal bliss, you\nmust offer your natural qualities to him who alone can stamp eternity\nupon them.\"\n\n\"And how shall I do that, dear?\"\n\n\"Pray to God, and he will teach you.\"\n\n\"I would rather have your teaching just now; tell me, if you believe\nhuman nature to be good, what is meant by 'original sin,' as it\naffects us. I know the story of Adam and Eve, but not what it means.\"\n\n\"Adam was created with certain natural qualities, even as the inferior\nanimals were, adapted to the part he was to perform as lord of earth;\nthese qualities were good, nay, in Adam perfect. They are transmitted\nto us, shorn of their brightness by the fall, but still they are good,\nthough imperfect now. Natures differ in individuals, but some have\nvery high qualities, very lofty aspirations. Have you not noticed\nthis?\"\n\n\"Well, I used to think so, but--\"\n\n\"But what?\"\n\n\"No matter what; tell me, what are we to do with our high qualities\nmore than cultivate them, and act upon them?\"\n\n\"Bring them under supernatural action, that they may be purified,\nrefined, and stamped with the seal of immortal truth.\"\n\n\"Is this your religion?\"\n\n\"I know no other.\"\n\nThe approach of M. de Villeneuve, who was gathering flowers for Hester\nto make into bouquets, prevented further conversation. The merry girl\nwas making garlands, and flung them round Euphrasie and Annie as they\napproached. \"Now sit down here,\" she said, \"and I will crown you both\nas victims to the sacrifice. M. de Villeneuve shall be the priest.\nWhat deity will you offer these victims to, monsieur? They are ready\nbound.\"\n\n{45}\n\n\"That is a serious question; we must take time to consider, and\nluckily here comes Eugene to solve the question for us. What divinity\nrules here, young man? your sister wants to offer up these two victims\nto the genius of the place.\"\n\n\"Indeed, it were difficult to say; ours is a pantheistic worship just\nnow, and we will defer the rite until we know what star is in the\nascendant. What beautiful ceremonies those old worshippers used to\nhave! We might raise an altar to Flora, I think, just to use to\nadvantage Hester's flowers.\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle Euphrasie would find a use for your flowers, without\ngoing to a heathen goddess,\" said M. de Villeneuve. \"All beauty\nsymbolizes good with her, and all nature reveals some truth.\"\n\n\"What a splendid idea, monsieur!\" said Annie. \"How did you know that\nit was Euphrasie's? did she tell you so?\"\n\n\"Not in words, but I know her of old; to her there was a spirit in\nevery flower, a mystic word in every form. Matter was the expression\nof mind, its language in a certain sense; and she was ever inquiring\nits meaning.\"\n\n\"You are laughing at me, monsieur,\" said Euphrasie; \"but those were\npleasant days at the old chateau, when you used to scold me because I\nwould not reason, but only enjoy.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Annie, \"by monsieur's account you did reason, and very\nbeautifully too. Some people want hard words and long-drawn deductions\nfor apprehension of what to others is inspiration. I like the\ninspiration best.\"\n\n\"It is the easiest, at any rate,\" said Eugene.\n\n\"To those to whom it comes,\" said the Frenchman; \"the materialism of\nour day stifles inspiration; men see only in rocks and stones a\nmoneyed value. Niagara is valued less than a mill-turning stream.\nInspiration is no longer believed in.\"\n\n. . . . . .\n\nThe wedding-day approached, and all were busy trying to make a show of\ngladness, which, however, they but imperfectly succeeded in effecting;\nbut what was wanting in hilarity was more than compensated for in\ndignity and magnificence. M. de Villeneuve acted as groomsman, Annie\nand Hester as bridesmaids, Euphrasie excused herself on account of her\nmourning habit, which she declined to remove; she was not visible\nduring the whole day and one or two subsequent ones. And now the hour\nwas come which was to place a coronet on that fair brow; but could the\ncourtly bridegroom have seen how little he entered into the thoughts\nof his young bride, perchance he had been but half pleased, even\nthough she was as stately and as fair as his great pride demanded. But\nlove, esteem, or mutual respect entered into the thoughts of neither\nduring the time that the Bishop of Chichester was marrying them by\nspecial license, in the drawing-room at Estcourt Hall.\n\nThis same arrangement was a great disappointment to the townspeople.\nThey had been desirous of witnessing the ceremony, and were not\nwell-pleased that the duke had not honored the church with his\npresence. The duke, however, liked not to be gazed at, and the\nsight-seers had no opportunity of gratifying their curiosity till the\nbridal party left the house.\n\nThe public entrance was besieged by expectant congratulators, who\nwaited to shower bouquets over the blooming bride. But here again they\nwere doomed to disappointment; for, to avoid this publicity, which was\ndistasteful to them, the bridal party walked through that portion of\nthe splendid grounds which had been specially decorated for the\noccasion, and entered their carriages at the opposite side of the\npark. They were, however, obliged to pass through part of the town,\nand shouts of \"they come--they come!\" resounded as the carriages made\ntheir appearance. The road lay down a deep hollow, on the turn leading\nto which stood a small inn. The road was so steep that the drivers\nnecessarily checked the horses, in order to pass safely down the\ndeclivity. At the cry raised of \"they come {46}--they come!\" a woman\nelegantly dressed ran out of the inn, and gazed wildly at the\ncarriages. At that moment the duke put his head out of the window to\nsee what occasioned the delay, caught the eye of the woman, turned\npale, and hastily bade the coachman drive on.\n\nThe woman shrieked, rather than said, \"Tis he! O my God!\" and fell to\nthe ground in a fainting fit.\n\nThe bystanders raised her--the carriage passed; but the spirit of the\ncrowd seemed changed, they scarcely knew why; they crowded round the\nwoman; they questioned her; and each seemed eager to afford her help.\nBut, as soon as her strength permitted, she withdrew without\ngratifying their evident curiosity, merely apologizing for her passing\nweakness, and deliberately saying she would recover best when alone.\nThe style, the manner, the elegance of the stranger interested them\nall, and with difficulty did they persuade themselves to abandon their\ninquiries. The groups which had collected to congratulate the bride\nwere now occupied in discussing the appearance of the stranger, and\nmany surmises were hazarded as to her connection with the newly wedded\npair.\n\nMeantime that lady ordered a post-chaise to be got ready, and, ere\nhalf recovered, entered it, to the great discomfiture of the gaping\ncrowd, whom she thus left to their conjectures.\n\nThe landlord was now besieged with questions, but he could tell\nnothing of importance. The lady came the previous evening; gave her\nname as Mrs. Ellwood; made many inquiries concerning the family at\nEstcourt Hall, and had the duke's person described to her; seemed\nrestless, agitated; went out, and hovered round Mr. Godfrey's\nresidence till nightfall; then returned and locked herself immediately\nin her bed-chamber. In the morning she rose late, ate little or\nnothing, but sat watching and listening intently, till she issued\nforth to enact the scene described. The townspeople shook their heads,\nand wished Miss Godfrey, now the Duchess of Durimond, might not be the\nworse for it. Adelaide had been very popular among them, and the\npublic festivities on the occasion of her wedding were not so mirthful\nas, but for this incident, they would you have been.\n\nThe inmates of the hall, however, were as yet in happy ignorance of\nthe ominous conjectures raised respecting the fate of the fairest and\ncleverest daughter of their house. The incident we have related came\nto their knowledge as an accidental circumstance, altogether\nunconnected with the wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey were well pleased\nat their daughter's accession to rank and power, and the merry Hester\nlaughed delightedly at the anticipation of shortly visiting the\nancient castle of which her sister was now mistress, promising herself\nmuch interest and delight in rambling amid the ancient chambers, which\nhad been the scene of famed historic deeds. Annie was pondering\nwhether her sister's rank could consist with the newfangled ideas of\nliberty and equality that the times were teaching. She was wondering\nwhether high rank were a fetter or a privilege--a relic of man's\nignorance or a help to man's advancement, Eugene hoped that the \"old\nman\" would use his sister well. He had not been pleased with his new\nbrother-in-law; he was too courtly, too stately for friendliness, and\naltogether the whole affair had looked too much like bartering youth,\nbeauty, and intelligence for rank and wealth. He had entertained high\nideas of woman's purity, of woman's devotedness, of woman's\ndisinterestedness, and what was he to think? His beautiful, his\ngifted, his cultivated sister had sold herself for a ducal coronet!\nWas it true, then, as Shelley sings, \"that all things are venal, and\nthat even a woman's heart may be put up in an auction mart?\"\n\nSoon after the wedding, the young man sought but did not obtain\npermission to go abroad. In default of this he went to Cambridge, and\nsaid to himself he intended to find out TRUTH.\n\n{47}\n\nThe society of an English University is very various. Almost any\ndisposition may suit itself there. The boisterous, the idle, the\nreckless, the gay, the meditative, and the sober, with the refined and\nthe sentimental, alike are there, and it is of no small importance to\na young man to be well introduced on the outset. Mr. Godfrey, himself\na Cambridge man, could not fail to procure every advantage for his\nson, and that son felt himself entitled to stand proudly on his\nfather's position, not only as a country gentleman, but as a\nscientific man, for, as we have already hinted, the Honorable Mr.\nGodfrey was an exception to the ordinary stamp of the English country\ngentlemen of that day. He cared more for his library than he did for\nhis hounds and horses, and though he himself was far from being a\nprofound searcher into nature's secrets, he was a great patron of\nscience and of scientific men. Eugene had then little to fear from\nfriendlessness; he was well cared for, and his friends were sober,\nwell-conducted men.\n\nBut accompanying him to college was one whose society he would not\nwillingly have sought.\n\nFrederic Morley, son of the lawyer at Estcourt, had early given\nevidence of a studious disposition, and his father wished to bring him\nup to the church, as, by means of Mr. Godfrey's patronage, he hoped to\npush him into some church preferment. The young man, however, was in\nfact a sentimentalist, a transcendentalist, too refined, too\nsensitive, for this world of stern reality. Petted at home as a poet,\nhe held himself superior to common influences, prided himself on\nhaving a fine mind, on possessing elegant and cultivated tastes, and\naffected disgust at the coarse, homespun ideas of ordinary people. He\nwrote pathetic tales of unrealities; touching verses of despairing\naffection, with which it was his delight to draw forth tears of\nsympathy from young lady audiences.\n\nA more uninteresting companion Eugene Godfrey could scarcely have met;\nyet as his disposition was naturally kind and urbane, and as Morley\nwas without friends or acquaintances in the university, he continued\nhis friendship to him, and endeavored to direct his attention to\nearnest themes and loftier subjects. This, however, was unwelcome to\nso clever a person as Morley believed himself to be. He wanted no\ndirection even from the cleverest. All he sought for was appreciation,\nsympathy. He could think for himself, and guide himself. The study of\nAristotle's Ethics was in his case soon supplanted by Paine's Age of\nReason and Volney's Ruins of Empires. The coarseness of the former\nauthor he termed \"wit\" and the sophistry of the latter passed with him\nfor \"wisdom.\" Eugene felt sorry for these freaks, for in indulging\nthem Frederic Morley was throwing away his livelihood; he endeavored\nto reason with him, and then he became vexed that he had so few\nefficient arguments to bring forward, and none but interested motives\nto present. Was he to tell Frederic to be a hypocrite, and to study\ntheology for a \"living?\" He felt rather than knew the foolish boy was\npursuing a phantom, and was urged forward by very selfish motives, yet\nhe could not explain his own ideas, vague, mysterious, and undefined\nas they were.\n\n             \"There is a fire\n  And motion in the soul, which will not dwell\n  In its own narrow being; but aspire\n  Beyond the fitting medium of desire,\n  And but once kindled, quenchless evermore.\"\n\nThis Eugene felt, but why he felt it, or how to satisfy it, he knew\nnot. The words of Euphrasie, \"that perhaps there is a science of mind,\nmore worth than all the science of matter,\" recurred continually, for\nin that science must lie the solution of every difficulty that beset\nhim. How could he learn this science? how investigate this truth, if\ntruth it were? And he wandered hour after hour on the banks of the\nCam, in profound meditation burying himself in the thickets near to\navoid observation.\n\n{48}\n\n\"O truth!\" exclaimed he aloud one day, in the intense excitement of\nhis feelings--\"O truth! if ever thou deignest to visit mortals, reveal\nthyself to me; teach me the way, and by all that is holy or dear to\nme, I swear to follow thee!\"\n\nHe was leaning against a tree; the drops stood on his forehead, caused\nby the depth of his emotion, and suddenly the answer came: \"PRAY,\nchild of aspirations, bow in prayer.\"\n\nEugene started; looked around; no form was visible, but again the\nwords were repeated: \"Pray, seeker for truth, pray! it will come to\nthee.\"\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nMAGNETIC INFLUENCES.\n\n\"Behold he prayeth.\"\n\n\"Pray, pray!\" repeated Eugene; \"what is prayer? Is it to hold\ncommunion with a higher being? To be raised above the mists of this\nmurky earth? If so, how glad I should be to pray!\" and involuntarily\nhe exclaimed: \"O mighty Being, who rulest all, if indeed thou wiliest\nto communicate with man, instruct me how to approach thee; my mind is\ndark and sad. Oh! teach me truth.\" Eugene Godfrey was sincere; he\nwished for truth; but educated in scornful intellectual supremacy,\neducated to tolerate religion as a means of keeping in order the lower\nclasses, it was difficult for him to comprehend how \"faith\" could\nexist otherwise than as a beautiful poetic fancy, to be classed with\nthe imagery of the Iliad or the Odyssey.\n\nThe real, the sentient, had been his study, and till the horrors of\nthe French Revolution turned his mind to consider how man could\ninfluence man by higher motives than merely getting \"good things for\none's self,\" he had been satisfied to leave these themes unthought of.\nBut now they were forced upon him. Events unprecedented in the annals\nof the world bade him lay aside physical science and tun to study\nmental and moral influences. He had heard enough in the little town to\nwhich he belonged to feel sure that the multitude must be cared for,\nmost be looked to. He saw his father uneasy at every commotion, lest\nthe English aristocracy should likewise be sent on their travels. He\nsaw Alfred Brookbank hating his own brother, because that brother\nstood between him and a property; and his sister--his fearless\nsister, accomplished, beautiful, the very epitome of a refined\nlady--he dared not think of her! Oh! for a motive to raise these\ngroveling aims! Oh! for purity, heroism, good. But for the vision of\nEuphrasie, all would have been darkness then. Such were Eugene's\nthoughts as he bent his steps to his chambers and sat down in his easy\nchair to indulge in this absorbing reverie.\n\nHow long he sat he scarcely knew, but at length he became conscious\nthat he was not alone. He had forgotten to \"sport his oak\" (as closing\nthe outer door was called by the students) in token that he wished to\nbe alone, and Frederic Morley had entered, and, perceiving him so\nengrossed, had quietly seated himself without speaking, till Eugene\ngave signs of life.\n\n\"Ah, Morley, is that you? how long have you been there?\"\n\n\"I scarcely know, Mr. Eugene; I have been watching your absent\nthoughts. You were so still, I might have supposed you magnetized, but\nI suppose the great wizard would not take so great a liberty with\nyou.\"\n\n\"What wizard?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"Have you not heard, then? There is a man here who can throw a person\ninto a trance, and make him reveal all kinds of secrets,\" answered\nFrederic.\n\n\"Pshaw!\" said Eugene.\n\n\"Nay,\" answered Frederic, \"I will tell you what I saw. I was at Mrs.\nMoreton's yesterday evening, singing duets with Isabel, and young\nMoreton came in with a tall, dark-haired, mustachioed, whiskered\nfellow, with eyes {49} like lighted coals, they were so large and\npiercing. Where Moreton picked him up, I could not find out, but he\nwas evidently fascinated with him. He introduced him laughingly to his\nmother as a great wizard, and they interrupted the music to hear him\ntalk. He was grandiloquent enough, told tales of spirits and\ninfluences that haunt me still; but more than this, he insisted that\nmind can influence mind irrespective of matter; that the old tales of\nmagic were true, and the deeds wrought by men of wondrous power, who\nhad found the key to nature's nighty secrets--only nature with him\ndoes not mean inert matter as we mean by it, but matter and\nintelligences who act upon matter. The universe, he says, is peopled\nby wondrous forms, and these forms can be communicated with by a\nprivileged soul. Oh, he is a mighty man!\" and Frederic shuddered.\n\n\"And you have no more sense than to believe such a cock-and-bull story\nas that? Fie, Morley, I am ashamed of you!\"\n\n\"But let me tell you what I saw with my own eyes. He first threw\nIsabel into a trance, from which neither Mrs. Morley, nor her brother,\nnor i could awaken her. Then when Mrs. Morley grew frightened, he\nassured her there was no danger, that she was only bewitched by his\nart, and that he would make her talk as he pleased. Then he put her\nbrother's hand in hers, and bade him think of the walk he had taken\nthat afternoon, of the people he had met and spoken to; he did so, and\nthe wizard bade the girl speak, and she recounted the events of the\nwalk from his leaving college to his meeting with the wizard, and\ntheir entering the room in which we were--all, as her brother\ndeclared, correctly. The wizard then disenchanted her, and she slowly\nroused herself, pale and listless, but quite unconscious of what had\npassed.\"\n\n\"I have heard of animal magnetism before, quietly responded Eugene.\n\n\"Have you? But do you know its power? It is absolutely frightful. He\nlifted my arm before I knew what he was about, passed his hand two or\nthree times above and below it, and there it remained fixed\nhorizontally from the shoulder, without my having power to move it up\nor down. Young Moreton tried to put it down for me, but he could not;\nand there I stood fixed till it pleased the wizard to unloose the\nspell he had cast around me.\"\n\n\"Yours was not an agreeable position, truly,\" said Eugene, \"but he did\nnot hurt you; you are safe and sound now.\"\n\n\"Yes, but the most wonderful is yet to come. Little Helen Moreton came\ninto the room to bid her mamma good-night. Seeing the stranger, she\nwas shy, and went to the window-curtains to hide. Mrs. Moreton called\nher, but she looked out for a minute, seemed to take a greater dislike\nto the stranger than before, and hid again. Mrs. Moreton was annoyed,\nand the wizard said: 'Do you want her, madam? If so, I will bring her\nto you.' But Mrs. Moreton replied, 'Oh no! if you go near her she will\nshriek and cry; she is so shy.' 'Nay,' said the man, 'I will stand\nhere, and here she shall come without a shriek, and lie down at my\nfeet.' What he did we could not find out, for he seemed perfectly\nstill. The window-curtain unfolded, and apparently against her will\nthe child came forward. She caught at a chair, as if determined to\nresist the influence, but that seemed to urge her forward; she let it\ngo, and then grasped the table with both hands, as if determined to\nresist. She pouted, she frowned, she strove to keep her place, but\nkeep it she could not. Step by step she came and laid herself quietly\ndown at the wizard's feet. Mrs. Moreton almost shrieked, but the child\nlay as if she dared not leave until the magician gave permission.\"\n\n\"Well, and what do you infer from all this?\" asked Eugene.\n\n{50}\n\n\"I hardly know; I am terrified; what if it is true, as this man says,\nthat weak minds must obey the strong; that resistance is useless? I\nshould not like to become the slave of a spirit such as his.\"\n\n\"You believe him to be a wicked man?\"\n\n\"I do, yet I know not why; I should not like to meet him when\nunprotected.\"\n\n\"Why, Morley, you astonish me; I could not conceive you so weak. These\nfears are unworthy a noble mind.\"\n\n\"But what are we to do if such theories be true?\"\n\n\"They are not true--at least not in the way you state them. There are\nprotecting, counteracting influences for the weakest. I cannot explain\nall this to-night; but all history, all experience go to prove that\nthe 'race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong'\n--that bad power is often overcome by weak means. I will repeat to you\na piece of advice I received myself to-day, and which I intend to\ntake. It is one you must often have received, for your father intends\nyou for the church. Pray, Morley, to the highest of all intelligences,\nto the greatest of all powers. The strongest will then be invoked to\nyour aid.\"\n\n\"_Pray?_ Are you serious, Mr. Eugene?\"\n\n\"I am serious; why doubt it?\"\n\n\"An advice so contrary to the spirit of the age! why, it is the last\nto be expected.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so; but listen: That mind is not matter, your experience\nproves, as does that of most people. What mind is, perhaps we do not\nknow; but that mind acts upon mind, irrespective of space and\nobstacles, we feel. Listen! you know my family; a family less\nsuperstitious scarcely exists. We are too much wedded to cause and\neffect lightly to believe. My grandfather was as little credulous as\nmy father. Now hear what happened to him. He had a brother to whom he\nwas fondly attached, and by whom he was as fondly loved. Their\ncorrespondence was constant. That brother went to India, as an\nofficer. One night about twelve o'clock, as my grandfather was going\nto sleep, having sat up later than usual, the curtains at the foot of\nthe bed were with drawn, and his brother, pale, but in full\nregimentals, appeared and said, 'Good-by, Frank.' My grandfather\nrelated the circumstance at breakfast next morning, and noted it down\nin writing, being confident that he was not asleep. After due time the\nIndian mail arrived, giving an account of the brother's death on the\nfield of battle at the exact hour and day specified. Ere his spirit\nwinged its flight, we know not whither, it had communicated with the\nbeing it loved best on earth.\"\n\nFrederic turned pale. \"What do you infer from this?\" he asked.\n\n\"Simply this,\" returned Eugene; \"that 'there are more things in heaven\nand earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' and this\ninfluence of mind on mind is one of them. If the Supreme Ruler have\nmade a law that man, to be assisted by him, must pray to him, must put\nhimself in communication with him, who are we that we should refuse\nthe means? If you fear the evil spirit in a man, try if there be no\ngood spirit capable of protecting you. The universal testimony of\nmankind is in favor of supernatural agencies. We should ponder well\nere we throw from us such aid.\"\n\nFrederic smiled, and rose to take his leave. Advice so different from\nwhat he had expected was scarcely likely to be well received. He had\nno answer ready, so he left the narrow-minded religionist to his own\ncrude fancies.\n\nAnd Eugene closed the oaken door, and returned, and for the first time\nof his life knelt down to beseech light from the Author of\nlight--light to guide him through these wearisome shoals of doubt and\ndarkness--light to show him something more than how to render matter\nsubservient to animal comfort--light to enlighten the {51} inward\nfeeling. Good and evil, what are they? Mind and matter--which is the\ntrue reality? What are we to live for--the animal life, or the\nspiritual? And is the purely spiritual distinct from the purely\nintellectual as well as from the animal? Is there a soul, the\nfunctions of which are different, distinct, from those of the body,\nand to the knowledge of which mere intellect cannot arrive? What is\nnature? What is revelation? How do they act upon each other? What is\nthe office, what the aim of each? Revolving these themes, it was deep\nin the night ere the young man sought his couch.\n\n\n\nTO BE CONTINUED.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nINDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH.\n\n\nOur age is more sentimental than intellectual, more philanthropic than\nChristian, more material than spiritual. It may and no doubt does\ncherish and seek to realize, with such wisdom as it has, many humane\nand just sentiments, but it retains less Christian thought than it\npretends, and has hardly any conception of catholic principles. It\nstudies chiefly phenomena, physical or psychical, and as these are all\nindividual, particular, manifold, variable, and transitory, it fails\nto recognize any reality that is universal, invariable, and permanent,\nsuperior to the vicissitudes of time and place, always and everywhere\none and the same. It is so intent on the sensible that it denies or\nforgets the spiritual, and so engrossed with the creature that it\nloses sight of the creator.\n\nIndeed, there are not wanting men in this nineteenth century who deny\nthat there is any creator at all, or that anything has been made, and\nmaintain that all has been produced by self-development or growth.\nThese men, who pass for the great scientific lights of the age, tell\nus that all things are in a continual process of self-formation, which\nthey call by the general name of progress; and so taken up are they\nwith their doctrine of progress, that they gravely assert that God\nhimself, if God there be, is progressive, perfectible, ever proceeding\nfrom the imperfect towards the perfect, and seeking by unremitting\naction to perfect, fill out, or complete his own being. They seem not\nto be aware that if the perfect does not already really exist, or is\nwanting, there is and can be no progress; for progress is motion\ntowards the perfect, and, if the perfect does not exist there can be\nno motion towards it, and in the nature of the case the motion can be\nonly towards nothing, and therefore, as St. Thomas has well\ndemonstrated, in proving the impossibility of progress without end, no\nmotion at all. Nor do they seem any more to be aware that the\nimperfect, the incomplete, is not and cannot be self-active, or\ncapable of acting in and from itself alone, and therefore has not the\npower in itself alone to develop and complete itself, or perfect its\nown being. Creatures may be and are progressive, because they live,\nand move, and have their being in their Creator, and are aided and\nsustained by him whose being is eternally complete who is in himself\ninfinitely perfect. They forget also the important fact {52} that\nwhere there is nothing universal, there can be nothing particular,\nthat where there is nothing invariable there can be nothing variable,\nthat where there is nothing permanent there can be nothing transitory,\nand that where there is no real being there can be no phenomena, any\nmore than there can be creation without a creator, action without an\nactor, appearance without anything that appears, or a sign that\nsignifies nothing.\n\nNow the age, regarded in its dominant tendency, neglects or denies\nthis universal, invariable, persistent, real, or spiritual order, and\nits highest and most catholic principles are mere classifications or\ngeneralizations of visible phenomena, and therefore abstractions,\nwithout reality, without life or efficiency. It understands not that\nthroughout the universe the visible is symbolical of the invisible,\nand that to the prepared mind there is an invisible but living reality\nsignified by the observable phenomena of nature, as in the Christian\neconomy an invisible grace is signified by the visible sacramental\nsign. All nature is in some sense sacramental, but the age takes it\nonly as an empty sign signifying nothing. Hence the embarrassment of\nthe Christian theologian in addressing it; the symbols he uses and\nmust use have for it no meaning. He deals and must deal with an order\nof thought of which it has little or no conception. He is as one\nspeaking to a man who has no hearing, or exhibiting colors to a man\nwho has no sight, He speaks of the transcendental to those who\nrecognize nothing above the sensible--of the spiritual to men who are\nof the earth earthy, and have lost the faculty of rising above the\nmaterial, and piercing beyond the visible. The age has fallen, even\nintellectually, far below the Christian order of thought, and is\napparently unable to rise even in conception to the great catholic\nprinciples in accordance with which the universe is created,\nsustained, and governed.\n\nNobody in his senses denies that man is progressive, or that modern\nsociety has made marvellous progress in the material order, in the\napplication of science to the productive arts. I am no _laudator\ntemporis acti_; I understand and appreciate the advantages of the\npresent, and do not doubt that steam navigation railroads, and\nlightning telegraphs, which bid defiance to the winds and waves, and\nas it were annihilate space and time, will one day be made to subserve\nhigher than mere material interests; but I cannot shut my eyes to the\nfact that in many and very important respects, the modern world has\ndeteriorated instead of improving, and been more successful in losing\nthan in gaining. The modern nations commonly regarded, at least by\nthemselves, as the more advanced nations, have fallen in moral and\nreligious thought below the ancient Greeks and Romans. They may have\nmore sound dogmas, but they have less conception of principles, of the\ninvisible or spiritual order, excepting always the followers of\nLeucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, whose absurd materialism is\nrevived with hardly any disguise by the most approved thinkers of our\nown age. The Gentiles generally held catholic principles, but\nmisapprehended and misapplied them, and thus fell into gross idolatry\nand degrading and besotting superstition; but the moderns while\nretaining many Catholic dogmas have lost the meaning of the word\nprinciple. The Catholic can detect, no doubt, phases of truth in all\nthe doctrines of those outside the church, but the Christianity they\nprofess has no universal, immutable, and imperishable principle, and\ndegenerates in practice into a blind and fierce fanaticism, a watery\nsentimentality, a baseless humanitarianism, or a collection of\nunrelated and unmeaning dogmas, which are retained only because they\nare never examined, and which can impart no light to the\nunderstanding, infuse no life into the hearty and impose no restraint\non the appetites and passions.\n\n{53}\n\nHaving fallen below the conception of a order above the visible and\nphenomenal, and sunk to complete Sadduceeism, which believes in\nneither angel nor spirit, the age makes war on the church because she\nasserts such order, and remains fast anchored in it; because she is\nimmovable and invariable, or as her enemies say, stationary,\nunprogressive, and therefore hostile to progress. She has, it is said,\nthe insolence to attempt to teach and govern men and nations, instead\nof gracefully submitting to their views and wishes, and bestowing her\nblessing on their exertions for the liberty and progress of society.\nThe age denies her to be the church of God, because she fails to prove\nherself to be the church of man, holding simply from a human\nauthorities. It denies her divine origin, constitution, and authority,\nbecause she is stable, cannot be carried away by every wind of\ndoctrine, does not yield to every popular impulse, and from time to\ntime resists individuals, civil rulers, the people even, and opposes\ntheir favorite theories, plans, and measures, whenever she finds them\nat war with her mission and her law. It applauds her, indeed, to the\necho, when she appears to be on the side of what happens to be\npopular, but condemns her without mercy when she opposes popular\nerror, popular folly, popular injustice, and asserts the unpopular\ntruth, defends the unpopular cause, or uses her power and influence in\nbehalf of neglected justice, and please with her divine eloquence for\nthe poor, the wronged, the downtrodden. Yet this is precisely what she\nshould do, if the church of God, and what it would be contrary to her\nnature and office on that supposition not to do.\n\nThe age concedes nothing to the unseen and eternal. In its view\nreligion itself is human, and ought to be subject to man, and\ndeterminable by society, dictated by the people, who in the modern\nmind usurp the place of God. It should not govern, but be governed,\nand governed from below, not from above; or rather, in its subversion\nof old ideas, it holds that being governed from below is being\ngoverned from above. It forgets that religion, objectively considered,\nis, if anything, the revelation and assertion of the divine order, or\nthe universal and eternal law of God, the introduction and maintenance\nin the practical affairs of men and nations of the divine element,\nwithout which there would and could be nothing in human society\ninvariable, permanent, or stable--persistent, independent, supreme, or\nauthoritative. The church is simply the divine constitution and organ\nof religion in society, and must, like religion itself, be universal,\ninvariable, independent, supreme, and authoritative for all men and\nnations. Man does not originate the church. She does not depend on\nman, or hold from him either individually or collectively; for she is\ninstituted to govern him, to administer for him the universal and\neternal law, and to direct and assist him in conducting himself in the\nway of his duty, to his supreme good, which she could not do if she\nheld from and depended on him.\n\nThe point here insisted on, and which is so far removed from the\nthought of this age, is, that this order transcending the phenomenal\nand the whole material or sensible universe, and which in the strictly\nphilosophical language of Scripture is called \"the Law of the Lord,\"\nis eminently real, not imaginary, not factitious, not an abstraction,\nnot a classification or generalization of particulars, nor something\nthat depends for its reality on human belief or disbelief. Religion\nwhich asserts this divine order, this transcendental order, is\nobjectively \"the Law of the Lord,\" which, proceeding from the eternal\nreason and will of God, is the principle and reason of things. The\nchurch, as the divinely constituted organ of that law, is not an\narbitrary institution, is not an accident, is not an afterthought, is\nnot a superinduction upon the original plan of the Creator, but enters\nintegrally into that plan, and is therefore founded in the {54}\nprinciple, the reason, and the constitution of things, and is that in\nreference to which all things are created, sustained, and governed,\nand hence our Lord is called \"the Lamb slain from the foundation of\nthe world.\"\n\nBut this our age does not conceive. For it the divine, the invariable,\nthe universal, and the eternal are simply abstractions or\ngeneralizations, not real being. Its only conception of immensity, is\nspace unlimited--of eternity, is time without end--of the infinite,\nthe undefined, and of the universal, totality or sum total.\n_Catholic_, in its understanding, means accepting or ranking together\nas equally respectable the doctrines, opinions, views, and sentiments\nof all sects and denominations. Christian, Jewish, Mahometan, and\nPagan. He, in the sense of modern philosophers, has a catholic\ndisposition who respects all convictions, and has no decided\nconviction of his own. Catholicity is held to be something made up by\nthe addition of particulars. The age does not understand that there is\nno catholicity without unity, and therefore that catholicity is not\npredicable of the material order, since nothing material or visible is\nor can be strictly one and universal. The church is catholic, not\nbecause as a visible body she is universal and includes all men and\nnations in her communion; she was as strictly catholic when her\nvisible communion was restricted to the Blessed Virgin and the\nApostles as she is now, or would be if all the members of the race\nwere recipients of her sacraments. She is catholic because she is the\norgan of the whole spiritual order, truth, or reality, and that order\nin its own intrinsic nature is one and universal. All truth is\ncatholic, because all truth is one and invariable; all the dogmas of\nthe church are catholic, because universal principles, always and\neverywhere true. The law of the Lord is catholic, because universally,\nalways and every where law, equally law for all men and nations in\nevery age of the world, on earth and is heaven, in time and eternity.\nThe church is catholic, because she holds under this law, and because\nGod promulgates and administers it through her, because he lives and\nreigns in her, and hence she is called his kingdom, the kingdom of God\non earth, a kingdom fulfilled and completed in heaven. It is this\norder of ideas that the age loses sight of and is so generally\ndisposed to deny. Yet without it there were no visible order, and\nnothing would or could exist.\n\nThe principal, reason, nature, or constitution of things is in this\norder, and men must conform to it or live no true, no real life. They\nwho recede from it advance towards nothing, and, as far as possible,\nbecome nothing. The church is independent, superior to all human\ncontrol, and persistent, unaltered, and unalterable through all the\nvicissitudes of time and place, because the order in which she is\nfounded is independent and persistent. She cannot be moved or harmed,\nbecause she rests on the principle, truth, and constitution of things,\nand is founded neither on the individual man, the state, nor the\npeople, but on God himself, the Rock of Ages, against which anything\ncreated must rage and beat in vain. \"On this rock will I build my\nchurch, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.\" The\nchurch is therefore, by her own divine constitution, by the very\nprinciple and law of her existence, indefectible. No weapon forged\nagainst her shall prosper. The wicked may conspire for her\ndestruction, but in vain, because they conspire to destroy reality,\nand all reality is always invincible and indestructible. They cannot\nefface or overthrow her, because she is founded in the truth and\nreality of things, or what is the same thing, in the unalterable\nreason and will of God, in whom all creatures have their\nprinciple--live, move, and have their being.\n\n{55}\n\nThey who oppose the church in the name of humanity or human progress,\ncannot succeed, because she is indivisible, and they would utterly\ndefeat themselves if they could. They would deprive the human race of\nthe law of God, which makes wise the simple and strengthens the weak,\nand deprive men and nations of the truth and reality of things, the\nvery principle of all life, and of the very means and conditions of\nall progress. Man no doubt is progressive, but not in and by himself\nalone. Archimedes demanded a _pou sto_, a whereon to rest his fulcrum\noutside the earth, in order to move it, and there is no conceivable\nway by which a man can raise himself by a lever supported on himself.\nHow is it that our philosophers fail to see the universal application\nof the laws which they themselves assert? All progress is by\nassimilation, by accretion, as that hierophant of progress, Pierre\nLeroux, has amply demonstrated, and if there is no reality outside of\nman or above him, what is there for him to assimilate, and how is he\nto become more than at any given time he already is? Swift ridiculed\nthe philosophers of Laputa, who labored to extract sunbeams from\ncucumbers, but even more ridiculous are they who pretend that\nsomething may be assimilated from nothing, or that a thing can in and\nof itself make itself more than it is. Where there is nothing above\nman with which he does or may commune, there is for him no possibility\nof progress, and men and nations can never advance beyond what they\nare. This is so in the nature of things, and it is only what is\nimplied in the maxim, _Ex nihilo nihil fit_.\n\nAn institution, no matter by what sacred name called, founded by\nsavages, embodying only what they are, and worked by them, would have\nno power to elevate them above their savage state, and could only\nserve to perpetuate their savagery. The age speaks of the applications\nof science to the productive arts, of the marvels of the steam-engine,\nsteamboats, the locomotive, and the magnetic telegraph, and boasts\nthat it renders mind omnipotent over matter. Vain boast, poor\nphilosophy. We have in those things gained no triumph over matter, no\ncontrol over the forces of nature, which are as independent of our\nreason and will as ever they were, as the first steamboat explosion\nwill suffice to convince the most skeptical. We have subjected none of\nthe forces of nature; we have only learned in some few instances to\nconstruct our machinery so as to be propelled by them, as did the\nfirst man who built a mill, constructed a boat, or spread his sails to\ncatch the breeze. We alter not, we control not by our machinery the\nforces of nature, and all the advantage we have obtained is in\nconforming to them, and in suffering them, according to their own\nlaws, or laws which we have not imposed on them, to operate for us.\nThe principle is universal, catholic, and as true in the moral or\nspiritual as in the mechanical or physical world.\n\nMan does not create, generate, or control the great moral and\nspiritual forces on which he depends to propel his moral and spiritual\nmachinery. They exist and operate independently alike of his reason\nand his will, and the advantages he derives from them are obtained by\nhis placing himself within the sphere of their influence, or, to be\nstrictly correct, by interposing voluntarily no obstacle to their\ninflowing, for they are always present and operative unless resisted.\nWithdraw him from their influence, or induce him obstinately to resist\nthem, which he may do, for he is a free moral agent, and he can make\nno more progress than a sailing ship at sea in a dead calm. These\nforces are divine, are embodied in the church as her living and\nconstitutive force--are in one sense the church herself, and hence men\nand nations separated from her communion and influence are thrown back\non nature alone, and necessarily cease to be progressive. We may war\nagainst this as much as we please, but we cannot alter it, for the\nprinciple on which it rests is a universal and indestructible law.\n\n{56}\n\nIndividuals and nations separated by schism or heresy from the visible\ncommunion of the church do not become at once absolutely and in all\nrespects unprogressive, for they are carried on for a time by the\nmomentum she baa given them, and besides, they are not, as she\ncontinues to exist, absolutely beyond or outside of the sphere of her\ninfluence, though indirect and reflected. But from the moment of the\nseparation their progress begins to slacken, their spiritual life\nbecomes sickly and attenuated, and gradually they lose all that they\nhad received from the church, and lapse into helpless and unassisted\nnature. This, which is demonstrable _\u00e0 priori_, is proved by the\nexperience of those nations that separated from the church in the\nsixteenth century. These nations at first retained a large portion of\ntheir old Catholic culture, and many of the habits acquired under the\ndiscipline and training of the church. But they have been gradually\nlosing them ever since, and the more advanced portions of them have\ngot pretty clear of them, and thrown off, as they express it, the last\nrag of Popery. Indeed this is their boast.\n\nIn throwing off the authority of the church, they came in religious\nmatters under the authority of the state, or the temporal sovereign or\nruler--a purely human authority, without competency in spirituals--and\nthus lost at once their entire religious freedom, or liberty of\nconscience. In Catholic nations the civil authority has always, or\nalmost always, been prone to encroach on the authority of the church,\nand to attempt to control her external discipline or ecclesiastical\nadministration; but, in the nations that were carried away by the\nso-called reformation, the civil authority assumed in every instance\ncomplete control over the national church, and prescribed its\nconstitution, its creed, its liturgy, and its discipline. This for\nthem completely humanized religion, and made it a department of state.\nIt is true these nations professed to recognize the Bible as\ncontaining a divine revelation, and to be governed by it; and this\nwould have been something, even much, had they not remitted its\ninterpretation to the civil magistrate, the king, the parliament, the\npublic judgment of the people, or the private judgment of the\nindividual, which made its meeting, as practically received, vary from\nnation to nation, and even from individual to individual.\n\nThis sacrificed, in principle, the sovereignty of God and the entire\nspiritual order, departed to a fearful distance from the truth and\nreality of things, and if it retained some of the precepts of the\nChristian law, it retained them as precepts not of the law of God but\nas precepts of the law of man, enjoined, explained, and applied by a\npurely human authority. In process of time, the authority of the state\nin religious matters was found to be usurped, tyrannical, and\noppressive, and the thinking part of the separated nations asserted\nthe right of private judgment, or of each believer to interpret the\nHoly Scriptures for himself. Having gone thus far, they went still\nfarther, and assert for everyone the right to judge for himself not\nonly of the meaning, but of the inspiration, authenticity, and\nauthority of the Scriptures, though the civil government in none of\nthese nations, except the United States, not in existence at the time\nof the separation, has disavowed its authority in spirituals.\nPractically, the doctrine that each individual judges for himself is\nnow generally adopted.\n\nThe authority of the Scriptures has followed the authority of the\nchurch, and is practically, when not theoretically, rejected. It was\nperhaps asserted by the reformers at first for the purpose of\npresenting some authority not precisely human, which no Catholic would\ndeny, as offset against that of the church, rather than from any deep\nreverence for it, or profound conviction of it\u00ab reality. But, be this\nas it may, it counts for little now. The authors of Essays and\nReviews, and the Anglican bishop of Natal, take hardly less liberty\nwith the {57} Scriptures than Luther and Calvin did with the church.\nThe more advanced thinkers, if thinkers they are, of the age go\nfurther still, and maintain not only that a man may be a very\nreligious man, and a true follower of Jesus Christ, without accepting\neither the authority of the church or that of the Bible, but without\neven believing either in the existence of God or the immortality of\nthe soul. Schleiermacher, the great Berlin preacher, went thus far in\nhis Discourses on Religion, addressed to the Cultivated among its\nDespisers; and equally far, if not farther, in the same direction, go\nthe rising school or sect called Positivists. Religion is reduced to a\nspontaneous development--perhaps I should say, to a secretion of human\nnature, implying no reality above or distinguishable from human nature\nitself.\n\nIt is not pretended that all persons in these nations have as yet\nreached this result; but as there is a certain logic in error as well\nas in truth, all are tending and must tend to it. What is called\nprogress of religious ideas or religious enlightenment is not held to\nconsist in any accession to our stock of known truth, in penetrating\nfarther into the world of reality, and attaining a firmer grasp of its\nprinciples, nor in a better understanding of our moral relations and\nthe duties growing out of them, but in simply casting off or getting\nrid of so-called Popery--of everything that has been retained in the\nnations, and the sects into which they divide and subdivide, furnished\nby the Catholic Church in which the reformers had been reared, and in\nreducing men and nations to the nakedness and feebleness of nature.\nThe more advanced portion are already seen sporting _in puris\nnaturalibus_, heedless alike of shame and winter's cold. The others\nare following more or less rapidly in the same direction; for there is\nno halting-place between Catholicity and naked naturalism, and men\nmust either ascend to the one or descend to the other. But those who\nchoose to descend can find no resting-place even in naturalism, for\nnature, severed from Catholicity, is severed from its principle, is\nsevered from God, from the reality and truth of things, and is\ntherefore unreal, nothing, Hence the descent is endless. Falsehood has\nno bottom, is unreal, purely negative, and can furnish no standing.\nMen can stand only on the true, the real, and that is Catholicity, the\norder represented in society by the church. Those who forsake the\nchurch, Catholicity, God, forsake therefore the real order, have\nnothing to stand on, and in the nature of the case can only drop into\nwhat the Scripture calls \"the bottomless pit.\"\n\nWe hear much of the ignorance, superstition, and even of idolatry of\nCatholics, nothing of which is true; but this much is certain, that\nthose who abandon the church, and succeed in humanizing religion,\nmaking it hold from man and subject to his control, do as really\nworship gods of their fashioning as did the old worshippers of gods\nmade of wood and stone, because their religion is really only what\nthey make it, and fall into as gross an idolatry and into as besotted\nand besotting a superstition as can be found among any heathen people,\nancient or modern.\n\nIt is easy therefore to understand why the church sets her face so\nresolutely against modern reformers, liberals, revolutionists, in a\nword, the whole so-called movement party, professing to labor for the\ndiffusion of intelligence and the promotion of science, liberty, and\nhuman progress. It is not science, liberty, or progress that she\nopposes, but false theories substituted for science, and the wrong and\ndestructive means and methods of promoting liberty and progress\nadopted and insisted on by liberals and revolutionists. There is only\none right way of effecting the progress they profess to have at heart,\nand that is by conforming to truth and reality, for falsehood is\nimpotent, and nothing can be gained by it. She opposes the movement\nparty, not as a movement party, not as a party of light, liberty, {58}\nand progress, but as a party moving in the wrong direction, putting\nforth unscientific theories, theories which amuse the imagination\nwithout enlightening  the understanding, which if they dazzle it is\nonly to blind with their false glitter, which embraced as truth\nto-day, must be rejected as falsehood to-morrow, and which in fact\ntend only to destroy liberty, and render all real progress impossible.\nAs the party, collectively or individually, neither is nor pretends to\nbe infallible, the church, at the worst, is as likely to be right as\nthey are, and the considerations presented prove that she is right,\nand that they are wrong. There is no science but in knowing the truth,\nthat which really is or exists, and there is no real progress,\nindividual or social, with nature alone, because nature alone has no\nexistence, and can exist and become more than it is only by the\ngracious, the supernatural assistance of God, in whom all things live,\nmove, and have their being.\n\nA great clamor has been raised by the whole movement party throughout\nthe world against the encyclical of the Holy Father, dated at Rome,\nDecember 8, 1864, and even some Catholics, not fully aware of the\nsense and reach of the opinions censured, were at first partially\ndisturbed by it; but the Holy Father has given in it only a proof of\nhis pastoral vigilance, the fidelity of the church to her divine\nmission, and the continuous presence in her and supernatural\nassistance of the Holy Ghost. The errors condemned are all aimed at\nthe reality and invariability, universality and persistency, of truth,\nthe reality of things, the supremacy of the spiritual order, and the\nindependence and authority of the divine law, at real science, and the\nmeans and conditions of both liberty and progress. In it we see the\ngreat value of the independence of the church,--of a church holding\nfrom God instead of holding from man. If the church had been human or\nunder human control she would never have condemned those errors,\nbecause nearly all of them are popular, and hailed as truth by the\nage. Man condemns only what man dislikes, and the popular judgment\ncondemns only what is unpopular. It is only the divine that judges\naccording to truth, and without being influenced by the spirit of the\nage, or by what is popular or unpopular. If the church had been human,\nshe would have been carried away by those errors, and proved herself\nthe enemy instead of the friend, the protector, and the benefactor of\nsociety.\n\nThese remarks on the divine character and independence of the church\nare not inappropriate to the present times, and may serve to calm,\ncomfort, and console Catholics amidst the national convulsions and\nchanges which, without the reflections they suggest, might deeply\nafflict the Catholic heart. The successes of Italy and Prussia in the\nrecent unjustifiable war against Austria, and the humiliation of the\nAustrian empire, the last of the great powers on which the church\ncould rely for the protection of her material interests, have\napparently given over the temporal government of this world to her\nenemies. There is at this moment not a single great power in the world\nthat is officially Catholic, or that officially recognizes the\nCatholic Church as the church of God. The majority of Frenchmen are or\nprofess to be Catholics, but the French state professes no religion,\nand if it pays a salary to the Catholic clergy, Protestant ministers,\nand Jewish rabbis, it is not as ministers of religion, but as servants\nof the state. The Russian state is schismatic, and officially\nanti-papal; the British state, as a state, is Protestant, and\nofficially hostile to the church; Italy follows France; and Prussia,\nwhich at the moment means Germany, is officially Protestant and\nanti-Catholic; and so are Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.\nBelgium and our own great Republic profess officially no religion, but\ngive freedom and protection to all religions not held to be _contra\nbonos mores_. Spain and Portugal, no longer great powers, and {59}\nmost of the Central and South American states, officially profess the\nCatholic faith, but they count for next to nothing in the array of\nnations. Hellas and the Principalities, like Russia, are schismatic,\nand the rest of the world, including the greater part of Asia and all\nof Africa, is Mahometan or pagan, and of course hostile to the church.\n\nI have not enumerated Austria, for what is to be her fate no one can\nnow say; but as a portion of her population belong to the Greek\nschismatic church, and a larger portion still are Protestants, the\nmost that can be expected of her is that she will, in regard to\nreligion, assume the attitude of France and Italy. There is then\nreally no power on which the church can now rely for the support of\nher external and material interests. I will not say that the triumph\nof Prussia is the triumph of Protestantism, for that would not be\ntrue; but it is, at least for the moment, the success of the party\nthat denounced the papal encyclical, and would seem to be a complete\nvictory, perhaps a final victory, over that system of mixed civil and\necclesiastical government which grew up on the downfall of the Roman\nempire and the conversion of the barbarian nations that seated\nthemselves on its ruins. It is the total and final destruction of the\nChristian empire founded, with the aid of the Pope and bishops, by\nCharlemagne and his nobles, and not unlikely will end in the complete\nseverance of all official union of church and state--alike the\nofficial union between the state and the heretical and schismatic\nchurches, and between the state and the Catholic Church; so that\nthroughout the civilized world the people will be politically free to\nbe of any religion they choose, and the state of no religion.\n\nThis result is already reached in nearly all the nations hitherto\ncalled Catholic nations, but not in the officially Protestant and\nschismatic nations; and for a long time to come the anti-Catholic or\nanti-papal religions, schismatical, heretical, Mahometan, and pagan\nreligions, will be retained as official or state religions, with more\nor less of civil tolerance for Catholics. For the moment, the\nanti-papal party appears to be victorious, and no doubt believes that\nit is all over with the Catholic Church. That party had persuaded\nitself that the church, as a ruling body, was of imperial origin--that\nthe papal power had been created by the edicts of Roman emperors,\nand that it depends entirely on the civil authority for its\ncontinuance. Hence they concluded that, if the church could be\ndeprived of all civil support, it must fall. They said, the church\ndepends on the papacy, and the papacy depends on the empire; hence,\ndetach the empire--that is, the civil power--from the papacy, and the\nwhole fabric tumbles at once into complete ruin. It is not improbable\nthat, to confound them, to bring to naught the wisdom of the wise, and\nto take the crafty in their own craftiness, Providence has suffered\nthem to succeed. He has permitted them to detach the empire, that they\nmay see their error.\n\nThe successful party have reckoned without their host. They have\nreasoned from false premises, and come necessarily to false\nconclusions. The church is, undoubtedly, essentially papal as well as\nepiscopal, and the destruction of the papacy would certainly be her\ndestruction as the visible church; but it is false to assume that the\npapacy was created by imperial edicts and depends on the empire, for\nit is an indisputable historical fact that it existed prior to any\nimperial edict in its favor, and while the empire was as yet\nofficially pagan, and hostile to the church. Hence it does not follow\nthat detaching the empire from the papacy will prove its destruction.\nThe church was as papal in its constitution when the whole force of\nthe empire was turned against it, when it sought refuge in the\ncatacombs, as it is now, or was in the time of Gregory VII. or\nInnocent III., and is as papal in this country, where it has no civil\n{60} support or recognition, as in Spain, or the Papal States\nthemselves. The very principal, idea, and nature of the church, as we\nhave set them forth in asserting the independence and supremacy of the\nspiritual order, of which she is the organ, contradict in the moat\npositive manner the dependency of the papacy on the empire.\n\nThe church as a visible body has, no doubt, temporal relations, and\ntherefore temporal interests susceptible of being affected by the\nchanges which take place in states and empires, and it is not\nimpossible, nor improbable, that the recent changes in Europe may more\nor less deeply affect those interests. The papacy has itself so\njudged, and has resisted them with all the means placed at its\ndisposal. These changes, if carried out, if completed, will affect in\na very serious manner the relations of the papacy with temporal\nsovereigns, or, to use the consecrated term, with the empire, and many\nof its regulations and provisions for the administration of\necclesiastical affairs will certainly need to be changed or modified,\nand much inconvenience during the transition to the new state of\nthings will no doubt be experienced. All changes from an old\nestablished order, though in themselves changes for the better, are\nfor a time attended with many inconveniences. The Israelite's escaping\nfrom Egyptian bondage had to suffer weariness, hunger, and thirst in\nthe wilderness before reaching the promised land. But whatever\ntemporal changes or inconveniences of this sort the church in her\nexternal relations may have to endure, they are accidental, and by no\nmeans involve her destruction, or impair her power or integrity as the\nchurch of God, or divinely instituted organ of the spiritual order.\n\nThere is no question that the party that regards itself as having\ntriumphed in the success of Italy and Prussia is bitterly hostile not\nonly to what it calls the papal politics, but to the Catholic Church\nherself, and will not be satisfied with simply detaching the empire\nfrom her support, but will insist on its using all its power and\ninfluence against her. That party, indeed, demands religious liberty,\nbut religious liberty, in its sense of the term, is full freedom for\nall religions except the Catholic, the only true, religion. Error,\nthey hold, is harmless when reason is free, but truth they\ninstinctively feel is dangerous to their views and wishes, and must\nfor their safety be bound hand and foot. But suppose the worst;\nsuppose the civil power becomes actively hostile to the church,\nprohibits by law the profession and practice of the Catholic religion,\npunishes Catholics with fines and imprisonment, fire and sword, the\ndungeon and the stake, the church will be no worse off than she was\nunder the pagan emperors, hardly worse off than she was under even the\nArians. The empire under the Jew and the Gentile exerted its utmost\nfury against her, and exerted it in vain. It found her irrepressible.\nThe more she was opposed and persecuted, the more she flourished, and\nthe blood of the martyrs fattened the soil for a rich growth of\nCatholics. Individuals and nations may be, as they have been, detached\nfrom her communion, and many souls for whom Christ died perish\neverlastingly, which is a fearful loss to them, and society may suffer\nthe gains acquired to civilization during eighteen centuries to be\nlost, and moral and intellectual darkness gather anew for a time over\nthe land, once enlightened by the Sun of righteousness, for God\ngoverns men as free moral agents, not as machines or slaves; but the\nchurch will survive her persecutors, and reconquer the empire for God\nand his Christ. Is she not founded on the Rock of Ages, and is it not\nsaid by him who is truth itself, that the gates of hell shall not\nprevail against her?\n\nIt would be impossible to subject the church to a severer ordeal than\nshe has time and again passed through, and it is not likely that her\nchildren will be exposed to greater trials than {61} those to which\nthey were subjected in the fifth and sixth centuries by the subversion\nof the Roman empire by the pagan and Arian barbarians, or to suffer\nheavier calamities than were inflicted on them by the so-called\nreformation in the sixteenth century. The Protestants of today cannot\nbe fiercer, more intolerant or fanatical than they were in the age of\nLuther and Calvin; and the infidels of to-day cannot be more envenomed\nagainst the church, or more bloodthirsty and brutal, than were the\ninfidels in the French revolution; and all these the church has\nsurvived.\n\nThe well-being of society, its orderly, peaceful, and continuous\nprogress, requires, as the Holy See has constantly maintained, the\nco-operation and harmonious action of the church and the empire or\nrepublic, but the church has seldom found the empire ready and willing\nto co-operate with her, and the record of the struggles between her\nand it fills more than a brief chapter in ecclesiastical and civil\nhistory. In point of fact, the church has usually found herself\nembarrassed and oppressed by officially Catholic states, and most of\nthe popular prejudices that still exist against her owe their origin\nneither to her doctrines nor to her practices, but to the action of\nsecular governments officially Catholic. In the last century, her\nbitterest enemies were the sovereigns of officially Catholic states;\nthe most generous friends of the Holy See were states officially\nheretical or schismatic, as Russia, Great Britain, Sweden, and\nPrussia. Austria is humiliated and suffering now for being in the way\nof the anti-papal aggression, and every generous-hearted man\nsympathizes with her noble-minded and well-disposed if not able\nemperor, and it is no time to speak of her past shortcomings; but this\nmuch may be said, she has seldom been a generous supporter of the Holy\nSee, and sometimes has been its oppressor.\n\nGovernments, like individuals, seldom profit by any experience but\ntheir own; yet experience has proved, over and over again, that\ngovernments the most powerful cannot, however determined on doing so,\nextirpate Catholicity by force from their dominions. Pagan Rome, once\nthe haughty mistress of the world, tried it, made the profession of\nthe Christian faith punishable with death, and death in the most\nfrightful and excruciating forms, but failed. England, with all her\npower, with all her Protestant zeal, aided by her intense national\nprejudices, though she emulated the cruelties of the Caesars and even\nsurpassed the Caesars in her craft and treachery, has never been able\nto extinguish the Catholic faith and love of the Irish people, the\ngreat majority of whom have never ceased to adhere to the Catholic\nreligion. The church thrives under persecution, for to suffer for\nChrist's sake is a signal honor, and martyrdom is a crown of glory.\nThe government can reach no farther than to the bodies and goods of\nCatholics, and he who counts it an honor to suffer, a crown to die,\nfor his faith, fears nothing that can be done to those, and is\nmightier than king or kaiser, parliament or congress. The Christians,\nas Lactantius well says, conquered the world not by slaying but by\nbeing slain. Woe to him who slays the Catholic for his religion, but\nimmortal honor and glory to him who is slain! Men are so constituted\nthat they rarely love that which costs them nothing, no sacrifice. It\nis having suffered for our native land that hallows it in our\naffections, and the more we suffer for the church, the more and the\nmore tenderly do we love her. St. Hilary accuses the Arian Constantius\nof being a worse enemy to the church then Nero, Decius, or Diocletian,\nfor he seduced her prelates by favors, instead of enabling them to\nacquire glory in openly dying for the faith.\n\nThe civil power can never uproot Catholicity by slaying Catholics, or\nrobbing the church of her temporalities. Impoverish the church as you\nwill, you cannot make her poorer than she was {62} in our Lord\nhimself, who had not where to lay his head, nor than she was in the\ntwelve apostles when they went forth from that \"upper room\" in\nJerusalem to conquer the world. She has never depended upon the goods\nof this world as the means of accomplishing her mission, and her\npossessions have often been an embarrassment, and exposed her to the\nenvy, cupidity, and rapacity of secular princes. If deprived by the\nrevolution of the temporalities of her churches, and left destitute,\nso to apeak, of house or home, she can still offer up \"the clean\noblation,\" as she has often done, in private houses, barns, groves,\ncatacombs, caverns in the earth, or clefts in the rocks.\n\nThe church has frequently been deprived of her temporal possessions\nand of all temporal power, but the poor have suffered by it more than\nshe. She is really stronger in France today than she was in the age of\nLouis XIV., and French society is, upon the whole, less corrupt than\nin the time of Francis I. Religion revives in Spain in proportion as\nthe church losers her wealth. There are no countries where the church\nhas been poorer than in Ireland and the United Slates, and none where\nher prosperity has been greater. Let matters, then, take the worst\nturn possible, Catholics have little to fear, the church nothing to\napprehend, except the injury her enemies are sure to do themselves,\nwhich cannot fail to afflict her loving heart.\n\nYet, whatever may be the extent of the changes effected or going on in\nthe states and empires of Europe, I apprehend no severe or prolonged\npersecution of Catholics. The church in this world is and always will\nbe the church militant, because she is not of this world, and acts on\nprinciples not only above but opposed to those on which kings and\nkaisers and the men of this world act. She therefore necessarily comes\nin conflict with them, and could render them no service if she did\nnot. Conflicts there will be, annoyances and vexations must be\nexpected; but in all the European states as well as our own, if we\nexcept Sweden and Denmark, there is too large a Catholic population to\nbe either massacred, exiled, or deprived of the rights of person and\nproperty common to all citizens or subjects. The British government\nhas been forced to concede Catholic emancipation, and all appearances\nindicate that she will be forced ere long to place Catholics in all\nrespects on a footing of perfect equality with Protestants before the\nstate. Prussia, should she, as is possible, absorb all Germany, will\nhave nearly as many Catholic as Protestant subjects, and though she\nmay insist on remaining officially Protestant and anti-Catholic, she\nwill find it necessary to her own peace and security to allow her\nCatholic subjects to enjoy liberty of religion and equal civil rights.\nThe mass of the Italian people are Catholic, and will remain\nCatholics; and these are not times when even absolute, much less\nconstitutional, sovereigns can afford to is the it's and convictions\nof any considerable portion of their people.\n\nThe anti-papal party may prove strong enough to deprive the Holy\nFather of his temporal sovereignty and make Rome the capital of the\nnew kingdom of Italy; that is undoubtedly laid down in the programme,\nand is only a natural, a logical result of Napoleon's campaign of 1859\nagainst Austria and Napoleon holds that the logic of events must be\nsubmitted to. He said in 1859 that there were two questions to be\nsettled, the Italian question and the Roman question. As the former\nhas been settled by expelling the Austrians from Italy, so the latter\nis likely to be settled by the deprivation of the Pope as temporal\nsovereign--the plan of settlement being evidently to secure to the\nanti-papal party all it demands. Austria humiliated cannot interpose\nin behalf of the temporal sovereignty, and is reported to have\nabandoned it; Napoleon will not do it, unless compelled, for he has\nbeen the determined but politic enemy of that sovereignty ever {63}\nsince, with his elder brother, he engaged in a conspiracy, in 1831, to\ndestroy the papal government; and Russia, Great Britain, and Prussia,\nall anti-Catholic states, will abandon the papal throne to the logic\nof events. Under the providence of God, it depends on the Italian\npeople whether the Holy Father shall retain his temporal sovereignty\nor not, and what they will do nobody can say. They are capable of\ndoing anything hostile to the Pope one moment, and next falling on\ntheir knees before him, and, with tears in their eyes, begging his\nabsolution.\n\nBut beyond the rights of the Supreme Pontiff as sovereign of the Roman\nstate, I cannot apprehend any serious attacks on the papacy; or after\nthe first fury has passed, even on ecclesiastical property. Much\nhostility for a time will be displayed, no doubt, against the monastic\norders, and where they have any property remaining in their\npossession. It, not unlikely, will be confiscated, and the right of\nthe church to be a proprietor legally denied or not recognized, yet\nproperty dedicated to religious uses still will be passably secure\nunder the general law protecting citizens and their rights of\nproperty, to make gifts _inter vivos_, and testamenary bequests. The\nlaw will gradually become throughout Europe what it is with us. The\ncivil law in the United States knows nothing of the canons of the\nChurch establishing religious orders, or of the vows taken by the\nreligious; it takes no cognizance of the church herself, it recognizes\nin her no proprietary rights, and gives her no standing in the courts,\nand yet nowhere is ecclesiastical property better protected or more\nsecure, and nowhere are religious orders more free in person or more\nsecure in property. This proceeds from the right of property secured\nto the citizens, and the right of the church, and of religious orders,\nnot as proprietors, but, if I may so speak, as recipiendaries, or\ntheir right to receive enjoy eleemosynary gifts, grants, and bequests\nin whatever form made, which the courts protect according to the will\nof the donors or testators. There may be great inconveniences\nresulting from the inevitable changes taking place, great wrong is\npretty sure to be done. The church has a valid right to be a\nproprietor, and it is a great crime and a great sin to rob her of any\nof her possessions; but she can carry on, and in most countries long\nhas carried on, her mission without the law recognizing any\nproprietary rights.\n\nPresent appearances indicate that the church throughout the world will\nbe thrown back, as she was in the beginning, on her internal resources\nas a spiritual kingdom; that she will cease to be the official church\nany nation--at least for a time, if not for ever; and that she will\nnot henceforth govern or protect her children as civil life\ncommunities, states, or empires through their civil rulers, but simply\nas Catholics, individual members of her communion, through her own\nspiritual ministry, her bishops and prelates alone, without any\nofficial relation with the state. She can then exercise her full\nspiritual authority over her own members, as the independent kingdom\nof God on earth, free from all entangling alliances with the shifting\npolicies of nations.\n\nIt is not assumed that the changes recent events have produced, or are\nproducing, were desirable, are not evil, or are not brought about by\nevil passions, and from motives which every lover of truth and right\ndoes and must condemn; all that is argued is, that the church can\nsurvive them, and with less detriment to her material interests than\nher enemies have contemplated. Nothing that has taken place is\ndefended, or defensible; but who can say that God in his gracious\nprovidence will not overrule all to the glory of his church and the\ngood of them that love him? Who knows but he has given the victory to\nhis enemies for the very purpose of confounding them, and showing them\nhow vain are all their strivings against him and the order he has\nestablished? That is very victory, seemingly so {64} adverse and so\nafflicting to the Catholic heart, may prove to be the means of\nemancipating the church from her thraldom to the secular powers\nofficially Catholic, but really anti-Catholic in spirit, and of\npreparing the way for her to labor more effectually than ever for the\nadvancement of truth, the progress of civilization, and the salvation\nof souls! It is the prerogative of God to overrule evil for good, and\nthe church, though immovable in her foundation, inflexible in her\nprinciples, and unchanging in her doctrines, has a wonderful capacity\nof adapting herself to all stages of civilization, and to all the\nchanges in states and empires that may take place; she is confined\nwithin no national boundaries, and wedded to no particular form of\ncivil government--she can subsist and carry on her work under Russian\nautocracy or American democracy, with the untutored savage and the\nmost highly cultivated European, and is equally at her ease with the\nhigh and the low, the learned and the unlearned, the rich and the\npoor, the bond and the free. The events which, to all human judgment,\nseem adverse often turn out to be altogether in our favor. \"All those\nthings are against me,\" said the patriarch Jacob, when required to\nsend his son Benjamin down to Egypt, and yet the event proved that\nthey were all for him. When the Jews with wicked hands took our Lord\nand slew him, crucified him between two thieves, they, no doubt,\nthought that they had succeeded, and that it was all over with him and\nhis work; but what they did was a means to the end he sought, for it\nwas only in dying that he could accomplish the work he came to do.\n\nThe detachment of the empire from the church, which has been effected\nfor purposes hostile to her, and with the hope of causing her\ndestruction, perhaps will prove to her enemies that she does not rest\non the state, that the state is far more in need of her than she of\nit, and show in a clear and unmistakable light her independence of all\ncivil support, her inexhaustible internal resources, her supernatural\nenergy and divine persistence. The empire detached from her and\nabandoning her to herself, or turning its force against her, will\ncease to incumber her with its official help, will no longer stand as\nan opaque substance between her and the people, intercepting her\nlight, and preventing them from beholding her in her spiritual beauty\nand splendor. The change will allay much political hostility, remove\nmost of the political prejudices against her, and permit the hearts of\nthe people to turn once more towards her as their true mother and best\nfriend. It may in fact tend to revive faith, and prepare the nations\nto reunite under her divine banner. Be this as it may, every Catholic\nknows that she is in herself independent of all the revolutions of\nstates and empires, of all the changes of this world, and feels sure\nthat she is imperishable, and that in some way the victories of her\nenemies will turn out to be their defeat, and the occasion of new\ntriumphs for her.\n\n\n\n{65}\n\nFrom The Month\n\nTHE MYSTERY OF THE THATCHED HOUSE.\n\n\nIt was a clean, bright, wholesome, thoroughly lovable house. The first\ntime I saw it, I fell in love with it, and wanted to live in it at\nonce. It fascinated me. When I crossed its threshold, I felt as if I\nhad opened a book whose perusal promised enchantment. I felt a\npassionate longing to have been born here, to have been expected by\nthe brown old watchful walls for years before it had been my turn to\nexist in the world. I felt despoiled of my rights; because there was\nhere a hoard of wealth which I might not touch, placed just beyond the\nreach of my hand. I was tantilized; because the secrets of a sweetly\nodorous past hung about the shady corners, and the sunny\nwindow-frames, and the grotesque hearth-places; and their breath was\nno more to me than the scent of dried rose-leaves.\n\nIt was my fault that we bought the Thatched House. We wanted a country\nhome; and, hearing that this was for sale, we drove many miles one\nshowery April morning to view the place, and judge if it might suit\nour need. Aunt Featherstone objected to it from the first, and often\nboasted of her own sagacity in doing so, after the Thatched House had\nproved itself an incubus--a dreadful Old Man of the Mountains, not to\nbe shaken from our necks. I once was bold enough to tell her that\ntemper, and not sagacity, was the cause of her dislike that April\nmorning. We drove in an open phaeton, and Aunt Featherstone got some\ndrops of rain on her new silk dress. Consequently she was out of humor\nwith everything, and vehemently pronounced her veto upon the purchase\nof the Thatched House.\n\nI was a spoiled girl, however; and I thought it hard that I might not\nhave my own way in this matter as in everything else. As we drove\nalong a lonely road, across a wild, open country, I had worshipped the\nbroken, gold-edged rain-clouds, and the hills, with their waving lines\nof light and their soft trailing shadows. I had caught the shower in\nmy face, and laughed; and dried my limp curls with my\npocket-handkerchief. I was disposed to love everything I saw, and\nclapped my hands when we stopped before the sad-looking old gates,\nwith their mossy brick pillars, and their iron arms folded across, as\nif mournfully forbidding inquiry into some long hushed-up and\nforgotten mystery. When we swept along the silent avenue my heart\nleaped up in greeting to the grand old trees, that rose towering\nfreshly at every curve, spreading their masses of green foliage right\nand left, and flinging showers of diamond drops to the ground whenever\nthe breeze lifted the tresses of a drowsy bough, or a bird poised its\nslender weight upon a twig, and then shot off sudden into the blue.\n\nAunt Featherstone exclaimed against the house the very moment we came\nin sight of it. It was not the sort of thing we wanted at all, she\nsaid. It had not got a modern porch, and it was all nooks and angles\non the outside. The lower windows were too long and narrow, and the\nupper ones too small, and pointing up above the eaves in that\nold-fashioned, inconvenient manner. To crown its {66} absurdities, the\nroof was thatched. No, no, Aunt Featherstone said, it was necessary\nfor such old houses to exist for the sake of pictures and romances;\nbut as for people of common sense going to live in them, that was out\nof the question.\n\nI left her still outside with her eyeglass levelled at the chimneys,\nand darted into the house to explore. An old woman preceded me with a\njingling bunch of keys, unlocking all the doors, throwing open the\nshutters and letting the long levels of sunshine fall over the\nuncarpeted floors. It was all delicious, I thought; the long\ndining-room with its tall windows opening like doors upon the broad\ngravel, the circular drawing-room with its stained-glass roofing, the\ndouble flights of winding stairs, the roomy passages, the numerous\nchambers of all shapes and sizes opening one out of another, and\nchasing each other from end to end of the house; and above all, the\ncharming old rustic balcony, running round the waist of the building\nlike a belt, and carrying one, almost quick as a bird could fly, from\none of those dear old pointed windows under the eaves down amongst the\nflower-beds below.\n\nI said to myself in my own wilful way, \"This Thatched House must be my\nhome!\" and then I set about coaxing Aunt Featherstone into my way of\nthinking. It was not at all against her will that she completed the\npurchase at last. Afterwards, however, she liked to think it was so.\n\nIn May it was all settled. The house was filled with painters and\npaper-hangers, and all through the long summer months they kept on\nmaking a mess within the walls, and forbidding us to enter and enjoy\nthe place in the full glorious luxuriance of its summer beauty. At\nlast, on driving there one bright evening, I found to my joy that the\nworkmen had decamped, leaving the Thatched House clean and fresh and\ngay, ready for the reception of us, and our good's and chattels. I\nsprang in through one of the open dining-room windows, and began\nwaltzing round the floor from sheer delight. Pausing at last for\nbreath, I saw that the old woman who took care of the place, she who\nhad on my first visit opened the shutters for me and jingled her keys,\nhad entered the room while I danced, and was standing watching me from\nthe doorway with a queer expression on her wrinkled face.\n\n\"Ah, ha! Nelly,\" I cried triumphantly, \"what do you think of the old\nhouse now?\"\n\nNelly shook her gray head, and shot me a weird look out of her small\nblack eyes. Then she folded her arms slowly, and gazed all round the\nroom musingly, while she said:\n\n\"Ay, Miss Lucy! wealth can do a deal, but there's things it can't do.\nAll that the band of man may do to make this place wholesome to live\nin has been done. Dance and see now, pretty lady--now, while you have\nthe heart and courage. The day'll come when you'd as soon think of\nsleepin' all night on a tombstone as of standin' on this floor alone\nafter sunset.\"\n\n\"Good gracious, Nelly!\" I cried, \"what do you mean? Is it possible\nthat there is anything--have you heard or seen--\"\n\n\"I have heard and seen plenty,\" was Nelly's curt reply.\n\nJust then, a van arriving with the first instalment of our household\ngoods, the old woman vanished; and not another word could I wring that\nevening from her puckered lips. Her words haunted me, and I went home\nwith my mirth considerably sobered; and dreamed all night of wandering\nup and down that long dining-room in the dark, and seeing dimly\nhorrible faces grinning at me from the walls. This was only the first\nshadow of the trouble that came upon us in the Thatched House.\n\nIt came by degrees in nods and whispers, and stories told in lowered\ntones by the fireside at night. The servants got possession of a\nrumor, and the rumor reached me. I shuddered in silence, and contrived\nfor the {67} first few months to keep it a jealous secret from my\nunsuspecting aunt. For the house was ours, and Aunt Featherstone was\ntimorous; and the rumor, very horrible, was this--the Thatched House\nwas haunted.\n\nHaunted, it was said, by a footstep, which every night, at a certain\nhour, went down the principal corridor, distinctly audible as it\npassed the doors, descended the staircase, traversed the hall, and\nceased suddenly at the dining-room door. It was a heavy, unshod foot,\nand walked rather slowly. All the servants could describe it minutely,\nthough none could avow that they had positively heard it. New editions\nof this story were constantly coming out, and found immediate\ncirculation. To each of these was added some fresh harrowing sequel,\nillustrative of the manners and customs of a certain shadowy\ninhabitant, who was said to have occupied the Thatched House all\nthrough the dark days of its past emptiness and desolation, and who\nresented fiercely the unwelcome advent of us flesh-and-blood\nintruders. The tradition of this lonely shade was as follows: The\nbuilder and first owner of the Thatched House was an elderly man,\nwealthy, wicked, and feared. He had married a gentle young wife, whose\nheart had been broken before she consented to give him her hand. He\nwas cruel to her, using her harshly, and leaving her solitary in the\nlonely house for long winter weeks and months together, till she went\nmad with brooding over her sorrows, and died a maniac. Goaded with\nremorse, he had shut up the house and fled the country. Since then\ndifferent people had fancied the beautiful, romantic old dwelling, and\nmade an attempt to live in it; but they said that the sorrowful lady\nwould not yield up her right to any new-comer. It had been her habit,\nwhen alive, to steal down stairs at night, when she could not sleep\nfor weeping, and to walk up and down the dining-room, wringing her\nhands, till the morning dawned; and now, though her coffin was nailed,\nand her grave green, and though her tears ought to have been long\nsince blown from her eyes like rain on the wind, still the unhappy\nspirit would not quit the scene of her former wretchedness, but paced\nthe passage, and trod the stairs, and traversed the hall night after\nnight, as of old. At the dining-room door the step was said to pause;\nand up and down the dreary chamber a wailing ghost was believed to\nflit, wringing her hands, till the morning dawned.\n\nIt was not till the summer had departed that I learned this story.\n\nAs long as the sun shone, and the roses bloomed, and the nightingales\nsang about the windows till midnight, I tried hard to shut my ears to\nthe memory of old Nelly's hint, and took good care not to mention it\nto my aunt. If the servants looked mysterious, I would not see them;\nif they whispered together, it was nothing to me. There was so short a\ntime for the stars to shine between the slow darkening of the blue sky\nat night and the early quickening of flowers and birds and rosy beams\nat dawn, that there was literally no space for the accommodation of\nghosts. So long as the summer lasted, the Thatched House was a\ndwelling of sunshine and sweet odors and bright fancies for me. It was\ndifferent, however, when a wintry sky closed in around us, when\nsolitary leaves dangled upon shivering boughs, and when the winds\nbegan to shudder at the windows all through the long dark nights. Then\nI took fear to my heart, and wished that I had never seen the Thatched\nHouse.\n\nThen it was that my ears became gradually open to the dreadful murmurs\nthat were rife in the house; then it was that I learned the story of\nthe weeping lady, and of her footstep on the stairs. Of course I would\nnot believe, though the thumping of my heart, if I chanced to cross a\nlanding, even by twilight, belied the courage of which I boasted. I\nforbade the servants to hint at such folly as the existence of ghosts,\nand warned them {68} at their peril not to let a whisper of the kind\ndisturb my aunt. On the latter point I believe they did their best to\nobey me.\n\nAunt Featherstone was a dear old, cross, good-natured, crotchety,\nkind-hearted lady, who was always needing to be coaxed. She considered\nherself an exceedingly strong-minded person, whereas she was in\nreality one of the most nervous women I have ever known. I verily\nbelieve that, if she had known that story of the footstep, she would\nhave made up her mind to hear it distinctly every night, and would\nhave been found some morning stone-dead in her bed with fear.\nTherefore, as long as it was possible, I kept the dreadful secret from\nher ears. This was in reality, however, a much shorter space of time\nthan I had imagined it to be.\n\nAbout the middle of November Aunt Featherstone noticed that I was\nbeginning to look very pale, to lose my appetite, and to start and\ntremble at the most commonplace sounds. The truth was that the long\nnights of terror which passed over my head, in my pretty sleeping-room\noff the ghost's corridor, were wearing out my health and spirits, and\nthreatening to throw me into a fever; and yet neither sight nor sound\nof the supernatural had ever disturbed my rest--none worth recording,\nthat is; for of course, in my paroxysms of wakeful fear, I fancied a\nthousand horrible revelations. Night after night I lay in agony, with\nmy ears distended for the sound of the footstep. Morning after morning\nI awakened, weary and jaded, after a short, unsatisfying sleep, and\nresolved that I would confess to my aunt, and implore her to fly from\nthe place at once. But, when seated at the breakfast-table, my heart\ninvariably failed me. I accounted, by the mention of a headache, for\nmy pale cheeks, and kept my secret.\n\nSome weeks passed, and then I in my turn began to observe that Aunt\nFeatherstone had grown exceedingly dull in spirits. \"Can any one have\ntold her the secret of the House?\" was the question I quickly asked\nmyself. But the servants denied having broken their promise; and I had\nreason to think that there had been of late much less gossip on the\nsubject than formerly. I was afraid to risk questioning the dear old\nlady, and so I could only hope and surmise. But I was dull, and Aunt\nFeatherstone was dull, and the Thatched House was dreary. Things went\non in this way for some time, and at last a dreadful night arrived. I\nhad been for a long walk during the day; and had gone to bed rather\nearlier than usual, and fallen asleep quickly. For about two hours I\nslept, and then I was roused suddenly by a slight sound, like the\ncreaking of a board, just outside my door. With the instinct of fear I\nstarted up, and listened intently. A watery moon was shining into my\nroom, revealing the pretty blue-and-white furniture, the pale\nstatuette and the various little dainty ornaments with which I had\nbeen pleased to surround myself in this my chosen sanctuary. I sat up\nshuddering and listened. I pressed my hands tightly over my heart, to\ntry and keep its throbbing from killing me; for distinctly, in the\nmerciless stillness of the winter night, I heard the tread of a\nstealthy footstep on the passage outside my room. Along the corridor\nit crept, down the staircase it went, and was lost in the hall below.\n\nI shall never forget the anguish of fear in which I passed the\nremainder of that wretched night. While cowering into my pillow, I\nmade up my mind to leave the Thatched House as soon as the morning\nbroke, and never to enter it again. I had heard people whose hair had\ngrown gray a single night, of grief or terror. When I glanced in the\nlooking-glass at dawn, I almost expected to see a white head upon my\nown shoulders.\n\nDuring the next day I, as usual, failed of courage to speak to my\naunt. I desired one of the maids to sleep on the couch in my room,\nkeeping this {69} arrangement a secret. The following night I felt\nsome little comfort from the presence of a second person near me; but\nthe girl soon fell asleep. Lying awake in fearful expectation, I was\nvisited by a repetition of the previous night's horror. I heard the\nfootstep a second time.\n\nI suffered secretly in this way for about a week. I had become so pale\nand nervous, that I was only like a shadow of my former self. Time\nhung wretchedly upon my hands. I only prized the day inasmuch as it\nwas a respite from the night; the appearance of twilight coming on at\nevening, invariably threw me into an ague-fit of shivering. I trembled\nat a shadow; I screamed at a sudden noise. My aunt groaned over me,\nand sent for the doctor.\n\nI said to him, \"Doctor, I am only a little moped. I have got a bright\nidea for curing myself. You must prescribe me a schoolfellow.\"\n\nHereupon Aunt Featherstone began to ride off on her old hobby about\nthe loneliness, the unhealthiness and total objectionableness of the\nThatched House, bewailing her own weakness in having allowed herself\nto be forced into buying it. She never mentioned the word \"haunted,\"\nthough I afterward knew that at the very time, and for some weeks\npreviously, she had been in full possession of the story of the\nnightly footstep. The doctor recommended me a complete change of\nscene; but instead of taking advantage of this, I asked for a\ncompanion at the Thatched House.\n\nThe prescription I had begged for was written in the shape of a note\nto Ada Rivers, imploring her to come to me at once. \"Do come now,\" I\nwrote; \"I have a mystery for you to explore. I will tell you about it\nwhen we meet.\" Having said so much, I knew that I should not be\ndisappointed.\n\nAda Rivers was a tall, robust girl, with the whitest teeth, the purest\ncomplexion, and the clearest laugh I have ever met with in the world.\nTo be near her made one fed healthier both in body and mind. She was\none of those lively, fearless people who love to meet a morbid horror\nface to face, and put it to rout. When I wrote to her, \"Do come, for I\nam sick,\" I was pretty sure she would obey the summons; but when I\nadded, \"I have a mystery for you to explore,\" I was convinced of her\ncompliance beyond the possibility of a doubt.\n\nIt wanted just one fortnight of Christmas Day when Ada arrived at the\nThatched House. For some little time beforehand, I had busied myself\nso pleasantly in making preparations, that I had almost forgotten the\nweeping lady, and had not heard the footstep for two nights. And when,\non the first evening of her arrival, Ada stepped into the haunted\ndining-room in her trim flowing robe of crimson cashmere, with her\ndark hair bound closely round her comely head, and her bright eyes\nclear with that frank unwavering light of theirs, I felt as if her\nwholesome presence had banished dread at once, and that ghosts could\nsurely never harbor in the same house with her free step and genial\nlaugh.\n\n\"What is the matter with you?\" said Ada, putting her hands on my\nshoulders, and looking in my face. \"You look like a changeling, you\nlittle white thing! When shall I get leave to explore your mystery?\"\n\n\"To-night,\" I whispered, and, looking round me quickly, shuddered. We\nwere standing on the hearth before the blazing fire, on the very spot\nwhere that awful footstep would pass and repass through the long,\ndark, unhappy hours after our lights had been extinguished, and our\nheads, laid upon our pillows.\n\nAda laughed at me and called me a little goose; but I could see that\nshe was wild with curiosity, and eager for bedtime to arrive. I had\narranged that we should both occupy my room, in order that, if there\nwas anything to be heard, Ada might hear it. \"And now what is all this\nthat I have to learn?\" said she, after our door had been fastened for\nthe night, and we sat looking at one another with our dressing-gowns\nupon our shoulders.\n\n{70}\n\nAs I had expected, a long ringing laugh greeted the recital of my\ndoleful tale. \"My dear Lucy!\" cried Ada, \"my poor sick little moped\nLucy, you surely don't mean to say that you believe in such vulgar\nthings as ghosts?\"\n\n\"But I cannot help it,\" I said. \"I have heard the footstep no less\nthan seven times, and the proof of it is that I am ill. If you were to\nsleep alone in this room every night for a month, you would get sick\ntoo.\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it!\" said Ada, stoutly; and she sprang up and walked\nabout the chamber, \"To think of getting discontented with this pretty\nroom, this exquisite little nest! No, I engage to sleep here every\nnight for a month--alone, if you please--and at the end of that time,\nI shall not only be still in perfect health, my unromantic self, but I\npromise to have cured you, you little, absurd, imaginative thing! And\nnow let us get to bed without another word on the subject. 'Talking it\nover,' in cases of this kind, always does a vast amount of mischief.\"\n\nAda always meant what she said. In half an hour we were both in bed,\nwithout a further word being spoken on the matter. So strengthened and\nreassured was I by her strong, happy presence that, wearied out by the\nexcitement of the day, I was quickly fast asleep. It was early next\nmorning when I wakened again, and the red, frosty sun was rising above\nthe trees. When I opened my eyes, the first object they met was Ada,\nsitting in the window, with her forehead against the pane, and her\nhands locked in her lap. She was very pale, and her brows were knit in\nperplexed thought. I had never seen her look so strangely before.\n\nA swift thought struck me. I started up, and cried, \"O Ada! forgive me\nfor going to sleep so soon. _I know you have heard it_.\"\n\nShe unknit her brows, rose from her seat, and came and sat down on the\nbed beside me. \"I cannot deny it.\" she said gravely; \"_I have heard\nit._ Now tell me, Lucy, does your aunt know anything of all this?\"\n\n\"I am not sure,\" I said; \"I cannot be, because I am afraid to ask her.\nrather think that she has heard some of the stories, and is anxiously\ntrying to hide them from me, little thinking of what I have suffered\nhere. She has been very dull lately, and repines constantly about the\npurchase of the house.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Ada, \"we must tell her nothing till we have sifted this\nmatter to the bottom.\"\n\n\"Why, what are you going to do?\" I asked, beginning to tremble.\n\n\"Nothing very dreadful, little coward!\" she said, laughing; \"only to\nfollow the ghost if it passes our door to-night; I want to see what\nstuff it is made of. If it be a genuine spirit, it is time the\nThatched House were vacated for its more complete accommodation. If it\nbe flesh and blood, it is time the trick were found out.\"\n\nI gazed at Ada with feelings of mingled reverence and admiration. It\nwas in vain that I tried to dissuade her from her wild purpose. She\nbade me hold my tongue, get up and dress and think no more about\nghosts till bedtime. I tried to be obedient; and all that day we kept\nstrict silence on the dreadful subject, while our tongues and hands\nand (seemingly) our heads were kept busily occupied in helping to\ncarry out Aunt Featherstone's thousand-and-one pleasant arrangements\nfor the coming Christmas festivities.\n\nDuring the morning, it happened that I often caught Ada with her eyes\nfixed keenly on Aunt Featherstone's face, especially when once or\ntwice the dear old lady sighed profoundly, and the shadow of an\nunaccountable cloud settled down upon her troubled brows. Ada pondered\ndeeply in the interval of our conversation, though her merry comment\nand apt suggestion were always ready as usual when occasion seemed to\ncall for them. {71} I noticed also that she made excuses to explore\nrooms and passages, and found means to observe and exchange words with\nthe servants. Ada's bright eyes were unusually wide open that day. For\nme, I hung about her like a mute, and dreaded the coming of the night.\n\nBedtime arrived too quickly; and when we were shut in together in our\nroom, I implored Ada earnestly to give up the wild idea she had spoken\nof in the morning, and to lock fast the door, and let us try to go to\nsleep. Such praying, however, was useless. Ada had resolved upon a\ncertain thing to do, and this being the case, Ada was the girl to do\nit.\n\nWe said our prayers, we set the door ajar, we extinguished our light,\nand we went to bed. An hour we lay awake, and heard nothing to alarm\nus. Another silent hour went past, and still the sleeping house was\nundisturbed. I had begun to hope that the night was going to pass by\nwithout accident, and had just commenced to doze a little and to\nwander into a confused dream, when a sudden squeezing of my hand,\nwhich lay in Ada's, startled me quickly into consciousness.\n\nI opened my eyes; Ada was sitting erect in the bed, with her face set\nforward, listening, and her eyes fastened on the door. Half smothered\nwith fear, I raised myself upon my elbow and listened too. Yes, O\nhorror! there it was--the soft, heavy, unshod footstep going down the\ncorridor outside the door. It paused at the top of the staircase, and\nbegan slowly descending to the bottom. \"Ada!\" I whispered, with a\ngasp. Her hand was damp with fear, and my face was drenched in a cold\ndew. \"In God's name!\" she sighed, with a long-drawn breath; and then\nshe crept softly from the bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and went\nswiftly away out of the already open door.\n\nWhat I suffered in the next few minutes I could never describe, if I\nspent the remainder of my life in endeavoring to do so. I remember an\ninterval of stupid horror; while leaning on my elbow in the bed, I\ngazed with a fearful, fascinated stare at the half-open door beside\nme. Then, through the silence of the night there came a cry.\n\nIt seemed to come struggling up through the flooring from the\ndining-room underneath. It sounded wild, suppressed, smothered, and\nwas quickly hushed away into stillness again; but a horrible\nstillness, broken by fitful, confused murmurs. Unable to endure the\nsuspense any longer, I sprang out of bed, rushed down the stairs, and\nfound myself standing in the gray darkness of the winter's night, with\nrattling teeth, at the door of the haunted dining-room.\n\n\"Ada! Ada!\" I sobbed out, in my shivering terror, and thrust my hand\nagainst the heavy panel. The door opened with me, I staggered in, and\nsaw----a stout white figure sitting bolt upright in an arm-chair, and\nAda standing quivering in convulsions of laughter by its side. I fell\nforward on the floor; but before I fainted quite, I heard a merry\nvoice ringing through the darkness,\n\n\"O Lucy! your Aunt Featherstone is the ghost!\"\n\nWhen I recovered my senses, I was lying in bed, with Ada and my aunt\nboth watching by my side. The poor dear old lady had so brooded over\nthe ghost-stories of the house, and so unselfishly denied herself the\nrelief of talking them over with me, that, pressing heavily on her\nthoughts, they had unsettled her mind in sleep. Constantly ruminating\non the terror of that ghostly walk, she had unconsciously risen night\nafter night, and most cleverly accomplished it herself. Comparing\ndates, I found that she had learned the story of the spirit only a few\ndays before the night on which I had first been terrified by the\nfootstep.\n\nThe news of Aunt Featherstone's escapade flew quickly through the\nhouse. It caused so many laughs, that the genuine ghosts soon fell\ninto ill repute. The legend of the weeping lady's rambles became\ndivested of its dignity, and grew therefore to be quite harmless. Ada\nand I laughed over our adventure every night during the rest of her\nstay, and entered upon our Christmas festivities with right goodwill.\nI have never forgotten to be grateful to Ada for that good service\nwhich she rendered me; and as for Aunt Featherstone, I must own that\nshe never again said one word in disparagement of the Thatched House.\n\n------\n\n{72}\n\nFrom the German.\n\nTHE RESURRECTION.\n\n\n  Rise? Yes, with the myriads of the just,\n  After short sleep, my dust!\n  Life of immortal fire\n  Thine from the Almighty Sire!\n            Alleluia!\n\n  Sown, to upspring, O joy! in richer bloom,\n  The Lord of harvest's tomb\n  Gives forth his sheaves within----\n  Us, even us, who died in him!\n            Alleluia!\n\n  O victory! O dayspring's kindling ray!\n  God's everlasting day!\n  In the grave's solemn night.\n  Slumbering, soon shall thy light\n            Wake me to sight.\n\n  As if of visionary dream the end----\n  With Jesus to ascend\n  Through joy's celestial door----\n  Pilgrims of earth no more----\n            Our sorrows o'er.\n\n  My Saviour, to the Holiest leading on;\n  That we may at the throne,\n  In sanctuary free.\n  Worship eternally!\n            Alleluia!\n\nF. W. P.\n\n------\n\n{73}\n\nOriginal\n\nAUBREY DE VERE.  [Footnote 20]\n\n  [Footnote 20:\n  Search after Proserpine, and other\n  Poems. London, 1843.\n\n  Poems. by Aubrey de Vere. London, 1855.\n\n  The Sisters, Inisfail, and other Poems. London, 1861\n\n  May Carols. New York: Lawrence Kehoe, 1866.]\n\n\nOut of the greater breadth and catholicity, so to speak, of our\npresent literary taste, it results that one class of poets is arising\namong as which has been very rare before our day: those in whom the\nsoul is the predominant force--men who care nothing for popularity,\nand barely enough for recognition by their peers to make them publish\nat all--men by nature high-strung and shy, yet tranquil, balanced, and\nstrong; who write, in short, from the spiritual side of things. These\ncould not, in ordinary times, hope for a wide, general favor, and they\nsailed the nautiluses of literature; dropping from the surface of\nthemselves, equally native to the cooler, deeper waters below. But so\nstrong have been the gales of awakening love of reading, that even\nthese stranger ships, not bound for the ports of popularity, find wind\nenough to waft them wherever refinement and scholarship care to deal\nin their rare and choice cargoes.\n\nAn extreme of this class is Aubrey de Vere. Naturally not a poet of\nthe people, and still further isolated by holding and eloquently\ncelebrating a faith which incurs certain ostracism from the literature\nof sectarian bigotry, he is almost unknown in America. Fresh from his\nworks, we are almost at a loss to understand how, in a country not\nonly of so many Catholic leaders, but where there is so much\npretension to literary taste, he can be such a stranger. All the usual\nand more accessible sources are so barren of his biography that we\ncannot trust ourselves to attempt any sketch of his life. From\nmaterials so meagre and of such indifferent authenticity, nothing\nsatisfactory--nothing vivified--can be gathered; and biography that\nfails in personality is a body without a soul. So we content ourselves\nwith the poet as we see him in his works.\n\nIn attempting an analysis of the qualities displayed in these volumes,\nwe find, to begin with, none of the inequalities of those writers who\nbegin quite young, and whose works go comet-like through after years,\nthe youthful nebulosity tailing off from the maturer nucleus, in a\nlong string of promising but not much performing versicles. There is\nnone of the crudeness of journey work, but everywhere thought and\ngravity. The latter quality indeed is conspicuous. De Vere can be too\nsarcastic for us to deny him wit, but humor seems to be unknown to\nhim. There is not the ghost of a joke in all his pages. We call this\nremarkable, because he treats of so very many things. In Thomson's\nSeasons (even waiving Thomson's nationality) or Paradise Lost--in any\none poem--we may not expect humor; but in a miscellany, where every\nside of a man's mind usually displays itself, it seems odd not to find\na trace of sense of the ludicrous. Certainly there is variety enough\nfor it. The range of subjects is perhaps not very great, but the\nindividual poems exhibit almost every shade of style, beginning on the\nhither side of quaintness and bringing up on the boundaries of the\ncolloquial. {74} An artificial style like that of the Idyls of the\nKing, or the Emersonian dialect (\"_virtute ac vitiis sapientia\ncrescat_\"), our author never attempts; his thoughts, as a rule, seem\nto choose their own channel. He is willing enough to spend pains in\nmaking a thought clear, but such grave, antique costuming of ideas he\ntakes no time for. The manner is always kept well in subordination to\nthe matter of what he has to say.\n\nThere is a strange versatility in these books in unconsciously\nadopting peculiarities of other writers. The author himself, in his\nnotes, acknowledged this, or rather detects himself after the fact, in\na few instances; but though acute so far, he does not see half. More\nhonest and unconscious imitation there never was, and just as the\nimpression of the archetype rarely rose to a fact of consciousness, so\nthe consequent resemblance seldom amounts to a traceable parallelism.\nThere is no reproduction of passages, but of characteristics. A shade,\na turn of phrase, a suggestion, a _soup\u00e7on_, as we read, recalls at\nonce some great writer. The sonnets are full of subtle odors and\nflavors of Shakespeare, evanescent, intangible, and charming. There\nare also what the French would call \"coincidences of style\" with\nColeridge, and often, especially in the May Carols, with Tennyson.\nBoth are easily accounted for; the one by kindred tendencies to\nphilosophy, the other by the strong likeness in plan to In Memoriam.\nBut perhaps the most singular of all occurs in the very forcible poem\ncalled The Bard Etheil, which bears a curious resemblance to the poet\nof all poets the very opposite of De Vere--Robert Browning. There is\nnothing at all like this poem in all our author's works. It stands as\nsaliently alone as a meteoric boulder in a meadow. The subject is an\nIrish bard, a relic of the bardic days, but a zealous convert to a\nChristianity of his own, tinged with a wild, ineradicable barbarism,\nwhose outcroppings make the interest of the character. There is all\nBrowning's sharp outline sketching, all his power of handling\ncontradictions of character, yet none of the topsy-turvy words and\nsentences without which the Great Inversionist would not be\nhimself;--in short, it is Browning with the constitutional gnarl in\nthe grain left out.\n\nAnother--a closer parallelism than usual--we find in The Year of\nSorrow:\n\n  \"The weaver wove till all was dark.\n  And long ere morning bent and bowed\n  Above his work with fingers stark.\n  And made, nor knew he made, a shroud.\"\n\nThe terrible parallel passage in the Song of the Shirt is too familiar\nto need more than an allusion.\n\nYet through all these coincidences runs an abundant individuality that\nproves De Vere to be anything but a wilful or even permissive\nplagiarist. He is, in simple truth, a great reader, with a mind in\nsuch true tune with all things high and refined, that it responds as\nthe accordant string of some delicate instrument echoes a musical\nnote. There needs no better test than this, that mere imitators\ninvariably copy faults, while Mr. De Vere always reproduces\nexcellences.\n\nIn point of language, our author inherits an Irishman's full measure\nof vocabulary. Through a most varied series of metres, his verse is\nfull of ease, fluency, and grace. In rhythm he rises to the rank of an\nartist. He has passed the first degree--that baccalaureateship of\nverse-making whose diploma is perfect smoothness and melody; where Tom\nMoore took a double first, and beyond which so few ever attain. He is\none of the _maestri_, like Tennyson and Swinburne, who know the uses\nof a discord, and can handle diminished sevenths. His lines are full\nof subtle shadings, and curious subfelicities of diction, that not\nevery one feels, and few save the devotee to metre (such as we own\nourselves to be) pause to analyze and admire. His taste, too, is\nfastidiously unerring; there is never a swerve beyond the cobweb\nboundaries of the line of beauty. {75} Sometimes he misses the exact\nword he wants, but he never halts for want of a good one. The only\ndeficiency arises from his temperament. Where spirit demands to be\nheard in sound as felt in sense, he uniformly fails. He cannot often\nmake his lines bound and ring like Moore's. In the face of the fiery\nepisodes of Irish history which he deals with in Inisfail, he is too\noften like one of his own bards on a modern battle-field.\n\nSo much for the mere style; the man himself remains. Pre-eminently he\nis a philosopher--too much of one to be a great poet. Not that any man\ncan be a poet at all without being also a philosopher. Only his\nphilosophy should be to his poetry as a woman's brain to her heart--a\nsuggesting, subordinate element--the \"refused\" wing of his progress.\nWith him it is just the reverse. Philosophy is the primary fact of his\ninner life, out of which blossom incidentally his poetry and his\npatriotism, but whose legitimate and beautiful fruit is his religion.\nThe consequence is, everything is too much a development of high\nprinciple, instead of an impulse of deep feeling. He is too _right_,\ntoo reasonable, too well-considered. He has not enough _abandon_. This\none, but final and fatal fault to the highest poetical success,\nramifies curiously through everything he writes. The first result is\noccasionally too much abstractness. There are fetters of thought\npoetry cannot be graceful in. Her vocation is to lead us among the\nfostered flowers and whispering groves of the beautiful land, not to\ngo botanizing far up the cold heights, among the snow-growths, whose\nclassification is caviare to the general. There let science climb with\nher _savans_. On rare occasions, indeed, the poet may tellingly deal\nwith the naked truths of nature, but it demands the inspiration of a\nLysimachus and the glorious contours of a Phryne. Tennyson, in his In\nMemoriam, has touched with the rarest felicity on the most pregnant\nproblems of natural divinity, without even rippling the smoothness of\nhis verse; De Vere has done the same, with excellent success, in his\nMay Carols; but he tries too often not to fail oftener than we could\nwish. It must be owned an honorable failure; not of strength, but of\ngrace. His lines lift the weight they grapple with, but he does not\ninterest us in the labor. At the risk of trespassing on time-honored\ncritical demesnes, we differ with that tacit _consensus doctorum_\nwhich suffers sonnets, and some other things, to be as abstract as the\nauthor pleases.\n\nAnother effect of this over-philosophic temperament, while equally\nhurtful to his popularity, greatly endears him to the few. It is the\npure and elevated tone of all he writes. In this quality he is\neminent. He is a mountaineer on the steeps of Parnassus, whose game by\ninstinct never flies to the plains. He lifts ordinary subjects into a\nseeming of unreality. Things seem to lose outline and glide away from\nthe grasp; as clouds that have form enough when seen from the earth,\nare shapeless vapor to the aeronaut among them. So, again, the\ninterest fails in comparison with a lower grade of thought. People\nwill buy very indifferent sketches, but care very little for the most\naccurate bird's-eye view. There is a singular charm in this unlabored,\nif not unconscious loftiness; but the mass of readers weary, as they\ndo of a lecture on astronomy, from over-tension of unused faculties.\nWhat is the difference to a reader whether an author passes beyond his\nreach by going apart into abstruseness or soaring away into idealism?\n\nWe have shown before how the versification suffers. Everywhere reason\nclogs the wings of rhyme. Our author is for ever putting his Pegasus\nin harness to the car of some truth or other. A warm human\nsympathizer, a deep and poetical worshipper, a burning and noble\nprotestant against the woes and wrongs of Ireland, with scholarship,\nreading, talent, every auspicious omen, he has never fulfilled, and\nmay never fulfil, the promise that is in him. {76} His reason is for\never making clear to his better angels of fancy and feeling the exact\nboundaries of just thought, which they may not overstep. It robs his\nphilanthropy of human tenderness, his religion of ardor, his\npatriotism of enthusiasm. His is the calm, trained strength of perfect\nmental soundness; the fiery contractile thrills, that make of the\nimpassioned man a giant for one grand effort, he seems to do battle\nwith and slay before they can grow into acts. What a combination of\nqualities goes to the making of a great poet!\n\nThe poems now before us range themselves mainly into three grand\nclasses--sonnets, religions poems, and lyrics, etc., on Ireland. There\nare some noteworthy exceptions, however--as, for example, the\nexcellent poems on Shelley and Coleridge, whom he thoroughly\nappreciates, the widely known stanzas called The AEolian Harp, and the\nsplendid lines on Delphi--one of his very best efforts. But our\npurpose lies rather with the poet, as revealed through his works, than\nwith the poems themselves. So we must leave a wide, unnoted margin of\nmiscellaneous pieces, where any reader whom we may succeed in\ninteresting in the beauties of our author may range unprejudiced by\nour expressions of opinion, and confine ourselves to our true\nsubject--the poet himself, viewed successively in the three great\npathways he has opened for himself. We only pause to advise our reader\nthat we make no pretensions to gathering the harvest, but leave golden\nswathes behind instead of ordinary gleaning.\n\nSonnets seem to require a peculiar talent. Almost all our best men\nhave written them, and almost all badly, while the small newspaper and\nperiodical craft strand on them daily. Only our deepest and most\nrefined thinkers have written really good ones, and to succeed in them\nat all, is to join a very limited coterie, where Shakespeare and\nMilton have but few compeers. When, then, we say that De Vere is the\nauthor of some of the best we have in our literature, we justify high\nexpectation.\n\nHe is one of the most voluminous of sonnet writers. There are in the\nbooks between one hundred and fifty and two hundred. It seems to be\nhis favorite outlet for those briefer, choicer reflections that lose\ntheir charm by being amplified for the vulgar comprehension,\n\n  \". . . . As orient essences, diffuse\n  On all the liberal airs of low Cashmere,\n  Waft their rich faintness far to stolid hinds,\n  To whom the rose is but a thorny weed;\"\n\nbut which, after all, are the trifles that make up the inner life of a\nsoul, and for whose waste, as our author himself says,\n\n  \"Nature, trifled with, not loved,\n     Will be at last avenged.\"\n\nIt may well be imagined that this is a path peculiarly adapted to our\nauthor's contemplative yet versatile mind. He is singularly fitted for\nthis style of composition, which does not demand the least particle of\nthat kind of spirit and impulsive animation in which he is wanting;\nand accordingly he has written a number of sonnets which will, we\nthink, compare with the very best for eloquence and just thought.\nWalter Savage Landor--_non sordidus auctor_--deliberately pronounced\nthe one on Sunrise the finest in the language.\n\nTwo others, by which he is probably best known to American readers,\nappeared in the Atlantic Monthly, one written March, 1860, the other,\nJune 12, 1861, addressed to Charles Eliot Norton, the editor of the\nNorth American Review. Both relate to the national struggle, and\nindicate a somewhat lively interest in our affairs, but otherwise are\nnot remarkable. Much better than these we find the following. It is a\ngood sample besides of the author's general style:\n\n  \"Silence and sleep, and midnight's softest gloom,\n  Consoling friends of fast declining years,\n  Benign assuagers of unfruitful tears,\n  Soft-footed heralds of the wished-four tomb!\n  Go to your master, Death--the monarch whom\n  Ye serve, whose majesty your grace endears.\n  And in the awful hollows of his ears\n  Murmur, oh! ever murmur: 'Come, O come!'\n  Virginal rights have I observed full long,\n  And all observance worthy of a bride.\n  Then wherefore, Death, dost thou to me is wrong,\n  So long estranged to linger from my side?\n  Am I not thine? Oh! breathe upon my eyes\n  A gentle answer, Death, from thine elysian skies!\"\n\n{77}\n\nIt is no easy thing to be publicly and yet gracefully sad. Do not we\nmentally associate an idea of weakness or effeminacy with melancholic\nwritings? Yet here is--we feel it at once--the true sadness we all\nrespect: the unaffected weariness which does not cry out its grief,\nbut sighs because it suffers and is strong.\n\nIt is not often that De Vere leaves the lofty pinnacles of thought or\nthe pleasant hills of fancy for sterner fields, but here for once he\nswoops from his eyrie into the following scathing lines. They are the\nlast of five very spirited sonnets on Colonization, each of which is\nworth quoting, did but our space permit:\n\n  \"England, magnanimous art thou in name;\n  Magnanimous in nature once thou wert;\n  But that which ofttimes lags behind desert,\n  And crowns the dead, as oft survives it--fame.\n  Can she whose hand a merchant's pen makes tame,\n  Or sneer of nameless scribe--can she whose heart\n  In camp or senate still is at the mart,\n  A nation's toils, a nation's honors claim?\n  Thy shield of old torn Poland twice and thrice\n  Invoked; thy help as vainly Ireland asks,\n  Pointing with stark, lean linger from the West--\n  Of western cliffs plague-stricken, from the West--\n  Gray-haired though young. When heat is sucked from ice,\n  Then shall a Firm discharge a national task.\"\n\nThis speaks for itself. It sums up the faults of the English nation\nbetter in a dozen lines than a congress of vaporers about British\ntyranny or essayists on _perfide Albion_ could do in a month of\nmouthings. There is not a weak line or phrase in it, or one that is\nnot auxiliary to the general effect intended. This, in short, is what\nwe call masterly.\n\nThere are a score of other sonnets that we would wish to quote in\nillustration of the refined thought and elegant delicacy of diction\nwhich characterize them all; but we are constrained to content\nourselves with one also noticed by Landor for its singular felicity\nand beauty. It is from his first book, page 268:\n\n  \"Flowers I would bring. If flowers could make thee fairer.\n  And make, if the muse were dear to thee;\n  (For loving these would make thee love the bearer.)\n  But sweetest songs forget their melody,\n  And loveliest flowers would but conceal the wearer:\n  A rose I marked, and might have plucked; but she\n  Blushed as she bent, imploring me to spare her,\n  Nor spoil her beauty by such rivalry.\n  Alas! and with what gifts shall I pursue thee.\n  What offerings bring, what treasures lay before thee;\n  When earth with all her floral train doth woo thee,\n  And all old poets and old books adore thee;\n  And love to thee is naught; from passionate mood\n  Secured by joy's complacent plenitude?\"\n\nThis poem is remarkable to us as containing one of the few\nrecognitions we have ever seen of that beauty which rises above the\nprovince of passion, and strikes a dim awe into admiration. They are\nnot many who can feel it, and few, indeed, who have expressed it. The\nsame thought occurs in another passage referred to by Landor:\n\n  \"Men loved; but hope they deemed to be\n   A sweet impossibility.\"\n\nBut we have a further reason for preferring this to several equally\nfine. It is to note what may be another of De Vere's unconscious\nadaptations. The well-known scholar, Henry of Huntington, addressed to\nQueen Adelicia of Louvaine some lines which hinge upon the very same\nturn of thought. The real excellence of the verses emboldens us to\nsubjoin a few of them, that the reader may observe the resemblance:\n\n  \"Anglorum regina, tuos, Adeliza, decores\n     Ipsa rcferre parans Musa stupore riget.\n  Quid diadema tibi, pulcherrima? quid tibi gemma?\n    Pallet gemma tibi, nec diadema nitet.\n  Ornamenta cave; nec quicquam luminis inde\n    Accipis; illa nitent lumine clara tuo . . . .\"\n\nWe are not sure but the mediaeval poet, having no further idea beyond\nmere laudation, has rather the better of the complimenting. But then\npraise to a queen would be flattery to a subject.\n\nWithout trying the rather dubious policy of attempting to prove our\ntaste, we think that upon these sonnets alone we could rest De Vere's\nclaim to be a first-class sonnet writer. If it were not a received\nimpossibility, we should be tempted to call him the equal in this\nrespect of Shakespeare. Of course we admit the impossibility.\n\n{78}\n\nLeaving the sonnets, we come to a far more interesting portion of the\nworks before us--the religious poems. As a Christian, our author is\nindeed admirable. He evinces not only a deep, strong, real, and\nrealizing faith, but much fruitful thought over the mental details, so\nto speak, and a wonderful comprehension of the theory, theology, and\nmysteries of the church.\n\nMore properly than religious poems, we should speak of poems on\nreligion; for the man's whole life is a religious poem. Scarcely a\nscrap is not full of his deep Catholicity. Of verses specially and\nprofessedly devotional, these volumes contain few, besides the May\nCarols, save some Poems on Sacred Subjects, which we find below the\nauthor's average. Some of them carry abstractness to the verge of\nvagary. What color of pretence, for instance, has a man for printing\n(if he _must_ write it), and deliberately inviting the public to read,\na copy of verses on the Unity of Abstract Truth? We internally know we\nare not Wordsworths, but it is very unpleasant to have it made so\nplain. In shrewd anticipation of any mental queries, we utterly\ndecline saying whether we have read the lines or not. We cannot\ndetermine which would be the more to our credit.\n\nBut we pass by unnumbered beauties to reach our author's best and most\nmemorable work--May Carols. This is noble alike in design, tone, and\nexecution. The plan is simple--to produce a series of poems in honor\nof the Blessed Virgin, graduating poetical expositions of her\nrelations to faith according to the progress of her month of May. It\nis just the topic for him, and the result is the most beautiful\ndevelopment of the entire subject that can be imagined. We have no\nwords for the subtlety and success with which the individualities of\nMary and Jesus are wrought out. The man who, without seeking\nadventitious aid by startling and shocking the habits of Christian\nthought and Christian reverence, can so draw a portrait of the\nSaviour, has in this alone deserved the thanks of the ages as a\nstandard-bearer on the march of the hosts of God. These great\ndelineations form the first and main function of the whole work. We\ncannot set forth his purpose more lucidly than in his own words, as we\nfind them in the preface:\n\n  \"The wisdom of the church, which consecrates the fleeting seasons of\n  time to the interests of eternity, has  dedicated the month of May\n  (the birth-day festival, as it were, of creation) to her who was\n  ever destined in the divine counsels to become the Mother  of her\n  Creator. It belongs to her, of course, as she is the representative\n  of the incarnation, and its practical exponent to a world but too\n  apt to forget what it professes to hold. The following poems,\n  written in her honor, are an attempt to set forth, though but in\n  mere outline, each of them some of the great ideas or essential\n  principles embodied in that all-embracing mystery. On a topic so\n  comprehensive, converse statements, at one time illustrating highest\n  excellence compatible with mere creaturely existence, at another,\n  the infinite distance between the chief of earthly creatures and the\n  Creator, may seem, at first sight, and to some eyes, contradictory,\n  although in reality mutually correlative. On an attentive perusal,\n  however, that harmony which exists among the many portions of a\n  single mastering truth can hardly fail to appear, and with it the\n  scope and aim of this poem.\"\n\nThis certainly is aiming high. Not only does the poet include in his\nplan the moral delineation of her whom the church holds the highest\ntype of created humanity; he scales the heavens themselves. But our\nauthor is impious Enceladus crushed beneath his own presumption, but a\nJacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord, and rising to the infinite\nsky in beatific visions. Perhaps we best realize the boldness of the\nenterprise when we think for how many centuries the praise of the\nMother and Son has exhausted thought and imagination of the greatest\nsouls. He is a daring gleaner who follows the fathers of the church\nover their chosen fields. Yet the May {79} Carols are a sheaf from the\nsame golden foison where Augustine and Aquinas and Chrysostom led the\nreapers. How fruitful must be the soil!\n\nWe have never seen anything to compare with the picture of the Holy\nChild here presented, unless it be the picture of the Holy Mother. We\ncannot, in our allotted space, render all the admirable gradations and\ndelicate shadings, but must cull with difficult choice one or two\nonly. One of the first is the\n\n\n  MATER CHRISTI\n\n  Daily beneath his mother's eyes\n    Her lamb maturity his lowliness:\n  'Twas hers the lovely sacrifice\n    With fillet and with flower to dress.\n\n  Beside his little cross he knelt,\n    With human-heavenly lips he prayed;\n  _His will with in her will she felt,\n      And yet his will her will obeyed_. . . .\n\n  He willed to lack; he willed to bear;\n    He willed by suffering to be schooled;\n  He willed the chains of flesh to wear;\n    Yet from her arms the world he ruled.\n\n  _As tapers 'mid the noontide glow\n      With merged yet separate radiance burn_,\n  With human taste and touch, even so,\n    The things he knew he willed to learn.\n\n  He sat beside the lowly door:\n    His _homeless_ eyes appeared to trace\n  In evening skies remembered lore,\n    And shadows of his Father's face.\n\n  One only knew him. She alone\n   Who nightly to his cradle crept.\n  And _lying like the moonbeam prone\n   Worshipped her Maker as he slept_.\n\nWhoever can read that without admiring it, is a clod: whoever can read\nit without having his whole idea of Christ's childhood intensely\nvivified and expanded, must be a St. John or an angel. How beautiful,\nand, when we look at it, how bold is the epithet \"homeless!\" How\nexactly it embodies the longing of his spirit out of its human prison\ntoward the freedom of the heavens! Yet how daringly true to imagine\nthe omnipresent Deity homeless! Again, how acutely the last scene\ncharacterizes the tender timidity of Mary's mother-love, and how\nnatural and intensely human the conscious, sweet self-deception which\nbrought her to worship when only the humanity slept, and she seemed\nseparated from her Son and alone with her Creator! But the simile of\nthe taper is perhaps the best touch of all, as being the masterly\nexpression of one of the most subtle and difficult conceptions of the\nhuman mind. It must divide the honors of comparison with the\nconcluding lines of the\n\n\n  MATER SALVATORIS.\n\n  O heart with his in just accord!\n    O soul his echo, tone for tone!\n  O spirit that heard, and kept his word!\n    O countenance moulded like his own!\n\n  Behold, she seemed on earth to dwell;\n    But, hid in light, alone she sat\n  Beneath the throne ineffable,\n    Chanting her clear magnificat.\n\n  Fed from the boundless heart of God,\n    The Joy within her rose more high.\n  And all her being overflowed,\n    Until the awful hour was nigh.\n\n  Then, then there crept her spirit o'er\n    The shadow of that pain world-wide,\n  Whereof her Son the substance bore;--\n    Him offering, half in him she died.\n\n _Standing like that strange moon, whereon\n     The mask of earth lies dim and dead,\n   An orb of glory, shadow-strewn,\n     Yet girdled with a luminous thread_.\n\nFor originality, and perfect expression of an idea by an image, we\nknow of nothing better in all our range of poetry than those two\nsimiles. That last is especially wonderful for its reconditeness. Who\nwould ever think of an annular eclipse of the moon as an illustration\nof religion? And yet how marvellously well it does illustrate! The\nfirst verse of the poem is very poor and strained in its rhythm, and\nthe second not much better in its mysticism, which is rather adapted\nto the enthusiasm of the middle ages; but the end counterbalances all.\n\nHaving thus digressed to the Blessed Virgin, we go on to note in how\nmany lights these poems display her. The idea of her they present is,\nto an ordinary idea, as the flashing, many-faceted jewel to the rough\ngem of the mines. Here, for example, the whole poetry of motherhood is\npressed into her service in a few dense lines:\n\n{80}\n\n  O Mother-Maid! to none save thee\n    Belongs in full a parent's name:\n  So faithful thy virginity,\n    Thy motherhood so pure from blame!\n\n  All other parents, what are they?\n    Thy types. In them thou stood'st rehearsed,\n  (As they in bird, and bud, and spray).\n    Thine Antitype? The Eternal First!\n\n  Prime Parent He: and next Him thou!\n    Overshadowed by the Father's Might,\n  Thy 'Fiat' was thy bridal vow;\n    Thine offspring He, the \"Light of Light.\"\n\n  Her Son Thou wert: her Son Thou art,\n    O Christ! Her substance fed Thy growth:--\n  She shaped Thee in her virgin heart,\n    Thy Mother and Thy Father both!\n\nLet us pass on from this, without breaking the continuity, to\n\nCONSERVABAT IN CORDE.\n\n  As every change of April sky\n    Is imaged in a placid brook,\n  Her meditative memory\n    Mirrored His every deed and look.\n\n  As suns through summer ether rolled\n     Mature each growth the spring has wrought,\n  _So Love's strong day-star turned to gold\n      Her harvests of quiescent thought_.\n\n  _Her soul was as a vase, and shone\n      Translucent to an inner ray;\n   Her Maker's finger wrote thereon\n     A mystic Bible new each day_.\n\n  Deep Heart! In all His sevenfold might\n    The Paraclete with thee abode;\n  And, sacramented there in light,\n    Bore witness of the things of God.\n\nThe last verse has a flaw rare in these volumes--a mixture of\nmetaphors. In the first two lines, \"heart\" is strongly personified,\nand clearly represents Mary herself. In the third with no intimation\nwhatever, and without a break in the construction of the sentence, the\nsame heart is become a place, and is indicated by \"there.\" We cannot\nimagine how the author, with his susceptible taste, read it over in\nthe proof-sheets without feeling the jar of the phrases.\n\nSo much for the loving side of Mary's character. In depicting her\nsuffering, the poet has even excelled this. The first broad stroke of\nhis picture is\n\nMATER DOLOROSA\n\n  She stood: she sank not. Slowly fell\n    Adown the Cross the atoning blood.\n  In agony ineffable\n    She offered still His own to God.\n\n  No pang of His her bosom spared;\n    She felt in Him its several power.\n  But she in heart His Priesthood shared:\n    She offered Sacrifice that hour. . . .\n\nBeautifully our author hag named the succeeding poem also Mater\nDolorosa. The one is the agony of loss, the other the bitterness of\nbereavement:\n\n  From her He passed: yet still with her\n    The endless thought of Him found rest;\n  A sad but sacred branch of myrrh\n    _For ever folded in her breast_.\n\n  A Boreal winter void of light--\n    So seemed her widowed days forlorn:\n_She slept; but in her breast all night\n    Her heart lay waking till the morn_.\n\n  Sad flowers on Calvary that grew;--\n    Sad fruits that ripened from the Cross;--\n  These were the only joys she knew:\n    Yet all but these she counted loss.\n\n  Love strong as Death! She lived through thee\n    That mystic life whose every breath\n  _From Life's low harp-string amorously\n      Draws out the sweetened name of Death_.\n\n  Love stronger far than Death or Life!\n    Thy martyrdom was o'er at last\n  Her eyelids drooped; and without strife\n    To Him she loved her spirit passed.\n\nFor once we can leave the of a poem to the unaided italics with a good\ngrace. To expound the exquisiteness of these lines would be like\nbotanically dissecting a lily. But there is a deeper underlying\nexcellence that may perhaps not suggest itself so irresistibly--the\nmarvellous intuitive delicacy of the whole conception embodied by this\npoem. Only a truly profound religious feeling could thus happily have\ncharacterized the effect of such a sorrow on such a nature. A mere\npietist would have painted a sanctified apathy; a merely smart writer\nwould have imbued her with an eagerness for the end of earthly\ntrouble; a man of talent would have made her resigned to death; the\nman of genius makes her resigned _to life_. Here is the effortless\nexactness of true poet.\n\nTwo more views, and we can turn from this picture of the Blessed\nVirgin of the May Carols--one, her human and inferior relation to God;\nand the other, her human and superior relation to ourselves. To the\nfirst point, perhaps the most explicit of the poems is the following,\nwhich, also, is a good example of the author s peculiar, sudden manner\nof turning his broad philosophy into the channel of some forcible\napplication:\n\n{81}\n\n  Not all thy purity, although\n    The whitest moon that ever lit\n  The peaks of Lebanonian snow\n    Shone dusk and dim compared with it;--\n\n  Not that great love of thine, whose beams\n    Transcended in their virtuous heat\n  Those suns which melt the ice-bound streams,\n    And make earth's pulses newly beat:--\n\n  It was not these that from the sky\n    Drew down to thee the Eternal Word:\n  He looked on thy humility;\n    He knew thee, \"Handmaid of thy Lord.\"\n\n  Let no one claim with thee a part;\n    Let no one, Mary, name thy name,\n  While, aping God, upon his heart\n    Pride sits, a demon robed in flame.\n\n  Proud Vices, die! Where Sin has place\n    Be Sin's familiar self-disgust.\n  Proud Virtues, doubly die; that Grace\n    At last may burgeon from your dust.\n\nBut the poem which of all most truly, tenderly, and perfectly develops\nthe whole beautiful spiritual dependence of the true Catholic upon the\nMother of his God, is the Mater Divinae Gratis, already published in\nThe Catholic World for May, p. 216.\n\nThe beauty of this piece has already attracted wide attention. The\nwonder is that any Catholic could have passed it by. It is a\ntheological treatise in itself. Could all the repositories of divinity\nfurnish a more complete reputation of those cold and narrow organisms\n(we hesitate to call them hearts) whose breasts would seem to have\nroom for just so much piety, of a prescribed quality and regulation\npattern, and who insist that every one we love is a unit in the\ndivisor which assigns to each his portion of that known and limited\nstore, our affection? These people sincerely cannot see how one can\nlove Mary too without loving God less. It is as if a tree could not\nstrike another root without sapping its trunk. Perish this narrowness!\nHow long before these strait-laced souls--the moral progeny of that\nunhappiest of men, Calvin--will learn to love God as well as believe\nin him?\n\nThere is something very difficult of analysis about the power of these\npoems. They have none of that dramatic force which consists in\nskilfully selecting and emphasizing the striking sonnets of the\nsituation. De Vere's strength does not seem to tend toward the outward\npersonality, but rather lies in the direction of the soul and its\nsensations. When we lay down the May Carols, we do not conceive a whit\nthe more clearly how the Virgin Mary looked; there is no impression to\noverlie and mar our memories of the great painters' pictures of her.\nBut we cannot read aright without bearing away an expanded\ncomprehension and near, real, vivid insight into her love, her pain,\nher humility, her deserving, her glory. We so enter in spirit into the\nscenes of her life as absolutely to lose sight of the surroundings.\nThis kind of power may not be the most broadly effective, but we must\nadmit that it reaches our admiration through our best faculties. Its\nsecret lies in the fact that the author's own ideas both of Christ and\nhis Mother are so complete and exalted. At what advantage, for\nexample, he stands over the author of Ecce Homo, who, it seems, would\nhave us believe Christ in his childhood to have been a Hebrew boy,\nmuch like other Hebrew boys, till ill-explained causes metamorphosed a\nGalilean peasant youth into the most transcendent genius of history!\nWith this cold casuistic theory compare De Vere's picture of the\nmother lying worshipping by the moonlit cradle of her Son and God. He\naccepts in their entirety the received ideas of the church, neither\nvarying nor wishing to vary one jot or tittle of the law, but lovingly\ninvesting it with all the developments of thought and all the\ndecorations of fancy. No Catholic can help being struck by the\nsingular doctrinal accuracy which pervades without perturbing the\nwhole of this work. The result is a portraiture of the incarnation and\nthe Blessed Virgin, such as an author who could set all the ruggedness\nof Calvary before our eyes, and make every waving olive-leaf in\nGethsemane musically mournful in our souls, could not hope to rival by\nall the efforts of graphic genius.\n\n{82}\n\nBut scarcely less remarkable is the success in the other grand aim of\nthe May Carols--what he himself calls \"an attempt at a Christian\nrendering of external nature.\" His attempt has brought forth a series\nof purely descriptive pieces, interspersed at intervals, intended to\npresent the symbolism which the aspect of May's successive phases\nmight offer to the imagination of faith. To cultivate Christianity in\nthe shifting soil of fancy is of itself a bold endeavor; but when the\nmethod proposed is by picturing the delicate and evanescent shades of\nspring's advance, the difficulty can be realized.\n\nHow far the author succeeds in this most subtle undertaking of educing\nthe symbolism of May, we must leave to country criticism for final\nadjudication. We have our opinion; we can discover many sweet emblems;\nbut we cannot analyze or reason out our thoughts satisfactorily. We\nrecognize portraits in the May-gallery, but are not familiar enough\nwith nature's costumes to judge of the historical order. We can exult\nwith the earth in the gladness of the season; we are permeated in a\nmeasure, as are all, with the influences of the bluer skies, the\nsofter breezes, the more confident advance of the flowers. But when it\ncomes to reading the succession of the changing clouds, harmonizing\nthe melody of the gales, deciphering the hieroglyphics that spring's\nmyriad fingers write in verdure on the woods and meadows, we feel that\nours is but a city acquaintance with May. We have rested too well\ncontent with the beauty to think of its moral suggestiveness or\nsignificance.\n\nBut this we do know, that the author has struck such a vein of\ndescriptive felicity that, according to Dr. Holmes's witty logic, he\ncan afford to write no more description till he dies. There are\ntouches of this here and there in other places, but nothing to promise\nsuch little gems of landscape as stud the May Carols. There is an\naccession of naturalness and a flow of happy phrases as soon as he\nreaches one of these themes, that is like swimming out of fresh water\ninto salt. Take for instance, this:\n\n  When April's sudden sunset cold\n    Through boughs half-clothed with watery sheen\n  Bursts on the high, new-cowslipped wold,\n    And bathes a world half gold half green,\n\n  _Then shakes the illuminated air_\n    With din of birds; the vales far down\n  Grow phosphorescent here and there;\n    Forth flash the turrets of the town;\n\n  Along the sky thin vapors scud;\n    _Bright zephyrs curl the choral main;_\n  The wild ebullience of the blood\n    Rings joy-bells in the heart and brain:\n\n  Yet in that music discords mix;\n    The unbalanced lights like meteors play;\n  And, tired of splendors that perplex,\n    The dazzled spirit sighs for May.\n\n\nIt is a great disadvantage to these beautiful little poems to be thus\ntaken from their frames, thereby losing their emblematic and retaining\nonly their intrinsic beauty. But even so, there are two more which we\nfearlessly present on the merit of their own unaided charms. Here is\nthe first:\n\n  Brow-bound with myrtle and with gold,\n    Spring, sacred now from blasts and blights,\n  Lifts in a firm, untrembling hold\n    Her chalice of fulfilled delights.\n\n  Confirmed around her queenly lip\n    The smile late wavering, on she moves;\n  And seems through deepening tides to step\n    Of steadier joys and larger loves.\n\n  The stony Ash itself _relents,\n     Into the blue embrace of May\n  Sinking, like old impenitents\n     Heart-touched at last;_ and, far away,\n\n  _The long wave yearns along the coast_\n    With sob suppressed, like that which thrills\n  (While o'er the altar mounts the Host)\n    Some chapel on the Irish hills.\n\nWe scarcely know which to admire most, the precise, clear-cut elegance\nof the opening personification, the beauty of the third verse, or the\nmelody (how the first line matches the sense!) and admirable\ncomparison in the last one. Only, if the poet had ever waded among the\nwaves of bloom of our western prairies, he would have found a better\nexpression than the awkward one of \"deepening tides,\" which is out of\ncharacter with the rest.\n\n{83}\n\nBut the last one we give is the finest. We had put it in the first\nrank ourselves before finding that it had also struck the fine ear of\nMr. Landor. It is a Claude Lorraine done into verse:\n\n  Pleasant the swarm about the bough;\n    The meadow-whisper round the woods;\n  And for their coolness pleasant now\n    The murmur of the falling floods.\n\n  Pleasant beneath the thorn to lie,\n    And let a summer fancy loose;\n  To hear the cuckoo's double cry;\n    To make the noon-tide sloth's excuse.\n\n  Panting, but pleased, the cattle stand\n    Knee-deep in water-weed and sedge,\n  And scarcely crop the greener band\n    Of osiers round the river's edge.\n\n  But hark! Far off the south wind sweeps\n    The golden-foliaged groves among,\n  Renewed or lulled, with rests and leaps--\n    Ah! how it makes the spirit long\n\n  To drop its earthly weight, and drift\n    Like yon white cloud, on pinions free,\n  Beyond that mountain's purple rift,\n    And o'er that scintillating sea!\n\nWe do not think we can say anything that will add to this.\n\nThere are two very noticeable faults of detail in the May Carols. One\nis the great occasional looseness of rhyme. We are no lover even of\nthe so-called rhymes to the eye--words ending, but not pronounced\nalike--but when there is no similarity of sound at all, we\nemphatically demur. Here are some, taken at random, of the numberless\nfalse rhymes which disfigure these poems: \"Hills--swells;\"\n\"height--infinite;\" \"best--least\" (these last two in one short piece\nof sixteen lines); \"buds--multitudes;\" \"repose--coos;\" \"flower--more;\"\n\"pierce--universe,\" etc. Now such as these are utterly indefensible.\nThe different sounds of the same vowel are as different among\nthemselves as from any other sounds, and there is no sense in taking\nadvantage of the accident that they are represented by the same letter\nto cheat the ear and plead the poverty of the alphabet. In a man who\nlabored for words, we could condone a roughness here and there; but in\na writer of De Vere's fluency there is no excuse for such gross\ncarelessness.\n\nWe observe also at intervals a kind of baldness of expression--a\nruggedness and disregard of beauty in uttering ideas--that is\nunpleasant. We think, with a learned friend who first drew our\nattention to it, that this comes of the authors anxiety and\ndetermination to be clear. The lines seem like men trained down to\nfighting-weight--all strength and no contour. No doubt the high and\ndifficult ideas to be rendered (for it is never seen in the\ndescriptive interludes) constitute ample cause for this fault; but\nyet, in noticing the whole, we are constrained to note it as a\nblemish.\n\nIt remains to speak of the author's poems on Ireland. Here it is\nevident that he feels warmly as the chief organizer himself; and yet\nnothing can be further from to-day's Fenianism than the tone of his\nwritings. Irish they are to the core--as animated as the best in\nproclaiming the wrongs of Ireland and the misrule of the invaders--but\nfrom the same premises somehow he seems to draw a different\nconclusion. This is to our author one of those near and dear subjects\nwhich are elements in a man's inner life: he has published another\nvolume   [Footnote 21] upon it, and a large portion of his poems turn\non it. Most of the best among his single poems--The Irish Celt to the\nIrish Norman, the Ode to Ireland, the beautiful Year of Sorrow, and\nothers--are either too long or too close-woven for quotation. Another\nable one is The Sisters, which is full of beautiful thoughts,\nindependent of the Irish bearing.\n\n  [Footnote 21: English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds. London, 1848.]\n\nBut the most prominent and elaborate of these poems is Inisfail, or\nIreland in the Olden Time--a chronological series of odes, songs, and\nall manner of remarks in rhyme, illustrative of Ireland's history and\nthe feeling of her people, through the various epochs of her national\nand denationalized life. There is more historical research, more\ntalent, and more time buried to waste in this poem, than would make\nten ordinary shallow reputations. The author shows a thorough and a\n_vitalized_ knowledge of Irish history, and he penetrates well and\nnobly the {84} succession of popular sentiment; nay, he has done a\nmore difficult thing still--he has caught much of the spirit of bardic\nverse. Only our very decided and deliberate opinion is, that the\nspirit of bardic verse is extremely like the gorilla--very hard to\ncatch, and not particularly beautiful when caught. We have read, we\nare fairly sure, the better part of the English-Irish poetry that has\nattained any note--that class of which Clarence Mangan stands at the\nhead, and are very much grieved and dissatisfied with it. Wherever the\nGaelic ode-form is adopted, or the Gaelic symbolism--the Roisin Dhu,\nSilk of the Kine, etc.--we cannot help wishing it absent. Whatever has\npleased us in poems of this sort would have pleased as well or better\nin another guise; whatever has fatigued or offended, has generally\ndone so on account of its Gaelic form. From weary experience, we have\nreached the firm conclusion that the Gaelic style is peculiarly\nadapted to the Erse tongue, and we earnestly hope that future\ntwangings of the harp that hung in Tara's halls may be either in the\naforesaid dialect, or else, like Moore's Irish Melodies (and does any\none wish for anything more nobly Irish?), consonant in style with the\nspirit of the language they are written in. The best talent devoted to\ngrafting Gaelic blossoms on English stems has only served to show them\nessentially uncongenial. Every attempt of this kind reads like a\ntranslation from Erse into English, and, like all translations, hints\nin every turn of the superiority of the original. And, speaking\ndisinterestedly (we are, as it happens, neither Gael nor Sassenach),\nwe scarcely think any translator likely to swim in waters where\nClarence Mangan barely floated.\n\nThus we admire much of Inisfail for the wonderful adaptiveness which\nrevivifies for us the dead feelings of dead generations, while at the\nsame time we cannot thoroughly like nor enjoy it. There is great\nartistic taste throughout, but the poetical merit, as indeed might be\nexpected, Appears to us to be greatest in the delineations from the\nfourteenth to the seventeenth century--neither too far nor too near in\npoint of time. The outlawry times elicit some fine lines: in fact,\nviolation of law seems always to bring our author out at his best. Of\nthe earlier poems, perhaps the best are The Malison and The Faithful\nNorman. These are of the first, or pure Irish period. The next, or\nIrish-Norman epoch, is full of the best and the worst of our author's\nverse. Of The Bard Ethell we have spoken before. The Bier that\nConquered is a striking poem, as are also the quaint, rambling,\nsuggestive lines called The Wedding of the Clans. Amid several long,\nfierce, and highly Gaelic exultations over battles, chiefs, and things\nin general, we find a noble poem. The Bishop of Ross, which we really\nregret we cannot quote here. Just before it, however, is one of the\nbest which we may have space for:\n\n\nKING CHARLES'S \"GRACES.\"\n\nA.D. 1626\n\n  \"Thus babble the strong ones, 'The chain is slackened!\n      Ye can turn half round on your sides to sleep!\n  With the thunderbolt still your isle is blackened,\n      But it hurls no bolt upon tower or steep.\n  We are slaves in name! Old laws proscribed you;\n      But the king is kindly, the Queen is fair.\n  They are knaves or fools who would goad or bribe you\n      A legal freedom to claim. Beware!'\n\nII.\n\n  \"We answer and thus: Our country's honor\n      To us is dear as our country's life!\n  That stigma the bad law casts upon her\n      Is the brand on the fame of a blameless wife\n  Once more we answer: From honor never\n      Can safety long time be found apart;\n  The bondsman that vows not his bond to sever,\n      Is a slave by right, and a slave in heart!\"\n\nThere is the true ring about this--strength and spirit both. Close by\nit is another--the only one of the odes we like--The Suppression of\nthe Faith in Ulster, which is of the same calibre.\n\nThe last book (there are three) is full of beauty as the style grows\nmodern. But we have cited so much that is beautiful, that we prefer\nquoting one of the few but forcible instances where our most Christian\npoet gives vent to his very considerable powers of sarcasm:\n\n{85}\n\nGOOD-HEARTED.\n\n      \"The young lord betrayed an orphan maid--\n       The young lord soft-natured and easy:\n  The man was 'good-hearted,' the neighbors said;\n  Flung meat to his dogs; to the poor flung bread.\n  His father stood laughing when Drogheda bled;\n      He hated a conscience queasy!\n\nII.\n\n      \"A widow met him, dark trees o'erhead,\n      Her child and the man just parted--\n  When home she walked her knife it was red;\n  Swiftly she walked, and muttered, and said,\n        'The blood rushed fast from a fount full-fed!\n        Ay, the young lord was right \"good-hearted!\"'\n\nIII.\n\n      \"When morning wan its first beam shed.\n      It fell on a corpse yet wanner;\n  The great-hearted dogs the young lord had fed\n  Watched, one at the feet and one at the head--\n  But their months with a blood-pool hard by were red;\n      They loved--in the young lord's manner.\"\n\nThere is something about the fierce bitterness here that strongly\nreminds one of Tennyson's poem of The Sisters, with its weird line--\n\n  \"Oh! the Earl was fair to see!\"\n\nFrom several of very nearly the same purport, we select the following,\ninfluenced to choose it, as we own, by the wonderful flow of its\nmeasure, as well as its truly Irish beauty. There is a kind of\npeculiar richness of diction that no other nation on earth ever\nattains. Every reader of Tom Moore will know what we mean, and\nrecognize a kindred spirit in\n\n\n  SEMPER RADEM\n\n  \"The moon, freshly risen from the bosom of ocean,\n      Hangs o'er it suspended, all mournful yet bright;\n  And a yellow sea-circle with yearning emotion\n      Swells up as to meet it, _and clings to its light_.\n  The orb, unabiding, grows whiter, mounts higher;\n      _The pathos of darkness descends on the brine_--\n  O Erin! the North drew its light from thy pyre;\n      Thy light woke the nations; the embers were thine.\n\nII.\n\n      \"'Tis sunrise! The mountains flash forth, and, new-reddened,\n      The billows grow lustrous so lately forlorn;\n  From the orient with vapors long darkened and deadened.\n      _The trumpets of Godhead are pealing the morn:_\n  He rises, the sun, in his might reascending;\n      _Like an altar beneath him lies blazing the sea!_\n  O Erin! who proved thee returns to thee, blending\n      The future and past in one garland for thee!\"\n\n\nBut what we regard as really the finest poem in Inisfail is an\napparent, perhaps a real, exception to our rule above stated, that\nwhatever of this poetry pleases us would please as well if divested of\nits Gaelic form. The charm of this lies in its being so essentially\nIrish in conception. It is just such an original, bold, wild\ninspiration as no other body than an Irish clan could without\nincongruity be made to feel. There is more intense _Irishness_ (what\nother word will express it?) in it than in all the poems--ay, and half\nthe poets--of this century. We give it with the author's own\nexplanation prefixed:\n\n\n  THE PHANTOM FUNERAL.\n\n  \"James Fitz-Garret, son of the great Earl of Desmond, had been sent\n  to England, when a child, as a hostage, and was for seventeen years\n  kept a prisoner in the Tower, and educated in the Queen's religion.\n  James Fitz-Thomas, the 'Sugane Earl,' having meantime assumed the\n  title and prerogatives of Earl of Desmond, the Queen sent her\n  captive to Ireland, attended by persons devoted to her, and provided\n  with a _conditional_ patent for his restoration .... As the young\n  earl walked to church, it was with difficulty that a guard of\n  English soldiers could keep a path open for him. From street and\n  window and housetop every voice urged him to fidelity to his\n  ancestral faith. The youth, who did not even understand the language\n  in which he was adjured, went on to the Queen's church, as it was\n  called; and with loud cries his clan rushed away and abandoned his\n  standard for ever. Shortly afterward he returned to England, where,\n  within a few months, he died.\n\n  Strew the bed and strew the bier\n      (Who rests upon it was never man)\n  With all that a little child holds dear,\n      With violets blue and violets wan.\n\n  Strew the bed and strew the bier\n      With the berries that redden thy shores, Corann;\n  His lip was the berry, his skin was clear\n      As the waxen blossom--he ne'er was man.\n\n  Far off he sleeps, yet we mourn him here;\n      Their tale was a falsehood; he ne'er was man!\n  'Tis a phantom funeral! Strew the bier\n      With white lilies brushed by the floating swan.\n\n  They lie who say that the false queen caught him\n      A child asleep on the mountains wide;\n  A captive reared him, a strange faith taught him;--\n      'Twas for no strange faith that his father died!\n\n  They lie who say that the child returned\n      A man unmanned to his towers of pride;\n  That his people with curses the false Earl spurned:\n      Woe, woe, Kilmallock! they lie, and lied!\n\n  The clan was wroth at an ill report.\n      But now the thunder-cloud melts in tears.\n  The child that was motherless played. \"'Twas sport.\"\n      A child must sport in his childish years!\n\n  Ululah! Ululah! Low, sing low!\n      The women of Desmond loved well that child!\n  Our lamb was lost in the winter snow;\n      Long years we sought him in wood and wild.\n\n  How many a babe of Fitzgerald's blood\n      In hut was fostered though born in hall!\n  The old stock burgeoned the fair new bud,\n      The old land welcomed them, each and all!\n\n{86}\n\n  Glynn weeps to-day by the Shannon's tide,\n      And Shanid and she that frowns o'er Deal;\n  There is woe by the Laune and the Carra's side,\n      And where the knight dwells by the woody Feale.\n\n  In Dingle and Beara they chant his dirge:\n      Far off he faded--our child--sing low!\n  We have made him a bed by the ocean's surge,\n      We have made him a bier on the mountain's brow.\n\n  The clan was bereft! the old walls they left;\n      With cries they rushed to the mountains drear.\n  But now great sorrow their heart has cleft;--\n      See, one by one they are drawing near!\n\n  Ululah! Ululah! Low, sing low!\n      The flakes fall fast on the little bier;--\n  The yew-branch and eagle-plume over them throw!\n      The last of the Desmond chiefs lies here.\"\n\n\nWe close, far from completing our sketch of the poet. We have not\nexhausted the volumes before us, and they do not exhaust their author.\nDe Vere has written several other books, mostly of early date--from\n1843 to 1850--which one must read to know him entirely. But we are\nvery sure that those who will read the books from which we have drawn\nour illustrations will read all. There are few authors who grow so\nupon the reader. Somehow the force and beauty of the thoughts do not\nimpress at first. We think the rationale of the process is that we\nmostly begin by reading three parts of sound to one of sense. After\nthe melody comes the harmony; gradually, on after-reading, the glitter\nof the words ceases to dazzle, and then, if ever, we commune mind to\nmind with the author. This is as rare with modern readers as a hand-to\nhand bayonet fight in modern battles. Now Aubrey de Vere writes a\ngreat deal of thought so very quietly, that we miss the cackling which\neven talent nowadays is apt to indulge in on laying any supposed\ngolden eggs of wisdom. Hence we have some singular opinions about him.\nOne finds him cold and impassible; another votes him a sort of\ngentlemanly Fenian visionary, while a third devotes a column of one of\nour best hypercritical periodicals to viewing him as a mere love-poet.\nThese are all windfall opinions, which had been better ripening on the\ntree. The grace, the rhythm, and, above all, the stern ascendency of\ntruthful exactness over inaccurate felicities of expression, strike\none constantly more and more. We have ourselves passed through these\nphases of opinion, besides several others; but every day fortifies our\nfinal conviction. It is, that Aubrey de Vere is one of those true\npoets whom the few love well; who will always have admirers, never\npopularity; and who must wait for his full fame until that distant but\ncoming day when blind, deep movements of unity shall thrill the sects\nof Christendom, and bigotry no longer veil from the gifted and\nappreciative the merits of the first Catholic poet of to-day.\n\n--------\n\n{87}\n\nFrom The Lamp.\n\nUNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nUNCONVICTED!\n\n\nUp to the time when James Ball entered the witness-box, the whole case\nhad been dead against the prisoner. Even the grave doubts which the\ncross-examination raised about the housekeeper's veracity had passed\nunsubstantiated by any further evidence or proof; and the cook's story\nof the footstep on the stairs died out of all reckoning in the modicum\nof balance left in favor of the accused man when Davis, the chemist,\nhad closed his evidence. But when his luckless assistant got down,\nafter making such astounding admissions, we breathed again, and hopes\nthat had been trampled under foot rose once more with renewed\nbuoyancy. The rigid face of Serjeant Donaldson relaxed into anxious\ngravity, and the frank, genial countenance of Mr. Forster--Hugh\nAtherton's contemporary, and at whose side he had fought many a legal\nbattle--shook off its cloud as he sat down and conferred with his\nsenior colleague; whilst I heard a deep sigh of relief burst from\nMerrivale as he uttered, \"Thank God, we have got over _that_ rock!\"\n\nThen Donaldson rose. I think I hear and see him still, that\ngrey-headed serjeant, with his rugged Scotch features lighted up by\nall the earnestness of his will, all the acute intelligence of his\nmind, as he turned to the jury, and in a voice tremulous with emotion,\nthough it failed not to set forth the firmness of his purpose, and the\nhonest conviction of his soul, opened his defence of Hugh Atherton.\n\n\"Though standing at this bar,\" said Serjeant Donaldson, \"with a heavy\ncloud of accusation overshadowing his hitherto stainless name, though\nbranded by public opinion with the foul epithet of murderer, I can\nstill call Mr. Atherton 'my friend' without a flush of shame; I can\nyet take him by the hand and feel proud to hail him brother by\nprofession, companion in the same vocation. If,\" said the Serjeant,\nraising his voice and looking boldly around him, \"the last witness had\nnever been placed before you and made the remarkable revelation which\nyou have all heard, I would still indorse what I have just said, and\nassert to you, my lords and gentlemen of the jury, my deep and\nheartfelt conviction of the innocence of the prisoner. But I have\nother and better grounds upon which to plead before you to-day--the\nonly grounds upon which you can legally and conscientiously find a\nverdict.\"\n\nHe then proceeded to review the evidence, pulling it to pieces, and\ncutting right and left into every deposition, showing up the flaws,\nattacking _sans m\u00e9nagement_ the character and veracity of the\nwitnesses, dealing blows with no gentle hand on every side, and\nevidently lashing \"his learned friend the Solicitor-General\" into a\nstate of suppressed fury; the whole drift and gist of his argument\ngoing to prove that, unless the fact of the prisoner's visit to the\nchemist's shop in Vero street did, to the minds of the jury, involve\nas a necessary consequence his purchasing the paper of strychnine,\nthat also being satisfactorily established by conclusive {88}\nevidence, no verdict against the prisoner could be found. On the other\nhand, the last witness has positively declared that the strychnine had\nbeen purchased under false pretences by a female, and that on the\nfollowing day hush-money had been sent to and received by James Ball\nnot to identify that woman who bought the poison. Further, he should\npresently call a witness who would corroborate all that had been\ndisclosed by James Ball--one whom he, Ball, had evidently considered\nas effectually silenced; one who, though but a boy, had given a very\nsteady, consistent, and lucid account of what had transpired on the\nevening of the 23d and on the following day. After commenting further\nupon this, and touching pointedly upon the curious coincidence of my\nrencontre with the woman in Vere street and the visit of the woman to\nthe chemist's shop, he wound up his address: \"There has been question\ntoday, gentlemen, of one whose name should never have been dragged\nbefore your notice, but who, in her agonized wish of doing her feeble\npart in clearing _him_, her betrothed husband, from the foul charge\nlaid on him, has besought us, who are engaged in his defence, not to\nspare her, not to deprive her of taking her share in the testimony we\nshall bring forward in his favor. Gentlemen, this noble-minded girl.\nMiss Ada Leslie, will tell you in what terms the prisoner at the bar\nused to speak of his deceased uncle--the only guardian and father whom\nhe ever remembers--in that intimate communion which exists between a\nman and the woman whom he is going to make part of himself. I need add\nno more. Providence has shaken from under your feet the only ground\nupon which you could condemn Mr. Atherton; Providence has, to my mind,\npointed out the road along which further inquiries into this most\nheinous and wicked murder can be pursued. The same almighty and just\nGod will enlighten your understandings and bring your minds to a\nrighteous conclusion upon the case before you. But, gentlemen,\nalthough as I said at first starting, we have better grounds than\nthose of private conviction upon which to urge the prisoner's\ninnocence--viz., those of proof and evidence--still I cannot but think\nyou all feel with me that, as you look at him standing there, as you\nremember the tones of his voice, so familiar to us in this court,\nurging upon us the arguments of a powerful mind, thoroughly healthy in\nits moral tone, and the pleadings dictated by a heart whose impulses\nwere intrinsically generous and humane, whose guileless soul--and I\ncrave his pardon for uttering these words in his presence--shone out\nof his honest eyes, and whose blameless life was openly known to all\nand clear as the noonday--I think, if the evidence had been other than\nit was, or than that which you are going to hear will be, you would\nstill be ready to exclaim, 'That man _cannot_ be guilty of the crime\nimputed to him; _who_ is innocent if _he_ is proved guilty?\"\n\nI had no idea that Ada would be in court, far less give evidence; and\nI concluded she had not mentioned it to me lest I should object or be\ndistresses on her account. The sensation was tremendous in court when\nshe entered the witness-box, accompanied by her mother. The latter's\nagitation whether affected or real, seemed very great, and the\nfrequent application of her handkerchief to her eyes betrayed she was\ncrying. How Ada had got her there at all was a wonder; how she\nremained silent _when_ there, was a greater marvel. Can I ever forget\nher as she stood there, that tall slender girl, with her pale\ncolorless face of calm and high resolve, the dark shadows beneath\nthose eyes that looked as if now they never slept, but with the\nsteadfast light of deep, devoted affection shining in them as they\nfell upon Hugh; her whole figure quivering with emotion, and her\nclasped hands leaning upon the table before her? One look at Hugh, and\nthen she returned to the Lord Chief-Justice. I saw the {89}\nundisguised rush of sympathy and of interest flash across his\ncountenance as his gaze met hers; and he leaned towards her with the\ncourteous attention of the innate gentleman that he was.\n\n\"My lord,\" she began, in tones that at first were scarcely audible,\nthough peculiarly sweet, but which rose and deepened as she went on,\n\"I have come here because there is something I wish to say to you,\nalthough I know you think _he_ is innocent; but still I had best say\nit. For many months past I have known every thought of his heart;\nthere has been no secret kept back from me. My lord, he loved that\npoor murdered man very tenderly, even as he would have loved his\nfather had he lived, and he never spoke of him but with kindness and\naffection. It was only on the very day it happened that he was talking\nwith me of the future. We were to have been man and wife--oh, I trust\nin God we shall still be!--and that day he, my Hugh, said how he was\nlooking forward to the time when we should have a home of our own, and\nhe could win his uncle away sometimes from his solitary life, and make\nhim come to us. Do you think,\" she said, turning with passionate\nsuddenness to the jury,--\"do you think he could say that to _me_ and\nan hour afterwards kill the old man? do you think that of him who\nnever bore an unkindly thought even to a dumb animal?\"\n\nAnd then her womanly timidity seemed to come back, or physical\nexcitement overpower her; and when Mr. Frost, a young and rather\nconceited-looking man, rose with a view doubtless to cross-question\nher, the Solicitor-General waved him back, for she had sunk on the\nchair placed for her.\n\nThen I heard, and hearing it my heart seemed like to break, a heavy\ngroan burst from the prisoner's lips--the first sign of deep emotion\nthat had escaped him during those long weary hours of suffering and\nsuspense; and I law him stretch out his arms toward her with a wild\nmovement of unutterable love. Thank God, she neither saw nor heard!\nMerrivale hastened to her, and with her mother led her out of the\ncourt.\n\nJacob Mullins was then called by Serjeant Donaldson.\n\nHe said: \"I am sixteen years of age, and have lived two years with Mr.\nDavis, chemist in Vere street, as errand-boy. I take the medicines\nhome when made up, and make myself generally useful in the shop. I\nnever serve over the counter. I clean the pestles, mortars, and all\nvessels used, but I never serve out medicines. I quite well remember\nthe evening of the 23d. I was sitting at the far end of the shop\nbehind the counter, polishing a brass mortar. I could see who came\ninto the shop, because where I sat was opposite the flap of the\ncounter, and I looked through each time any one came in. I wasn't very\nbusy that evening. I remember a tall gentleman coming in and asking\nfor some spirits of camphor. Master served him; Mr. Ball was in the\nshop. I suppose it was about eight o'clock or thereabouts. I never\ntake much count of time, except when I have to hurry. He didn't buy\nanything else. I am quite sure of it; I could swear it. I was\nlistening all the time. He was a very tall gentleman. I think it was\nthe prisoner at the bar; he was like him, but he had his hat on.\"\n\nBaron Watson: \"Let the prisoner put on a hat.\"\n\nWitness: \"Yes, that is the gentleman. I could swear it is the same.\"\n\nSerjeant Donaldson: \"What happened next?\"\n\nWitness: \"A few minutes after the gentleman went out, a lady came in.\nI did not see her face. She had on a thick veil. She asked for a grain\nof strychnine. My master was out of the shop. Mr. Ball said to her,\n'That's poison; I daren't give it you.' 'Oh,' says she, 'it's all\nright. It's for my husband to try on a dog. He's a doctor.' 'A\ndoctor!' says Mr. Ball; 'where does he live?' {90}\n'Just round the corner--Mr. Grainger, at the top of Vere street 'All\nright,' says, Mr. Ball; and goes to the drawer where the poisons are\nkept, and unlocks it, and I see him weigh it out and put it up.' 'How\nmuch?' say a she; 'A shilling,' says he; 'and I shall come round\npresently and see if it's all right.' 'Very well,' says she; 'come now\nif you like.' 'No, by-and-by,' says Mr. Ball, 'when the master's\nback.' On that she went out. I couldn't swear to her, nor to what she\nwore. I never notices ladies' togs. She had a veil on--that's all I\nknow. I went home soon after nine that evening. Mr. Ball sleeps in the\nhouse. The next day we heard that old Mr. Thorneley of Wimpole street\nhad been poisoned by strychnine; and then, that the poison had been\nbought at our shop. Everybody was talking of it who came in. I went up\nto Mr. Ball when we were alone in the shop at dinner-time, and says I,\n'It's along of that strychnine that was bought last night here. I\nguess, as the murder's been done.' 'Hold your confounded tongue.' says\nhe, 'or we shall get into a precious mess.' He jaws awful at me\nsometimes, and I'm afraid of him; so I said no more and kept aloof\nfrom him, for he looked terrible black all the afternoon. At five\no'clock the postman brought in a letter for Mr. Ball. He was in the\nparlor having his tea. I called out there was a letter for him, and he\ncame into the shop. I saw him open the letter and take out a banknote.\n'My eyes!' says I, 'you're in luck to-day, Mr. Ball.' He was reading\nthe letter. With that, he turned on me as fierce and red as a\nturkey-cock. 'You young viper,' says he, 'if you go blabbing about my\naffairs I'll get you discharged as sure as I am standing here!' I\nthought he'd have killed me. Why haven't I told this before? Because\nnobody's asked, and because I have been frightened of him. He's given\nme money several times lately, and mother's been ill, and--\" (Here the\nwitness broke down and began to cry.) It was no use the gentleman (the\nSolicitor-General, who was  cross-questioning him) trying to bully\nhim. He'd told the truth; it was true as gospel. He'd take his oath\nany day. He could and did swear to it all. Nobody had given him a\nfarthing except Mr. Ball. He'd only told this to a gentleman a few\ndays back who had spoken to him and then served a paper on him to\nappear to-day. The gentleman had told him afterwards he was a\ndetective officer.\n\nThis was the pith of what Jacob Mullins deposed. In vain did the\nSolicitor-General try to badger and browbeat him; he stuck like a\nlimpet to the same story. Confronted with James Ball, only the same\nresults produced. Serjeant Donaldson, at Merrivale's whispered\ninstigation, tried to bring out of them both a clearer identification\nof the person who had bought the strychnine, but in vain. Only\nMullins, in reply to a query as to whether she spoke like a foreigner,\nsaid he couldn't just exactly tell, but she seem to talk rather funny.\nConfronted at the prisoner's request with Mrs. Haag, became confused,\nand said he didn't think it was the lady; it might be and it mightn't;\nwas sure he never could point her out for certain. But although the\nperson who did buy the strychnine had not been identified, the fact\nthat Hugh Atherton did not buy it was satisfactorily proved, and that\nwas matter for the deepest thankfulness.\n\nThe two detective officers Keene and Jones were next examined. To what\nis already known the following was added: Ten years ago a man of the\nname of Bradley had been convicted at the Old Bailey of burglary at\nMr. Thorneley's house in the City, and sentenced to fourteen years'\npenal servitude. Inspector Keene had been employed in the case, and\nhad been helped principally by anonymous letters, giving information\nwhich had led to the detection of the burglar. Bradley on being\ncaptured had hinted that he knew to whom he was indebted for {91} his\napprehension. Thinking to ferret out some accomplice, Inspector Keene\nhad shown him one of the anonymous communications received, and he had\nimmediately identified the handwriting as his wife's. He then confided\nto Inspector Keene that she was a foreigner, a Belgian by birth; that\nhe had married her at Plymouth, and separated from her two years\nafter; that she was in domestic service--but where and in what\ncapacity he would not divulge. Either fear of or affection for her\nseemed to be greatly influencing his mind. This same Bradley had made\nhis escape from the penal settlement in Australia during the spring of\nthe present year, and had been seen and recognized by Detective Jones\nin a small public-house in Blue-Anchor Lane, known as one of the worst\nhaunts of bad characters in the metropolis. But unable with safety to\ntake him into custody on the night in question, the police had lost\nsight of him since, up to the present time. Putting two and two\ntogether, Inspector Keene had last week travelled down to Plymouth,\nsearched the parochial registers, found and obtained the certified\ncopy of marriage between Robert Bradley and Maria Haag which Serjeant\nDonaldson had handed in to their lordships. Further, Detective Jones\nstated, as a corroboration of what I had already related in my\nevidence, that this Bradley, or O'Brian, as he now called himself, was\nin close communication with a man of the name of De Vos, _alias_\nSullivan, who again was in communication with Mr. Lister Wilmot; this\nsame De Vos, or Sullivan, having formerly been in prison for\nembezzlement, and was now under suspicion of uttering false coin. The\nfull relation of the conversation between De Vos and O'Brian on the\nnight of our visit to \"Noah's Ark\" was not without its effect upon\njudges and jury.\n\nBoth the Chief-Justice and Baron Watson put repeated questions to\nJones; and the Solicitor-General quite surpassed himself in his\nendeavors to browbeat both him and Inspector Keene. All to no purpose.\nNor could that learned gentleman in his final address, after the case\nfor the defence was closed, at that supreme moment which English law\ngives to the prosecutor to the crushing of all hopes raised by the\nevidence and appeal of the prisoner--not then could he remove the\nimpression made on all minds that a mystery hitherto unpenetrated lay\nbeneath the last evidence adduced.\n\nThe Lord Chief-Justice summed up. He said that, to convict a man of\nmurder by poison, evidence must be adduced to prove that the poison\nwas administered by the person accused; that the points of the case\nbefore them were these: The murdered gentleman, Mr. Thorneley, had on\nthe evening of the 23d of October last received a visit from his two\nnephews, Mr. Lister Wilmot, and Mr. Philip Hugh Atherton, the prisoner\nat the bar; that a dispute had occurred between the three, relative to\nadvancing money by the deceased to Mr. Wilmot; that the brunt of Mr.\nThorneley's anger had fallen, strange to say, and from some unknown\ncause, upon the prisoner; that the prisoner had retaliated, and used\nwords of threatening import, implying that the deceased would repent\non the morrow what he had said that night; that at nine o'clock the\nhousekeeper brought in the usual refreshment of which Mr. Thorneley\npartook at that hour--bitter ale and hard biscuits. The prisoner at\nthe bar went to the table, poured out the ale into a glass, and handed\nit to his uncle. Soon after the nephews, one after the other, took\nleave of him and went away. Mr. Thorneley retired to rest that night\nabout ten o'clock, without having any further communication with his\nhousehold. In the morning he was found dead in his bed. On medical\nevidence he is proved to have been poisoned by strychnine, and\nstrychnine is found in the few drops of bitter ale left in the tumbler\nout of which the deceased had drunk on the {92} previous evening. In\nthe ale remaining in the bottle no strychnine is found. Now here\narises a question and a doubt. Was there, or was there not, any ale\npoured out in the glass before it was brought up into Mr. Thorneley's\nstudy? The prisoner in his statement before the magistrates, and\nbefore the coroner, distinctly says there was; the housekeeper swears\nthere was not. Is the housekeeper's evidence to be relied on? Much had\nbeen adduced that day which tended to show that at least it was\ndoubtful. The Chief-Justice commented at length upon the evidence of\nthe two detectives, and then said:\n\n\"The suspicions, however, of the police were directed to Mr. Hugh\nAtherton; and the evidence had shown that he was met coming out of a\nchemist's shop in Vere street on the evening of the murder, and before\nvisiting his uncle; that upon being taken into custody the next day,\nan empty paper, labelled Strychnine, and bearing the name of Davis,\nchemist, Vere street, was found in the pocket of the overcoat which he\nhad worn on his visit to Wimpole street. On the other hand, both James\nBall, the chemist's assistant, and Jacob Mullins, the errand-boy, had\nsworn that the grain of strychnine entered as sold on the 23d was\npurchased by a female on false pretenses. Both likewise swore that the\nprisoner did not purchase any strychnine, but only the bottle of\ncamphorated spirits found on his table. Then, again, James Ball had\nowned to receiving a letter containing hush-money, and a caution not\nto identify the person who had bought the poison. How, then, did the\npaper labelled 'strychnine' get into the prisoner's pocket? He\ndeclares he knows nothing of it; and on that point there is no further\nevidence. There was another mystery also which in his, the judge's,\nmind bore very direct influence upon the case in question; and that\nwas the assertion of Mr. John Kavanagh that he had made and executed a\nwill for the deceased gentleman on the night of his death, leaving the\nbulk of his property to a hitherto unknown and unrecognized son, which\nson and heir had been found under peculiar and difficult\ncircumstances--a living confirmation of the truth of Mr. Kavanagh's\nstatement. The question of this will was not for the present jury to\nconsider; but simply they were to bear in mind the circumstances under\nwhich it was made, the disclosures attendant, and, above all, the fact\nthat whereas this last will, conferring a handsome income on the\nprisoner at the bar, remained a buried secret from everybody, the\nprisoner included, save the lawyer who made it under solemn promise of\nsilence, the other will, bequeathing a mere nominal sum to the\nprisoner, and cutting off with a shilling the rightful heir, namely,\nMr. Thorneley's son, was lodged with the deceased's family lawyers,\nproduced, read, and acted upon by them and the sole residuary legatee,\nMr. Wilmot. This was to be considered  vis-\u00e0-vis with the motive by\nwhich the prisoner at the bar was implied to have been influenced to\nthe commission of the crime charged against him.\" The Chief-Justice\nconcluded, after many more comments, by saying that, although every\none must have been touched by the appearance and words of the first\nwitness heard in the defence, yet that, as far as evidence went, they\nmust not be allowed to weigh with any value. The one great question,\ndeduced from all that had gone before, which the jury had to consider\nwas, whether the prisoner at the bar had or had not purchased the\nstrychnine in question, had or had not introduced it into the glass of\nbitter ale handed by him to the deceased, Mr. Thorneley. And he prayed\nthe God of light, and truth, and justice to enlighten their minds and\nguide them to a right conclusion.\n\nI have but faintly portrayed the clear, lucid manner in which that\nable judge summed up the evidence, or the deep feeling expressed in\nevery tone of his voice. Cautious and prudent {93} to a degree as he\nhad been in his language, it yet gleamed out from time to time, like a\nray of sunshine, that in his own mind he considered Atherton _not_\nguilty. The jury after five minutes' deliberation asked to retire.\n\nDo you know what that suspense is,--that hanging on each minute which\nmight bring the issues of life or death? Can you thank what it was to\nstand there for that hour and a quarter, seventy-five minutes,\nforty-five hundred seconds, when every minute seemed an hour, and\nevery second a minute; with the dead silence reigning in the court,\nbroken only by casual sounds now and then, that were hushed almost\ninstantly, to so great a pitch had the interest and suspense of the\nwhole crowd collected there risen; your eyes fixed upon that fatal\ndoor through which you knew the decision would be borne, with your\nheart throbbing in dull, heavy thumps against your breast, and your\nbreath almost bushed and dying on your lips? So we stood that evening,\nthe dense November fog stealing into the court, and the gas-lamps\nflaring garish and yellow in the thick atmosphere, waiting for the\nverdict. Twice over was a message sent in from the jury-room to the\njudges, demanding further explanation or elucidation on some point or\nother. And still we waited. At last the door opened, and they filed\nback one by one into their box, and took their seats in solemn\nsilence, and were instantly harangued by the clerk of the court, and\ncalled upon to declare whether Philip Hugh Atherton was guilty or\ninnocent of wilful murder. Amidst a dead hush, a stillness that was\nthrilling in its intensity, the foreman stood up and pronounced the\nverdict, \"NOT GUILTY.\" I saw the prisoner raise his hands for one\nmoment, and then his head drooped on his breast, and he leaned heavily\nagainst the railing in front of him. I saw Merrivale rise hastily,\nand, turning round, lay his hand upon Hugh's shoulder, and his counsel\neagerly stretching out their bands towards him in fervent\ncongratulation; and then was heard the Chief-Justice's voice\naddressing the foreman of the jury:\n\n\"The peculiarities and complexity of the case make it needful that we\nshould ask upon what grounds you have given in your verdict.\"\n\nForeman: \"We find the prisoner not guilty, my lord, on the ground that\nit is proved he did not buy the strychnine, and that the evidence of\nthe housekeeper is unreliable evidence. But we think that until the\nmystery of the murder is cleared up, suspicion must still attach\nitself to Mr. Atherton.\"\n\nThe Chief-Justice to the prisoner: \"It is usual to say whether we,\nbefore whom a case has been tried, agree in the verdict of the jury.\nBoth myself and my brother Watson do most fully in this instance. We\nagree that upon the evidence brought forward to-day you could not by\nthe criminal law be convicted; but we also agree in the remark made by\nthe foreman that a degree of suspicion and doubt will rest upon you so\nlong as the real perpetrator of this horrible crime is not\nforthcoming. As having known you under happier circumstances, I\nsincerely trust and pray for your sake that time may bring to light\nthis hidden deed of darkness.\"\n\nThe judges rose and left the court. Then arose from all parts a savage\nyell of disappointment. Once before I told how thirsty the public were\nfor another sight of the hangman and his victim; and now to snatch\ntheir prey from under their very eyes, with the stain of crime upon\nhim, with a shadow of the gallows hanging over him, was more than they\ncould bear. Amidst groans and hisses, amidst a deluge of the foulest\nepithets, he passed out of the court--UNCONVICTED. Unconvicted, but\nnot unsuspected; uncondemned, but not unblemished. With the taint of\nmurder clinging to him, with his fair good name tarnished by the\nwithering breath of imputed crime, and his innocent life robbed of its\n{94} noblest beauty in the eyes of his fellow-men, Philip Hugh\nAtherton left that criminal court and became once more a free, and yet\na marked man beneath his native sky. His whole position opened out\nclear before me in that one brief second which succeeded the closing\nthe trial--all its future suffering and sorrow. Oh! if he would but\nnow realize that at least one friend was true to him, that one heart\nwarmed to him with the same affection as ever, who would devote\nhimself to clearing away every cloud that dimmed his future! And\ndashing away the blinding tears that would force themselves into my\neyes, I made my difficult way through the crowd and gained the outer\ncourt. A carriage stood opposite the private door, and a double line\nof policemen guarded a passage to it. I hurried forward. Hugh Atherton\nand Lister Wilmot passed quickly out, the carriage-door shut, and they\ndrove off.\n\n\"Atherton and Wilmot!\" I was saying the names aloud to myself, when I\nheard a mocking laugh. Standing beside me, and looking up into my\nface, was Mrs. Haag.\n\n\"Have you been drinking again, Mr. Kavanagh?\" she said in her peculiar\nhard tones, and was gone in a moment. But she left what she little\ndreamed of leaving behind her--the indelible impression on my mind of\nher strong resemblance to Lister Wilmot.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nFOUND!\n\nYes, most undoubtedly, most undeniably, a strong likeness did exist\nbetween Lister Wilmot, old Thorneley's nephew, and Maria Haag,\nThorneley's housekeeper,--a likeness that, as I walked home from the\nOld Bailey and recalled the various points in their features and\nexpressions, grew yet more striking to my mental vision. The\nhousekeeper was fair, with sandy hair; so was Lister Wilmot. The\nhousekeeper's eyes were of  that peculiar blue-grey, cold, passionless\nin their expression; so were Wilmot's. Mrs. Haag's features were cast\nin a perfectly Flemish mould, unmarked, broad, flat; Wilmot's were\nbetter defined, especially the nose, and yet they were of the same\nstamp, allowing for that difference. But the peculiar resemblance lay\nin a character of the tightly-drawn lips, in the dark, evil,\nscintillating light that gleamed from time to time in both his and her\neyes; the expression so often alluded to in these pages, full of\ndanger, of defiance; a glance that sent your blood shivering back to\nyour heart; a look that told, as playing as words could speak, of\nunscrupulousness and utter relentlessness in the pursuit of any\nselfish purpose. And as this forced itself with distinct clearness\nupon my mind, I remembered the question put to me in Merrivale's\noffice on the day of the funeral by Inspector Keene,--\"Did you ever\nsee a likeness to any one in Mr. Wilmot?\" and my answer, \"No, not that\nI know of. We have often said he was like none of his relative\nliving.\" But how to account for this likeness established so suddenly?\nI tried to recollect all I had ever heard about Wilmot. Thorneley had\nacknowledged and treated him in all respects as his nephew; he was\nthus named in the will made by Smith and Walker, and Hugh Atherton had\ntold me Lister was the son of Gilbert Thorneley's, his own aunt; that\nthe marriage had been an unhappy one; that she died soon after her\nson's birth; and that of Mr. Wilmot, his uncle-in-law, he knew\nnothing. How had this strange and striking likeness arisen? Had he\nbeen privately married to Mrs. Haag? Surely not; and then I remembered\nwhat had come out in court to-day about her connection with Bradley,\nalias O'Brian. Old Gilbert Thorneley certainly was no fool; he would\nhave been too wide awake to be tricked into a marriage with a woman of\nwhose antecedents {95} he had not made himself perfectly sure. The\nconjecture of Haag being his wife was dismissed almost as soon as it\nwas entertained. Fairly at a nonplus, and yet feeling that much might\ncome out of this new conviction, I resolved to send for Inspector\nKeene as soon as possible, and impart to him all the crowd of thoughts\nand speculations and ideas to which the impression received this\nevening had given birth. Meanwhile it is necessary I should relate\nevents as they happened after the trial.\n\nDischarged and yet disgraced, Hugh Atherton left the court that day\nwith his future blasted, with a blot on his shield and a stain upon\nhis name. The jury could not convict him, but public opinion hooted\nhim down, and the press wrote him down. His character was not simply\n\"blown upon\" by the insidious soft breath of undertoned scandal, but\ncaught up and shivered to pieces in a whirlwind of shame and ignominy.\nFriends shunned him, acquaintances cut him; society in general tabooed\nhim, and \"this taboo is social death.\" Society set its ban upon him;\nbut Lister Wilmot stuck to him. Stuck to him tight and fast--after\nthis manner: He went about from one person to another, from this house\nto that, and talked of \"his poor cousin Atherton, his unfortunate\nrelative, his much-injured friend.\" He would ask So-and-so to dinner,\nand then when the invitation was accepted, he would add, \"You won't\nmind meeting my cousin, poor Atherton; he is very anxious to do away\nwith that unfortunate impression made at the trial; I do assure you\nthat he is innocent.\"\n\nThe consequences are evident. You may damn a man with faint praise;\nyou may doubly damn a man by overstrong patronage. And this was done\nto perfection by Wilmot. He--a young, agreeable, and not bad-looking\nman--was a far different person in the eyes of the world from rough\nold Gilbert Thorneley; and when he stepped into the enormous wealth of\nhis uncle--when, in spite of the existence of the son and heir, no\nwill was forthcoming, no legal grounds could be found on which to\ndispute his possession, the world made her best bow to him, and\nsociety knelt at his feet, offered up her worship and swung her\ncensers before him. And I had to stand aside and see it all--stand\naside with the bitter smart of broken friendship, of rejected\naffection, rankling in my breast. That fatal evening, oh that fatal\nevening! One word, and he had turned with me, friends for evermore;\none word, and all the anguish and misery, the blight and the sorrow,\nof the past weeks had been saved!\n\nHugh and I never met after his trial but once. It was on the 3d of\nDecember, the day on which Ada Leslie attained her majority, that I\nsaw him for the last and only time. I went to Hyde Park Gardens early\nin the morning, to offer her my congratulations for her birthday, to\nrelinquish my guardianship, and to settle many matters which were\nnecessary on her coming of age.\n\nI need not say that it cost me something to give up the sweet\nrelationship of guardian and ward; that it was like bidding a farewell\nto almost the only brightness that had been cast across my path in\nlife. There was much business to settle that day, and perforce I was\nobliged to detain Ada for a long time in the dining-room. Just before\nI rose to leave, Hugh came in. He greeted Ada, and then turning to me\nsimply bowed. My blood was up; now or never should he explain the\nmeaning of his past conduct; now or never should the cloud which had\nintervened between us be cleared away; now or never should the\nmisunderstanding be removed.\n\n\"Atherton,\" I said, \"I have a right to demand the cause of this change\nin you; I have a right to know what or who it is that is murdering our\nfriendship. No, Ada, do not go away. Be my interpreter with him. _You_\nknow how much cause he has had to doubt me.\"\n\n{96}\n\nI saw his face working as if powerful emotions were contending for\nmastery in him; but he answered in very cold, measured tones: \"If I\nhave been mistaken, if the heavy load of trouble I have had to go\nthrough has warped my judgment, I trust I may be forgiven; but I see\nno reason at present to wish that our former intimacy should be\nrenewed.\"\n\n\"But why? in heaven's name, why?\"\n\nHe looked towards Ada, who was standing near him, and then at me.\n\n\"If your own heart, Kavanagh, does not supply the reason, I have\nnothing more to say.\" And then, as if a sudden impulse had come over\nhim, he stretched out his hand to me, and as I grasped it he said in a\nvoice that shook with agitation: \"It is best for us both, John; we can\nonly forgive and forget.\"\n\n\"Hugh!\" said Ada, laying her hand upon his arm, \"do be friends with\nhim. I cannot imagine what has made you think so ill of your best and\ntruest friend.\"\n\nBut for reply he shook his head and quickly left the room. I took my\nleave of Ada and went away. And thus we parted--Hugh and I, after more\nthan twenty years passed almost entirely together in the most intimate\ncommunion of friendship--a friendship that I for one had never thought\ncould have been broken save by death, and which even then would have\nrisen strengthened, purified, and perfect beyond the grave.\n\nWeeks passed on after this last meeting. I was very much occupied with\nbusiness that had been accumulating during the past three months, and\nI was thankful to plunge into it, and drown in the overpress of work\nbitter thoughts that rose but too constantly for my peace. I seldom if\never went to Hyde Park Gardens. How could I after Hugh Atherton's\nsteady refusal of any explanation? for I knew I should constantly meet\nhim there, and it would prove only a source of pain to us all. Poor\nyoung Thorneley remained under my care; Marrivale had then told by\nHugh he should not interfere in any way, excepting to make over the\n5000_l_. left him by his uncle to the idiot. Further, I learnt that he\nhad withdrawn his name from the barrister's roll; but nothing more as\nto his future movements transpired. The housekeeper had suddenly\ndisappeared, and with her had likewise disappeared Inspector Keene.\nJones told me he believe he had gone, on his own responsibility, \"to\nkeep an eye on her.\" So December went by, Christmas had gone, and the\nnew year had set in. \"I shall hear of their marriage soon,\" I thought\nto myself. \"Surely they will let me know _that_.\" And it was now the\nend of January, when one day, as I was deep over some papers, the door\nof my private office opened, and a young clerk who was replacing\nHardy, laid up with a fit of gout, looked in. \"A lady, sir, wants to\nsee you.\"\n\n\"What is her name? I'm very busy. If it's nothing particular, ask her\nto call to-morrow.\"\n\n\"She says it's most particular, and she won't give her name. She's\nvery young, and I think she's crying.\"\n\n\"Then show her in.\"\n\nAnd in a moment Ada Leslie stood before me.\n\n\"Ada! my dear child, what is it?\"\n\nShe was trembling violently.\n\n\"Gone!\" she said in her heart-broken accents.\n\n\"Gone!\" I repeated. \"Who?\"\n\n\"Hugh, Gone to Australia. Look here!\" and she thrust a crumpled letter\ninto my hand. It was indeed a farewell from him--a farewell written\nwith all the passionate tenderness of his love for her, but admitting\nnot the shadow of a hope that he would falter in his determination. It\nwas more than he could bear, he said, the disgrace that had been\nheaped upon him; more than he could stand, to meet the cold averted\nlooks, the sneers, the innuendos which fell so thickly on his path.\nNor would he condemn her to share his lot; the shame that had come\n{97} on him should never be reflected on her. He bade her farewell\nwith many a vow and many a prayer. She had been his first love, she\nwould be his last; and to know she was happy would be all he would\never care to hear from the land he was leaving, even if that happiness\nwere shared with another. Much more he said, and I read it on to the\nend.\n\n\"How could he! Oh, how could he!\" she cried, wringing her hands, when\nI had finished and laid down the letter. \"Did he not know my whole\nheart and soul were bound up in him? Did he not know that he was my\nvery life? And he has gone from me, left me.\"\n\nI could not answer for a minute. I was thinking deeply.\n\n\"Ads\" I said at last, \"this is not entirely his own doing. It is\nLister Wilmot's.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" she said, moaning and rocking herself backwards and\nforwards; \"you are mistaken. He is in great distress about it. This\nletter was inclosed to him last night; he knew nothing of it.\"\n\n\"Ada, I feel convinced that he did and that he does know. Child, let\nme speak to you once more as your guardian and your dead fathers\nfriend. Take your mind back to that morning before the inquest, and to\na conversation which passed between us then. You remember that Wilmot\nhad been at your house before me, and repeated something which poor\nold Thorneley said the evening of his death--something about you and\nme. You called it then, Ada, 'worse than foolishness;' so I will call\nit now. Do you remember?'\n\n\"I do,\" she said faintly, the color rising to her cheeks.\n\n\"That has been dragged out several times since, privately and\npublicly--always by Wilmot himself or at his instigation. Has Hugh\nnever spoken about it with you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered in the same low tones. \"He spoke of it once, very\nlately. I was trying to persuade him to be friends with you. It was\nthe only time he ever said an unkind word to me; but he was angry\nthen.\" A sob broke from her at the remembrance.\n\n\"I don't wish to distress you; but just think if those thoughts and\nfeelings were put into his mind and harped upon, traded with by one\nprofessing himself to be so staunch a friend just now,--can we wonder\nat the results?\"\n\nShe looked at me as if she hardly understood.\n\n\"I mean,\" I said, speaking as calmly as I could, \"that he was led to\nbelieve it true. He thought I was attached to you, and desirous of\nwinning you from him.\"\n\nShe was silent for some moments.\n\n\"What am I to do?\" she said at last.\n\nAnd I too was silent. One thing presented itself to my mind, if only I\nhad the heart to speak it out, if only the courage. Suddenly she\nlooked up with a happy light in her eyes and almost a smile on her\nlips. She leaned forward with breathless earnestness. I felt\ninstinctively she had thought on the same thing, and that she had\nresolved to act upon it.\n\n\"I can go after him. That is the right thing for me to do, is it not,\nguardian?\"\n\nFor a moment my heart stood still. I knew she would go.\n\n\"Can you bear the voyage, Ada?\"\n\n\"I could bear anything,--all for his sake.\"\n\nAnd I felt that her answer was but a faint shadowing of the great\ntruth that filled her heart.\n\n\"Then go,\" I said; \"and may God's blessing go with you!\"\n\nI rose, turned my face towards the window, and looked out into the\ndesolate square with its leafless trees, its snow-covered walks;\nlooked out into the dull blank future, into the cheerlessness of\ncoming years.\n\nThere and then it was settled she should follow Atherton to Australia\nby the overland route, and thus reach Melbourne before his ship could\narrive. I asked her if she would not find great difficulty in\npersuading her mother to {98} accompany her, and without whom she\ncould not go; but she told me she thought not; Mrs. Leslie would\nrather enjoy the excitement of travelling. We talked long and\nearnestly that morning, and I expressed to her my strong convictions\nthat the day would come before long when we should see Atherton\ncleared from the remotest suspicion of his uncle's murder. All the\nsweet old confidence of former days seemed to have come back, and she\nopened her heart fully and freely to me. I learnt from her very much\nof Wilmot's late conduct, of which I mentally made notes; it was all,\nthough she little thought it then, valuable information to guide me on\nto the one thing I had set my heart on doing, viz., sifting the\nmystery of Thorneley's murder and the discovery of the lost will.\nBefore she left me I had exacted a promise that of her intended\njourney nothing should be said to Wilmot; and finally we fixed on the\n4th of February for her to start.\n\nThe days flew by with more than usual fleetness, so it seemed to me;\nand the 1st of February found Ada and her mother with every\npreparation completed for their long journey. Up to that moment the\npromise made to me had been rigidly kept, and Lister Wilmot was still\nin ignorance of their intended movements. His absence from town for a\nfortnight rendered this a comparatively easy task, and he was not\nexpected to return until after the 6th. On the evening of the 1st I\nreceived a note from Miss Leslie.\n\n\"I have been greatly taken by surprise and much distressed,\" she\nwrote; \"this morning's post brought me an offer of marriage from\nLister Wilmot. He speaks of Hugh's heartless desertion and his own\n_long_ attachment. Either he is mad or deliberately insults me. I\nentreat you to act as if you still were, and what I shall always\nconsider you, my guardian, and answer it for me. A horrible fear of\nhim possesses me, and all I pray is that he may know nothing of this\njourney until we are well on our road.\"\n\n\"This then,\" said I to myself, as I sat down to do Ada's bidding, \"is\nthe reason why Hugh was got  so suddenly and secretly. The secret is\nout at last, Master Wilmot; but you have overshot your mark. This time\nyou have not a trusting friend, not a confiding girl, to deal with;\nbut with me, a man of law; and I'll be even with you yet. I've a heavy\ngrudge to wipe out against you, and you shall smart with a bitter\nsmart.\"\n\nBut before all it was necessary to be prudent, and I answered his\nletter to Ada with temperate words and calm politeness in her name.\n_At present_, I wrote, she had commissioned me to say she could not\nentertain the subject of his letter. In a month's time she would be\nglad to see him. Only let him fall into that trap, and she would be\nsafely on her road to Hugh.\n\nHow anxiously I waited for a reply, I need hardly say. It came at last\nto Ada (I had told her what and why I had thus written). He would wait\na month, a year, ten years, if only at last she could learn to love\nhim. The bait had taken; and we breathed again.\n\nThe 4th of February came, and they started. I had engaged an\nexperienced and trusty courier to travel with them, and they took an\nold confidential servant to act as maid. I accompanied them to Dover,\nand saw them on board the packet. Before it started Ada took me aside.\n\n\"John.\"\n\nFor the first time and the last she called me by my Christian name.\n\n\"Yes, Ada.\"\n\n\"Will you keep this for my sake, in case we never meet again? and\nremember, oh remember, that I shall always cherish you as the dearest\nfriend I ever had!\"\n\nShe took my hand and slipped on my finger a twisted circlet of gold,\nin which one single stone was set, engraven with the word \"Semper.\" It\nlies there now, it will lie there when I am in my grave.\n\n\"I will keep it for ever and ever, Ada.\"\n\n{99}\n\nOne kiss I took from her uplifted tearful face--that too the first and\nlast; and praying God to bless and guard her, left her. Until far out\nat sea, till the last faint speck of the departing vessel had\ndisappeared beyond the horizon, till daylight had verged into the grey\nof approaching night, and shore and sea and sky were all blended in\nthe thickening gloom, I watched from the desolate pier-head, with the\nwinter wind whistling around me, and the dashing spray, the roaring\nwaves, beneath. O Ada, fare you well! I have looked for the last time\non your fair loved face, for the last time gazed into your tender\neyes, for the last time pressed your kindly hand! Is it \"worse than\nfoolishness\" now to kiss this little ring, and hold it to my heart to\nstill the dull pain there? See now, as I write these lines my eyes\ngrow dim looking back to the hour when I turned away from that distant\nview. Not on earth, Ada, shall we meet again, but in the better land,\n\"the land beyond the sea.\"\n\n. . . . .\n\nTwo months had passed away since they had all gone,--Hugh, Mrs.\nLeslie, Ada. By this time they had reached that distant land for which\nthey were bound; and I sat one evening in April by my solitary hearth,\nwith my books and pipe by my side, and little Dandie, Hugh's dog,\nlying at my feet. I had begged hard of Ada to leave him with me. Both\nmy clerks had long since gone home, and office hours were past, when a\nsharp double knock came at the outer door. I went and opened it. A man\nrushed in, took the door forcibly from me, closed it, and then seizing\nmy hand wrung it till my arm ached. It was Inspector Keene.\n\n\"_Found it!_\" he cried, flourishing his hat in the air. \"Hurrah! found\nit.\"\n\nI thought he had been drinking; and lugging hold of him by the collar\nof his coat, I drew him into my room, and sat him down in a chair.\n\n\"What the deuce is all this about? What have you found? Can't you\nspeak?\" I cried, giving him a shake; for he had only flourished his\nhat again in reply to my first question, and cried \"Hurrah!\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Mr. Kavanagh, but I'm beside myself to-night.\"\n\n\"So it seems,\" I answered drily. \"What have you been drinking for?\"\n\nHe was sobered in a moment.\n\n\"I've touched nothing but a cup of coffee since this morning, sir.\"\n\n\"Then what is the matter with you? What have you found?\"\n\n\"Mr. Kavanagh, I've found the _will!_\"\n\n\"Nonsense! Where?\"\n\n\"In the house in Wimpole street. Do you recognize this, sir?\" he said,\ndrawing a document from his breast-pocket, crumpled and dirtied.\n\n\"Merciful heavens! it is the will I drew up!\"\n\n\"You could swear to it, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes, ten thousand times yes!\" I had it unfolded and laid before me.\nThere was the firm, bold signature of old Gilbert Thorneley; and below\nthe crooked, ill-formed writing of John Barker, footman, and Thomas\nSpriggs, coachman. In the corner the date, and my own name which I had\nsigned.\n\n\"In the name of heaven, where and how did you find this, Keene?\"\n\n\"In the housekeeper's bedroom in Wimpole street, concealed under a\nloose plank in the floor. You know, sir, I have had my thoughts and\nsuspicions for long; I have watched and waited. To-day my time came.\nThe house is being done up. The plumber who has the doing of it is a\nfriend of mine. One workman more or less made no difference: I have\ndone odder things before than use the white-washing brush. I have been\nin that house for the last three days, and to-day I whitewashed the\nceiling in Mrs. Haag's bedroom.\"\n\n\"I understand. And searched it besides?\"\n\n{100}\n\n\"Just so, sir. She had done it cleverly; but I'm her match in cunning.\nI found the plank that had been disturbed, and I found the will under\nit and here I am.\"\n\nA text came to my mind,--\"Be sure your sin will find you out;\" and I\nrepeated it half aloud.\n\nThe inspector heard me. \"Yes, sir, yes,\" he said gravely. \"And there's\nanother and a worse crime than stealing her master's will that I'm\nfearful she's guilty of.\"\n\n\"You mean the murder?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\n\nTO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nMY SOLDIER.\n\n  \"Dear heart,\" he said, \"I love you so,\n    I dare not offer you my love\n  Till passion purified in woe\n    Shall worthier offering haply prove.\n\n  \"Then let us part. Mere absence is\n    To love like mine enough of pain,\n  As presence is enough of bliss;\n    So welcome loss that leads to gain.\n\n  \"Yes, let us part. The bugles call,\n    For God and you I draw the sword:\n  Your tears will bless me if I fall,\n    And if I live your kiss reward.\"\n\n  He said, and parted. Long I staid\n    To watch while tears would let me see,\n  And longer, when he vanished, prayed\n    That God might bring him back to me.\n\n  Ah me! it was a selfish prayer\n    To rob him of the nobler part;\n  And God hath judged more wisely. Bear\n    His judgment humbly, bleeding heart!\n\n  Alas! I know not if I sin;\n    In vain I wrestle with my woe.\n  In vain I strive from grief to win\n    That loftier love he sought to know.\n\n  Mine is a woman's love alone--\n    A woman's heart that wildly cries,\n  \"Oh! give me--give me back my own,\n    Or lay me where my soldier lies!\"\n\n\nD. A. C.\n\n------\n\n{101}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nDIVORCE LEGISLATION IN CONNECTICUT.  [Footnote 22]\n\n  [Footnote 22: Divorce legislation in Connecticut. By Rev. H. Loomis,\n  Jr., North Manchester, Conn. article in the new England, for July,\n  1865.]\n\n\nThe deadly and destructive epidemic of divorce legislation has crept\nthrough our social system with such stealthy and noiseless advances,\nand the Catholic community is so completely free from its contagion,\nthat we were startled at the facts displayed in the able article which\nhas suggested our present comments. Connecticut, it appears, stands\npre-eminent among the states for the facility and frequency of\ndivorce. Mr. Loomis says \"that the name of Connecticut has become a\nname of reproach among her sister states, with a shameful notoriety\nsurpassed by only one state in the Union.\" Nevertheless, many, if not\nmost of the other states, are entitled to a fair share in the same\nreproach, having admitted the same false and ruinous principle into\ntheir legislation. We confine our remarks therefore to Connecticut,\nmerely because it is a sample of the state of things generally\nexisting, and because we are furnished with the authentic statements\nwhich are our necessary data by the principal periodical published in\nthat state.\n\nThese statements are, briefly, that divorces are granted by the\nSuperior Courts, under the statutes of the Legislature, _a vinculo\nmatrimonii_, leaving both parties free to marry again, for the\nfollowing causes: 1. Adultery; 2. Desertion; 3. Habitual Intemperance;\n4. Intolerable Cruelty; 5. Imprisonment for Life; 6. Infamous Crime;\n7. \"_Any such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness of the\npetitioner and defeats the purposes of the marriage relation._\"\nMoreover, that within the last fifteen years 4,000 divorces have been\ngranted, of one for every twenty families. To this we add the further\nstatement that, more than one-fifth of the population being Catholics,\nwho never ask for these divorces, the proportion is increased to one\nmarried couple out of every sixteen Protestant families.\n\nThese are the demonstrated facts in the case. And, in addition, we\nhave the testimony of Mr. Loomis, published with the sanction of the\neditor of the New Englander, that the courts despatch these divorce\ncases with the most shameful levity and haste, in many cases without\nany due notice having been given to the respondent, and without any\nclose examination of witnesses.\n\nMr. Loomis says:\n\n  \"It need hardly be matter of surprise, in these circumstances, if a\n  citizen of the state of Connecticut, entitled to the protection of\n  the law in his most sacred rights, should chance to return from a\n  temporary absence on business in another state, and find that in the\n  meanwhile he had been robbed of wife and children, and of all which,\n  for him, constituted home, on evidence which would not be sufficient\n  before any jury in the state to take from a man property to the\n  amount of five dollars, or even the possession of a pig; and to\n  find, moreover, that both wife and children have, by the authority\n  of law, been placed beyond his own control, perhaps in the hands of\n  one who has conspired and paid for his ruin. The case supposed is\n  not wholly imaginary. There is no reason, so far as the\n  administration of the law is concerned, why it should not be\n  frequent! In many cases the absence of the respondent is assured by\n  pecuniary inducements, and in a yet larger number it must be\n  confessed there is no opposition, because there is a common desire\n  to be free from a burdensome restraint.\n\n\"It is doubtless true that, in the main, our courts have held\nthemselves bound at least by the letter of the law, though their\ndecisions are often hurried and based upon {102} wholly unsifted\nevidence. And yet lax as are even the terms of the present law, it is\ndifficult to conceive how some of the decrees of divorce which have\nbeen granted during the past five years can be brought within the\nlanguage of the so-called 'omnibus clause.' What shall we say of such\ncases as these, for instance, in which, in the western part of the\nstate, a man and woman came into court with the confession that they\nhad entered into the bonds of matrimony at the mature age of\nthreescore and ten, but that now, after three weeks' experience,\nhaving become convinced of their folly, they desired relief from the\ncourt; or in which, after having failed to prove legal desertion, the\ncounsel simply stated his ability to prove that the husband, from whom\ndivorce was sought had called his wife by an opprobrious epithet, too\nvile and vulgar to be repeated; or in which the soul plea made was\nthat the parties themselves had agreed through their counsel that a\ndivorce should be had. And yet in each one of these cases, we are\ncredibly informed, a decree of divorce was actually granted. Would not\nall this tend to show that the administration of no long can be wholly\ntrusted to a court which is private in its proceedings, unwatched in\nits purity, unguarded in its power, with no barriers against abuse,\nand in which suits are practically contested only when property or\nreputation are sufficiently at stake to induce, in one case in eleven,\na defence?\"\n\nComment on our part seems hardly necessary. This page in the history\nof one state which has its counterparts in those of many others, is\ntoo black to need or admit of any deepening tints. As Mr. Loomis well\nremarks, such a complete subversion of the essential nature of the\nmarriage contract by legislation endangers the very institution of\nmarriage itself, and tends to reduce it to legalized concubinage. An\nostensible marriage contract, in which both or one of the parties\nintends to contract for a union which may be dissolved whenever there\nis ground for complaint or dissatisfaction, is not a marriage. So far,\ntherefore, as the idea on which this infamous legislation is based\nbecomes common, so as to underlie the matrimonial contracts which are\nentered into, those contracts are invalidated, and the institution of\nChristian marriage is abrogated. This is sapping the foundations not\nonly of the Christian moral law, but of our civil institutions and\nsocial organization. The extent to which this cancer has already\nspread reveals a moral condition truly alarming. It indicates much\nmore than the discontent of certain married persons with each other,\nwhich is only a symptom of moral depravation lying deeper and more\nwidely spread in the community.\n\nWe are glad to see that some influential clergymen and laymen in\nConnecticut are endeavoring to stem and turn back this tide of moral\nevil, and to effect a reform in the divorce laws. What have they been\nthinking of during these past years, while this destructive work has\nbeen going on? Why have they not preached against these infamous laws,\nwritten against them, agitated against them--in a word, shown the zeal\nand energy in a matter which concerns so nearly the public and private\nwell-being, the very existence of the community in which they live,\nwhich they have displayed concerning the reformation and improvement\nof mankind at large? It is useless to ask the question now, for the\nmischief is done. The only thing they can do in reparation for their\nsupine neglect, is to work and agitate now for a correction of public\nsentiment which will produce a reformation in public law. They will\nhave all the influence of the Catholic clergy on their side, and the\nsupport of the whole mass of Catholic voters in any political measure\nwhich may be necessary for restoring a sounder system of legislation.\n\nThe Catholic law, which denies all power to any tribunal, secular or\necclesiastical, to grant a divorce _a vinculo matrimonii_ for any\ncause whatever, in the case of marriages validly contracted and\nconsummated according to the institution of Christ, is manifestly the\nmost perfect protection possible to the inviolability of marriage.\nThose who reject the authority of the church have no certain and\nindubitable basis on which to rest the doctrine that marriage is\nindissoluble. The author of the article we are noticing does not deny\nthe right of the civil power to {103} dissolve the bond of matrimony\nin certain cases of grievous criminality. The civil power is\nconsequently the judge of both the law and the fact, and the clergy\ncannot pretend to exercise any judgment whatever. They are left,\ntherefore, to exert what influence they can on public sentiment, in\nview of the demoralizing and destructive effects of divorces upon\nsociety. If there is enough left of sound moral sentiment in the\ncommunity to compel legislators to restrict the concession of divorces\nwithin the ancient limits, a great good can be effected in checking\nthis gigantic evil. This is all that the Protestant clergy can\naccomplish, and their only means of doing it. They cannot impose their\ninterpretation of Scripture or their ecclesiastical laws upon the\nstate. Nor can we expect legislatures or judicial courts to take the\nNew Testament as their code of laws, to interpret its meaning, or\nembody its principles in statutes and decisions. On Protestant\nprinciples, the doctrines of Christianity can be applied to\nlegislation only as they are absorbed by public opinion, which sways\nthe minds of those who make and execute the laws. Therefore there is\nno remedy in this case except the one we have indicated, namely, to\nform a public opinion on the deleterious effects of the divorce laws\nupon society, and, as far as this motive is still available, their\ncontrariety to the spirit of Christianity. If a word of advice from a\nCatholic source can be received, we counsel the Protestant clergy of\nConnecticut to lose no time before putting all their energies at work\nto save their state from the moral desolation which threatens it; and\nthe respectable lawyers to do something to wipe out the stigma which\nattaches to their profession on account of these infamous divorce\nlaws.\n\n------\n\nFrom St. James' Magazine.\n\nA SUMMER SORROW.\n\n\n  She began to droop when the chestnut buds\n    Shone like lamps on the pale blue sky;\n She faded while cowslip and hawthorn blew,\n   And the blythe month, May, went by.\n\n  I carried her into the sun-bright fields,\n    Where the children were making hay;\n  And she watch'd their sport as an angel might--\n    Then I knew she must pass away.\n\n  With the first white roses I decked her room,\n    I laid them upon her bed;\n  Alas! while roses still keep their bloom,\n    My own sweet flower lies dead!\n\n  I felt that the parting hour was near.\n    When I heard her whisper low--\n  \"Take me once more, my father dear,\n    To see my roses grow.\n\n{104}\n\n  \"Take me once more to the sunny pool\n    Where the dear white lilies sail,\n  And below their leaves, through the crystal depth,\n    The buds lurk mildly pale.\n\n  \"Take me once more to the waterfall,\n    That seems blithe as a child at play;\n  Where the ivy creeps on the mossy wall,\n    And the fern-leaves kiss the spray.\"\n\n  So I bore her along through the summer air,\n    And she looked with a dreamy eye\n  At the brook, the pool, and the lilies fair.\n    And she bade them all good bye.\n\n  Next day my darling's voice was gone;\n    But her yearning spirit-eyes\n  Told how she longed for a nameless boon,\n    And love made my guessing wise,\n\n  Again I bore her beneath the trees,\n    Where their soil green shadows lay;\n  But a darker shadow stole o'er my child,\n    And at sunset she passed away!\n\n\n--------\n\nFrom The Irish Industrial Magazine.\n\nTHE RISE AND PROGRESS OF BOOKS.\n\n\nThe manufacture of books has grown from obscure and insignificant\nbeginnings, in a commercial point of view, to what it has become in\nour day--an industrial resource of great importance--and as such\ninviting our attention to see and examine its growth. The importance\nof literature, as the great agent for educating the intellect for good\nor for evil, is obvious to the most unreflecting; but it is not so\ngenerally thought of, in the subordinate or trade aspect, as giving\nemployment to many hands and heads, that might not easily have found\nthe means of subsistence elsewhere.\n\nLet us begin the study with the brain that lays the eggs--golden or\nleaden, addled or prolific, as the case may be; thence to the\npublisher, whose province it is to bring them out; onward to the press\nin all its departments, that feathers the offspring for flight; pass\nout thence into the paper mill; and end with the poor rag-collector of\ndelicate scraps, for \"wearisome sonneteers\" and well-woven and worn\nreviews. When you have ranked your items, and summed them, the total\nwill be found something few imagine. Then we may search a little\ncloser; and, as we pass through the busy department, it may strike us\nthat this peculiar work requires a peculiar class, that might not have\nbeen by constitution of mind or body so well fitted for other\nemployments as they are just suited to this. First the author: if we\npraise his head, he will not be offended if we say little of his hand;\nindeed, his handwriting is not always of the best. The publisher might\n{105} succeed in cheese and pickles; but for the _publishing trade_ a\ncorresponding intelligence is required, he must be a man of tact and\ndiscernment in intellectual tastes and demands; then compositors,\nreaders, _et hoc genus omne_, should be men of mind; and the neat and\ndexterous female can find work for her hands to do,--type-setting,\nstitching, etc. And thus, while they are ministering to the spread of\ncivilization, civilization repays them by finding a place for them,\nwhere they may gain support and comfort in this working world.\n\nBooks, like the air which surrounds us, are everywhere, from the\npalace to the humblest cottage; wherever civilization exists, and\npeople assemble, books are to be seen. But, though all know what books\nare, all do not know their origin and development, and by what process\nthey have arrived at their present perfection. We therefore venture to\npresent a sketch of their beginning and advancement, and the means by\nwhich they have become such a powerful agency to forward thought and\naccumulate stores of knowledge ever increasing.\n\nWithout affectation of any erudite speculative knowledge respecting\nthe origin and progress of language from the first articulate sounds\nof the human voice to words, symbolic signs, hieroglyphic characters,\nletters, alphabets, inscriptions, writings, and diversities of\ntongues, we shall in business-like manner commence with the elementary\nraw materials of writing and book-making in the order of their use.\nStone, wood, metal, in which letters were cut with a Sharp instrument,\nwere the earliest materials. The art of forming letters on lead was\nknown when the Book of Job was written, as appears from the memorable\nsentence \"Oh, that my words were now written that they were printed in\na book, that they were graven with a pen and lead in the rocks for\never!\" Sheets of lead were used to grave upon; and inscriptions cut in\nrocks or smooth stones in Arabia, where Lot is supposed to have lived,\nhave been discovered. But even more primitive materials were the barks\nand leaves  [Footnote 23] of trees prepared for the purpose.\nShepherds, it is said, wrote their simple songs by means of an awl, or\nsome similar instrument, on straps of leather twisted round their\ncrooks. Even in the days of Mahomet, shoulder-blades of mutton,\naccording to Gibbon's account, were used by the disciples of Mahomet\nfor recording his supposed inspirations. The introduction of _papyrus_\nfrom Egypt into Greece produced great results, in increasing the\ndiffusion of writings, and making books known by many for the first\ntime. Previously, the Greeks had used the materials which we have\nenumerated. Vellum was brought into use about two centuries later; but\nnot commonly, on account of its brittleness. Its introduction is\nattributable to a curious incident, remarkably illustrative of the\nfact that the protectionist system was acted upon at a remote age,\nwhen political economy was not understood, and the good effects of\nfree trade were unappreciated. Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 246, to whom\nthe Septuagint version of the Hebrew Testament is due) had prohibited\nthe exportation of papyrus from Egypt, to prevent Eumenes, king of\nPergnmos, from obtaining that material, in hopes of preventing him\nfrom multiplying MSS.; for Eumenes like Ptolemy, was a patron of\nlearning, and formed libraries. This unworthy jealousy on the part of\nPtolemy was deservedly defeated by Eumenes, who ascertained that\nparchment would be a good substitute for papyrus. This far less\nabundant material was, however, used before; but Eumenes so improved\nthe process of its preparation, that he may be almost termed the\ninventor of parchment. Vellum--the prepared skin of a calf--probably\nwas brought into use at the same time; the deep yellow which both\nmaterials had was subsequently removed by some process {106} adopted\nat Rome, which made it white. The introduction of parchment led to the\npresent form of books and it became the general material for writing\nupon not long afterward, though vellum was employed in all state deeds\nuntil the eighth century.\n\n  [Footnote 23: The terms library and folio are derived from _liber_,\n  the _inner bark_; and _folium_, a leaf.]\n\nCotton paper was introduced into Europe from China about the ninth\ncentury, and superseded parchment. Documents in cotton, of that\nperiod, including diplomas of Italian princes, have been preserved in\nforeign museums.\n\nThe first manufactory of cotton paper was established in Spain in the\ntwelfth century, also almost contemporaneously in France and Germany;\nbut, its durability being questioned, all state and official documents\nfor preservation were written, or at least engrossed, on parchment or\nvellum. Paper made from linen rags is supposed to have originated in\nSpain, and to have been introduced into England in the fourteenth\ncentury. It has been considered a pre-eminently good material, with\nwhich none of the various substances used from the earliest times to\nthe present can victoriously compete.\n\nDr. Fuller, a noted and quaint writer of the seventeenth century,\naffected to detect national characteristics from the qualities of the\npaper produced in the respective countries; e.g., Venetian paper he\ncompared to a courtier of Venice--elegant in style, light, and\ndelicate. French paper corresponds with the light-heartedness and\ndelicacy of the Frenchman. Dutch paper, thick and coarse, sucking up\nink like a sponge, is in this respect, he says, a perfect image of the\nDutch race, which tries to absorb everything it touches. Durability\ndistinguished English paper, a quality essentially English.\n\nIn 1749 the Irish Parliment granted a sum of money to a Mr. Jay,  for\nhaving introduced the first paper factory into Ireland, which probably\nhad the distinction of anticipating England in this respect. Be this\nas it may, the first eminent establishment of the kind was not in\noperation in England until 1770, when a paper-mill was erected at\nMaidstone, by John Whatman, who had acquired much knowledge in the art\nby working at Continental factories.\n\nIn the British Museum is a book, dated 1772, which contains more than\nsixty specimens of paper, made of different substances. The paper\ncalled foolscap, so common in our use, derives its appellation from\nthe historical circumstances following: When Charles I. of England\nfound difficulties in raising revenue, he granted monopolies, among\nwhich was one for making paper, the water-mark of which was the royal\narms. When Cromwell succeeded to power, he substituted, with cruel\nmockery, a fool's cap and bells for the royal arms. Though this mark\nwas removed at the Restoration, all paper of the size of the\n\"Parliamentary Journal\" still bears the name of foolscap.\n\nWhen books first appeared is quite uncertain; for, though the Books of\nMoses and the Book of Job are the most ancient of existing books, it\nseems from a reference Moses has made to them that there were earlier\nones. Among profane writers Homer is the most ancient; he lived at the\nperiod when King Solomon reigned so gloriously. Four hundred years\nafterward the scattered leaves of Homer were collected and reduced to\nthe order in which we have them; and two hundred years still later\nthey were revised and accented, so as to have become perfect models of\nthe purest Greek--the noblest language in the world. And, Greek words\nbeing so remarkably expressive of the meaning of the things or ideas\nwhich they are used to signify, they are now used in arts and sciences\nas descriptive of the subjects or things referred to; and very often\nin a ludicrously pedantic manner, especially among inventors of patent\nmedicines and mechanical instruments. But it is not within the range\nof our subjects, or knowledge {107} even, to touch upon languages and\nliterature, authorship and authors, and the gradual development and\nprogress of literary composition, but simply the subject of books, as\nbefore intimated, as they have been presented to us, in their\nmaterial development from age to age.\n\nIn a number of the Cornhill Magazine there has appeared an article,\n\"Publishers before the Art of Printing,\" which presents a very\ninteresting account of bookmaking in Italy during the Augustan age.\nThe brothers Sosii, celebrated by Horace, issued vast  supplies of\nmanuscript books; fashionable literature was eagerly bought from Roman\nbooksellers; and, to supply the demand for them, slaves were educated\nin great numbers to read aloud to indolent ladies and gentlemen as\nthey reclined on couches. The copying of MSS. was done principally by\nslave scriveners, of whom a great staff was maintained, and, by their\npenmanship, books and newspapers could be multiplied quickly. From the\ndictation of one reader to several writers a large edition,\ncomparatively with the number of the reading public, could be soon\nproduced; in some private families readers and transcribers were\nemployed in this way. The demand for school-books was also great. As\nslave labor was very cheap, bookmaking was then correspondingly\ninexpensive, yet authors of high reputation were well paid by\npublishers. They received much larger sums than were given long after\nthe invention of printing. Martial received for his epigrams a vast\nremuneration--Milton, for his Paradise Lost, only 24_l_.\n\nThe number of what may be called books published by the fathers of the\nchurch in the first centuries of the Christian era was great. Origen\nwrote 6,000; many of these were more properly tracts; but his polyglot\nversion of the Bible (most of which has perished), and his great work\nagainst Celsus, were laborious works indeed. Of the writings of the\nfathers generally (apart from the Evangelists) but few have descended\nto us. The Koran (partly compiled from the Bible) was composed by the\nimposter Mahomet, in the seventh century. At that epoch there were few\nbooks even in Europe, the most enlightened portion of our world, and\nthis literary darkness prevailed three hundred years longer.\n\nA curious episode in the history of early bookmaking occurred in the\nsixth century, Cornelius Agrippa has related, in his Vanity of\nScience, that a contrivance had been invented, by which the several\nparts of speech in any language could be combined by a system of\ncircles worked in an ingenious manner. The component parts--nouns,\nverbs, etc.--come together so as to form complete sentences--a very\nconvenient contrivance for writers who are deficient in what we\nconsider essentials--intellect, learning, and invention. Sir Walter\nScott, in his Life of Swift, says that the dean was indebted for his\nentertaining and witty satire on pretending philosophers, as displayed\nin his Flying Island of Laputa, to the above historical fact. The\nmachine of the Professor of Lagado, in Gulliver's Travels, for\nimparting knowledge and composing books on all subjects without\nassistance from genius or knowledge, was designed to ridicule the art\ninvented by Raymond Tully, the individual referred to by Cornelius\nAgrippa. Various improvements on this mechanical mode of composition\nwere tried, but of course with utter failure.\n\nDuring long periods of barbarism, entire libraries of rolls and books\nwere destroyed by ruthless and ignorant soldiery, as in Caesar's time,\nwhen the library of 700,000 volumes which had been amassed by Ptolemy\nwas burnt by Caesar's troops. The great library collected at\nConstantinople by Constantine and his successors was burnt in the\neighth century.\n\n{108}\n\nThe number of books written and collected by King Alfred was\nextensive, when we take into account the extent of ignorance that\nprevailed in England during the ninth century--an amount which may be\nestimated from the fact that there was much difficulty in providing a\ntutor competent to instruct the royal youth when twelve years old. Yet\nhe, like his celebrated contemporary, Charlemagne, became eminent for\nencouraging literature, and for his high repute in erudition and\nbook-writing, when Anglo-Saxon literature was despicably low. The\nextreme paucity of books in England in the eleventh century may be\ninferred from a mandate of Archbishop Lanfranc to librarians of\nEnglish monasteries, ordering them to deliver one book at the\ncommencement of Lent to the monks in turn, and that any monk who\nneglected to read it should perform penance. Anciently every great\nchurch and monastery had its little library; and, as education was\nalmost entirely limited to ecclesiastics during the middle ages, few\nbooks and transcribers were required.\n\nThe survey of the lands of England him Doomsday Book, in two volumes,\nwas commenced by command of William the Conqueror, in the year 1080,\nand completed in six years. The book obtained its name either from a\nroom in the Royal Treasury called _Domus Dei_, in Winchester, or from\nSaxon words signifying doom or judgment, no appeal from its record\nbeing permitted. The first volume is a folio, the second a quarto, and\nboth are written in abbreviated Latin; the writing being on vellum,\nstrongly bound, studded, and inclosed in a leather cover. A copy of\n_Magna Charta_, the great charter of British liberty, granted and\nconfirmed by preceding monarchs, but re-enacted after a struggle\nbetween the Barons and that wicked man, King John, in the thirteenth\ncentury, is preserved in Lincoln Cathedral. There were twenty-five\noriginal sealed copies of it written on vellum; one copy was sent to\neach English diocese, and to a few special places besides. About\ntwenty-five barons were present when this important document was drawn\nup, none of room signed it; it was only attested by the Great Seal of\nEngland. His majesty could not write; and it may be assumed that his\ntwenty-five nobles were equally illiterate. If any of them were\npenmen, it was very courtier-like on their part to decline doing what\ntheir king was incompetent to do.\n\nWhether Italian or Irish manuscripts were the earliest in which\nornamental letters were employed, is an undecided question. The finest\nspecimen of the illuminated is the Book of Kells, of the fifth or\nsixth century. This beautiful antique is preserved in the library of\nthe King's College, and is thought to surpass in minuteness of finish\nand splendor of decoration the famous Durham Book, or Gospels of\nLindisfarne, which, though probably executed in the north of England,\nis classed among Anglo-Hibernian books, because Irish literature was\nmore advanced than English in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.\nIf this beautiful art of illuminating originated in the East, it\nreached its perfection in the west of Europe. In the British Museum\nthere is a copy of the Gospels executed at Aix-la-Chapelle in the\neighth century, known as the Golden Gospels, the entire text being in\ngold, on white vellum.\n\nWe are now to touch upon the variety and forms of books or booklings\n--if we may invent a name--after the art of printing was discovered,\nabout the middle of the fifteenth century--a subject too familiar to\noccupy any space here for details as to invention or progress.\n\nChaucer expressed in rhyme the inconvenience of being obliged to\ncorrect every copy of his works after the scrivener's hands; he did\nnot anticipate the invention of types in a century afterwards, and the\nemployment of readers or correctors of the press.\n\n{109}\n\nAlmanacs shall have the precedents, not so much from their high rank\nin literary importance, but from their antiquity and pioneer character\nin the march of uninspired literature. The Arabians, who studied\nastronomy and astrology, noted the signs of the seasons, and regulated\ntheir field occupations by the direction of their almanac makers, who\nwere their wise men; they would neither sow nor reap, nor trim their\nbeards and nails, without consulting their almanacs; they introduced\ntheir rules of practice into Europe. A German named M\u00fcller constructed\nan almanac in its present form, suited to general writers. An English\nwriter who called himself Poor Robin, published long ago an almanac\nremarkable for coarseness and eccentricity. The following are\nspecimens of his style (they recently appeared in a public journal);\nwe present but a few:\n\n  \"Julius Caesar did the Britons came;\n  Conquering will you him into England came;\n  Brave Montrose was basely murdered;\n  The Rev. Dr. Stewart lost his head;\n  The plague raged very sore at London;\n  London burnt, whereby many were undone;\n  The crown on Anna's head was placed;\n  She expired, and George's head it graced.\"\n\nSo much for historical records. There a calendar among his monthly\nobservations:\n\n  \"January--The gardens now doing healed no posies,\n    And men in cloaks muffle their noses.\"\n\n  \"March--A toast we plunged in March beer,\n     Being sugared well, and drunk up clear,\n     Revives the spirit, the heart doth cheer;\n    And, had for three pence, is not dear.\"\n\nThis old Robin shamefully pecks at the fair sex. In his notes on April\nhe says:\n\n  \"Then let young people have a care,\n  Nor run their heads in marriage snare;\n  A woman's tongue is like the ocean.\n  It ebbs and flows in constant motion;\n  But yet herein a difference grows--\n  Her tongue ne'er ebbs, but always flows.\"\n\nNo booklings have multiplied more almanacs: we have now clerical,\nmedical, naval, military, aye, horticultural, down to children's\nalmanacs; and amongst these almanacs there is one entitled _Almanac\ndes Voleurs_. Magazines swarm, ranging from the highest class of\nreligious, literary, and social-scientific, not forgetting\n_industrial_, subjects, to the most commonplace and trifling matters.\nThe Gentleman's Magazine is stated to have been the first of the class\npublished in England. Of reviews we have a long array, distinguished\nby every shade of uniform and badge, and from them a vast amount of\nuseful and pleasurable information is obtainable. This class of books\nfirst appeared in the middle of the last century; one entitled the\nMonthly Review was the first published.\n\nThe first newspaper was published in the time of Queen Elizabeth--The\nEnglish Mercury, of which the earliest number is in the British\nMuseum, and bears the date 1588. In the reign of Queen Anne there was\nbut one daily paper, which made a slow and tedious course of\ncirculation; whereas in these days newspapers are everywhere, and the\nleading ones convey intelligence of the whole world's transactions,\nand issue admirable essays, affording information on every subject,\nand this within a marvellously short space of time.\n\nBooks are so common, that it becomes necessary to be careful in the\nselection of them. Tares and wheat will spring up together; the earth\nproduces noxious weeds with the most excellent fruit. If, then, we do\nnot reject the tainted and imperfect grains, a diseased crop is the\nresult. It cannot be expected in this age of inquiry and the rapid\nprogress of learning, that all books should be of an improving\ncharacter, but the good greatly overbalance the evil. \"This\nadvantage,\" said Gregory the Great (writing so early as the end of the\nsixth century), \"we owe to a multiplicity of books; one book falls in\nthe way of one man, and another best suits the level or the\napprehension of another; it is of service that the same subject should\nbe handled by several persons after different methods, though all on\nthe same principle.\" A superfluity of good books is beneficial; I\nwould {110} illustrate this proposition thus: The Nile as it flows\nfertilizes a vast tract of land; but if it were not for the streams\nand rivulets that are artificially constructed to diverge from it, in\norder to draw from the main supply of water some portion of the\nalimentary matter it contains, other tracts would not be fertilized:\nso the great folios in their wide expanse of text and margin have\ntheir important use, while the streams and rills which issue from the\nparent flood are illustrative of quartos, octavos, duodecimos, 24mos,\nand 48mos, that refresh and enrich minds innumerable.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nLUCIFER MATUTINUS.\n\n  From a heart of infinite longing the youth\n      Looks out on the world;\n  \"Where, spirit of candor--where, spirit of truth,\n      Are thy banners unfurled?\n\n  \"O chivalrous chastity! lovely as morn.\n      The dew on thy helmet, I hail thee afar;\n  Like Lucifer, beautiful angel of dawn,\n      I wear thy deep azure, I follow thy star.\n\n  \"Not mammon, not lucre; though white as sea-gulls\n      The broad sails I watch studding ocean's blue deep,\n  To droop their gay pennons where dreamily lulls\n      The tropical breeze, and the lotus-flower sleeps.\n\n  \"But glory! but honor! the joy of a name\n      Not written on sand; which for ages will stir\n  All hearts that are noble, or kindle the flame\n      Of devotion consuming the rapt worshipper.\"\n\n  Thus from heart of infinite longing the youth.\n      Looking out on the world,\n  Cries ever, \"Woo wisdom, woo beauty, woo truth:\"--\n  The sordid world, jaded with care, answers: \"Ruth\n  Waits on thy wild dreamings, O turbulent youth!\"\n      And with laughter uncouth\n  Mocks life's fairest banners in brightness unfurled.\n\n  O heart of the ostrich! above its own graves\n  Of innocent hopes the world every day raves,\n  And moans, with a pitiful droon of despair,\n  O'er candor and honor, once blooming so fair;\n  Yet treads, with a wanton, unpitying scorn.\n  To earth every sweet aspiration of morn,\n  True mark of a soul to infinity born;\n  Or leaves, to the chance of the desert, the good\n  Which God, at creating, charged angels to brood,\n  And martyrs have guarded with rivers of blood.\n\n------\n\n{111}\n\nOriginal\n\nTRAVELLERS' TALES.\n\n\nThe world has been so thoroughly explored now, at feast in all but its\nmost savage and inhospitable recesses, that it seems not unnatural to\nsuppose that travelers abroad find it hard to get listeners to their\ntails of sight-seeing and adventure; and that wanderers into foreign\nlands should no longer deem it a part of their duty, as soon as their\nperegrinations are over, to come home and write a book about them. We\ncan't expect any more Marco Polo or Mendez Pintos, unless some\nadventurous spirits have a mind to travel beyond the regions of the\nAlbert and Victoria Nyanzas, and risk their lives among the dirty\ntribes of Central Africa, whom even Mr. and Mrs. Baker were unable to\nreach; and with all its little differences of manners and customs,\nthere is after all so much sameness in the untamed negro life that we\ndoubt whether anybody will think such a journey worth his trouble. Now\nthat the source of Nile has been found and the costly and useless\nproblem of the north-west passage has been solved, there really seems\nto be nothing very new or startling which can be added to geographical\nscience. But for all that there is, and undoubtedly their long will\nbe, a certain fascination in every well-told narrative of life in a\ndistant country, even though the main features of the story were\nfamiliar to us before. We know that a second Columbus can never come\nhome to us from across the ocean sees, with news of unsuspected\ncontinents; that old ocean has loosed all the bonds which once shut us\nin, and disclosed long ago all the new worlds which he wants\nconcealed; but we like to travel again and again over the lands we\nhave already passed, to take a few repeated peeps at the inner life of\ndistant peoples, even though their domestic interiors were long ago\nlaid open to our inquisitive eyes. Now and then, moreover, it does\nhappen that a traveller has something new to tell us, or at least\nsomething which has not been told often enough to be familiar to all\nthe world. For example, in the spirited Sketches of Russian Life\n[Footnote 24] which we have lately received from an anonymous hand in\nEngland, there is, if nothing very new or surprising, at least a\nliveliness and an air of novelty which are almost as good. The writer\nis an Englishman who spent fifteen years in Russia, engaged in\nbusiness pursuits of various kinds, which brought him into contact\nwith persons of all ranks and conditions, and led him long journeys\nback and forth across the empire--now in the lumbering diligence, now\nin the luxurious railway train, and many a time and for long distances\nin rude sledges across trackless wastes and through fearful snows. In\nsome parts of Russia there are seasons when the mere act of travelling\nis a perilous adventure. In March, 1860, our author, in company with a\nRussian gentleman, made a dangerous journey of two hundred miles in an\nopen sledge, through a snow-storm of memorable severity. They had been\nstruggling for some miles through drifts and hidden pits, when the\ndriver alarmed them with the cry of \"Volka! volka!\"--\"Wolves! wolves!\"\nSix gaunt-looking animals {112} sat staring at them in the road, about\none hundred yards in advance of them. The horses huddled themselves\ntogether, trembling in every limb, and refused to move. The Russian,\nwho is known in the book only by the name of Fat-Sides, seized a\nhandful of hay from the bottom of the vehicle, rolled it into a ball,\nand handed it to our author, saying \"Match.\" The Englishman understood\nthe direction, and as soon as the horses, by dint of awful lashing and\nshouting, were forced near the motionless wolves, he set fire to the\nball and threw it among the pack. Instantly the animals separated and\nskulked away with their tails dragging, but only to meet again behind\nthe sledge, and after a short pause to set out in full pursuit. The\ntired horses were whipped to their utmost speed, but in forcing their\nway through a drift they had to come to a walk, and the wolves were\nsoon beside them. The first of the pack fell dead with a ball through\nhis brain from the Englishman's revolver, and another shot broke the\nleg of a second. At that critical instant the pistol fell into the\nsledge as, with a sudden jolt the horses floundered up to their\nbellies in in deep drift: then they came to a dead stop, and there was\na wolf at each side of the sledge, trying to get in. The Englishman\nfortunately had a heavy blackthorn bludgeon, and raising it high he\nbrought it down with the desperate force of a man in mortal extremity,\ncrash through the skull of the animal on his side of the vehicle;\nwhile Fat-Sides coolly stuffed the sleeve of his sheepskin coat down\nthe mouth of the savage beast on the other, and with his disengaged\nhand cut its throat with a large bear knife. The pistol was now\nrecovered just in time to kill a fifth wolf which had fastened upon\nneck of one of the horses. The sixth, together with the one that had\nbeen shot in the leg, ran away.\n\n  [Footnote 24: Sketches of Russian Life before and during the\n  Emancipation of the Serfs. Edited by Henry Morley, Professor of\n  English Literature in University College, London. 16mo, pp. 298.\n  London: Chapman and Hall. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co.]\n\nAfter a day's detention at Jaroslav, where some irritating business\nabout passports had to be transacted, our travellers resumed their\njourney in a \"kibitka,\" or diligence-sledge--a rather more comfortable\nconveyance than the one they had left, because it had a canvas cover.\nThere were no more encounters with wolves, but perils enough awaited\nthem in the snow. The first day three of their horses died, and in\nsixteen hours, with three separate teams, they accomplished only\ntwenty-seven miles. All along the road they passed wrecks of sledges,\nhorses struggling in the drifts and men digging them out, and vehicles\noverturned and abandoned until spring. Opposite a hut in which they\nfound shelter one night a cottage had been entirely buried, and the\nfamily were not rescued until after four days. They were none the\nworse for their long imprisonment; but the diggers had come upon a\nsledge with its horse, driver, and two women frozen to death and\nburied in the drift. Three months after this, when the snows\ndisappeared from two hundred to three hundred corpses were found, all\nof whom had met their death in this fearful storm upon the Moscow road\nalone.\n\nThe wretchedness of the inns added a great deal to the sufferings of\nour travellers. A Russian hotel in the interior is the most filthy of\nall filthy places. As the floors are never washed, the mud and filth\naccumulate to an inch and a half in thickness; the walls are black and\nfetid; horrible large brown beetles, called _tarakans_, crawl in\nmyriads over everything, invading even the dishes out of which the\ntraveller eats and drinks; and the dirty deal tables are further\ndefiled with a dirty linen cloth. The public rooms are constantly\nfilled with the offensive odor of the native tobacco. The waiters are\nall men, dressed in print trowsers and shirts; the trousers stuffed\ninto long boots, and the shirts hanging outside the trowsers; the\nparticolored band or scarf round the waist completing the costume.\nTheir hair, like that of all the peasants, is worn long, cut straight\nround the neck, and parted in front like a woman's, while the beard is\n{113} neither cut nor trimmed. We are not surprised that our author\npreferred to lodge with the horses and cows in the stable.\n\nThe distance from Jaroslav to Moscow out is about 160 miles, and the\njourney occupied seven days and the better part of seven nights.\n\nOur author made another journey, accompanied by his wife and six\nchildren, and an amusing English \"handy man\", called Harry, who was\nfor ever knocking somebody down and getting the party into all sorts\nof scrapes with the police. They started from Moscow, and rode about\n500 miles into the interior. Their equipment consisted of two vehicles\ncalled tarantasses, each drawn by three horses. The baggage, and a\ngood store of bread, tea, sugar, sardines, brandy, and wine, were\nstowed away in the bottom of the wagons, and over them were spread\nstraw, feather beds, rugs, and other contrivances for breaking the\nseverity of the jolting. The passengers reclined on the top. Many time\nthey had no bed but the tarantass, and no food but what they had\nbrought with them. Harry found plenty of employment for his fists, as\nwell as for his ingenuity in bridge building and other useful arts.\nOnce he detected a waiter, in the end where they stopped at Tula,\nstealing a bottle of castor-oil from the medicine chest. It was only\nfit punishment to make the thief swallow a large dose; but when the\neffects of the drug began to show themselves, the man declared himself\npoisoned, and was carried to the hospital, while the travelers and\ntheir effects were placed under the charge of the police.\n\n  \"We were prisoners for nearly 2 hours, when a doctor from the\n  hospital, fortunately for us, a jolly Russ, came with a captain of\n  police. While the captain of the police tackled Harry, who, ignorant\n  of the language, answered 'da, da' (yes, yes) to everything. I\n  explained to the doctor of what had really happened. The worthy\n  doctor having gotten hold of the oil bottle cried,\n\n  \"'Bravo! Poison! The most excellent medicine in pharmacy. Look here,\n  captain. The pig' (meaning the waiter) 'was taken ill with cholera,\n  cramps, spasms, vomiting here--mind you, here in this room--before\n  madame and mademoiselle. They run to the next room, so does my\n  friend here, a great English my-lord. What could they do? But, sir,\n  the case was desperate. This gentleman' (pointing to Harry) 'is a\n  great doctor, accompanying my-lord and his family; there was no time\n  to send for me. What does he do? He opens his great\n  medicine-box--look, there it is--and gives the dying moushick a\n  great dose of apernicocus celantacus heprecaincos masta, the best\n  remedy in the world for cholera. I tell you, \"Yea Boch!\" there now,\n  that's the truth.'\n\n  \"'But,' said the captain, 'the moushick, doctor, how is he?'\n\n  \"'Ah! the pig!' (and here he spat on the ground in contempt), 'I\n  left the beast quite well and sleeping. I will answer for him. Come,\n  captain, let us go. Poison! That is a good joke! Come, captain. Safe\n  journey. Good-bye!'\n\n  \"The police captain was satisfied, however reluctantly. With two\n  bottles of something better than castor-oil, and a fee, which the\n  doctor might or might not divide with the captain, I paid the cost\n  of Harry's thoughlessness.\"\n\nHaving reached their destination, and purposing to remain in that part\nof the country for some time, our English friends obtained a house,\nand went to housekeeping. The torment they suffered from thievish and\nidle servants is pitiful to read. The lower-class of Russians seem to\nhave no more idea of working without an occasional application of the\nstick than a sluggish horse; and an honest servant is the rarest thing\nin the empire. Our author began housekeeping with four--a key-keeper\n(housekeeper), cook, room-girl (housemaid), and footman. The dishes\nwere put upon the table dirty, just as they had been taken away after\nthe previous meal, because it was nobody's business to wash them; so a\ndish-washer was added to the retinue. At the end of a week it was\nfound that nobody had time to scrub the floors; so scrubbers had to be\nhired. Then another was wanted to wash clothes (though nobody could be\nfound who knew what it meant to get up linen, and the authors wife had\nto do it herself); another to clean boots; a man to cut and fetch\nwood; and another man to {114} split it and keep up the fires. Thus in\none week the establishment increased to thirteen souls. Their wages,\nit is true, were small, but their pilferings were great. One day the\nmaster and mistress resolved to examine the servants' boxes. In the\nfirst one opened they found a canvas bag filled with lump-sugar,\nparcels him and of tea and coffee, needles, pins, buttons, hooks and\neyes, tape, laces, soap, candles, children's toy\u00bb, sealing-wax, pens,\nnote paper, and a keep of small articles, all of which had been\nstolen. Every box had been opened in turn, and not one contained less\nthan the first, and many of them contained more.\n\nDishonesty, as may be supposed, is not confined to the lower classes,\nbut infects all ranks. The traders are the greatest cheats in the\nworld; we were going to say the greatest except the government\nofficials; but these are not exactly cheats, because their extortion\nis open and unblushing. When our author once told a Russian baron that\nEnglish magistrates were incorruptible, the assertion caused an\nincredulous laugh, and a remark from the baron that he could buy any\ncountry magistrate in Russia for 50 kopecks (about 35 cents).\nCertainly our friend often found it convenient to prove their\nvenality, especially when Harry of the strong arm had been giving his\nfists a little more exercise than was strictly according to law. Trade\nis a system of lying and cheating. The commonest  purchase can rarely\nbe made without a tedious and vociferous process of bargaining, very\nmuch such as goes on when a veteran jockey sells an old horse at a\ncountry fair. Our author had occasion to buy a pair of boots and a\nportmanteau at Tula. After over an hour's wrangling the price was\nreduced from 48 roubles to 16, and the letter some afterward proved to\nbe about twice as much an the articles were worth. \"How shameful of\nyou,\" said the buyer to the seller when the transaction was concluded,\n\"to ask three times more then you would take, and then to tell so many\nlies!\" \"Oh!\" he replied, \"words do not rob your pocket. I am no thief.\nIt is all fair bargaining.\" The larger operations of commerce, if not\nso noisy, are at least no more honest then the retail dealing. It has\nbeen remarked that profitably to understand trading in Russia would\nrequire a course of many years training at university teaching the\nprinciples and practice of chicanery, bribery, smuggling, and lying. A\nrich trader of St. Petersburg gave our author of good deal of\ninformation about the way business is carried on. Contracts with the\ngovernment, especially, are managed in a very curious fashion. Some\none is appointed by the state to draw up plans and specifications of\nthe work to be done, and to fix and \"upset price.\" The contract is\nthen offered at auction, and the lowest bidder under this upset price\ntakes it. As there is a tacit understanding that the successful\ncompetitor shall pay the official who fixes the upset price a\ncommission of 10 per cent on the gross amount of the contract, it\nfollows, as a matter of course, that this price is always ridiculously\nhigh.\n\nSmuggling is carried on very extensively, not as commonplace rascals\ndo it, across the frontier, but through the custom-house itself. \"Just\nlook,\" said the merchant, \"at this piano-forte--a first-rate 'grand'\nfrom Broadwood. Had that instrument come through the 'Tamoshny' a as a\n'forte-piano,' it would have cost me 100 rubles, that is 15 pounds of\nyour money. But, sir, I shipped it as a threshing machine--my children\nhave certainly made it one--and it cost me no duty at all; machinery,\nyou know, is the only thing duty-free. I paid my expediter his little\ncommission, and he managed to convince the examining official, by what\nmeans I do not stop to inquire, that a threshing machine it was, and\nas such it passed.\" Not only is the temptation to dishonesty so\nstrong, but honesty, on the other hand, is fraught with great danger.\n{115} A tradesmen, who was beginning business in St. Petersburg,\nimported a quantity of plain glass-ware, the duty on which was two\nroubles and twenty-five kopecks per pood. He meant to pay the duty in\nan honest, straightforward way; but this did not suit the custom-house\nofficials, who wanted their little commission. They discovered by some\nsingular optical delusion that the plain glass was all colored and\ngilded, the duty being thus raised to ten roubles per pood. Nor was\nthis all, for the unfortunate tradesman was moreover fined fifty per\ncent for a false declaration, and his dear loss by the importation was\nabout $500. This and a few similar transactions with the custom-house,\nin which he stood out for the payment of just dues and no corruption,\nruined him. There is no redress for such outrages in Russia.\n\nWe have no space to go into details of the condition of the serfs,\nwhich our author represents as miserable in the extreme. The stewards\non many of the estates are German adventurers of the worst\ndescription, who cheat their employers, oppress the serfs, and do all\nthat man can do to ruin the country. Many of the lower class do not\nthoroughly understand the czar's ukase of emancipation, and even those\nwho do understand what great things it does for them, show little or\nno gratitude. That is a virtue of slow growth in a Russian bosom. Some\nof the wisest land-owners anticipated the time set by the decree for\nthe abolition of serfdom, and immediately began to work their estates\nwith paid labor. The result was perfectly satisfactory. In a few\ndistricts, however, the publication of the emancipation ukase was\nfollowed by tumults and disorders, and now and then the peasants took\na bloody vengeance on their oppressors. Our author witnessed one scene\nbetween a villanous steward and his emancipated serfs, which came near\nbeing tragical. The steward was roused from his slumbers one morning\nby a big strong mooshick, or peasant, who acted as his coachman.\nEntering the room rather unceremoniously, the man bawled out, in a\nperemptory voice:\n\n  \"'Come, master, get up quick! You're wanted in the great hall.'\n\n  \"The steward started at the unusual summons, and stared at the\n  fellow in blank astonishment, unable to understand what he meant.\n\n  \"'Come, I tell you; rise--you're wanted.'\n\n  \"'Dog!' roared the steward, almost powerless with rage--'what do you\n  mean by this insolence? Get out!'\n\n  \"'No,' said the man, 'I won't get out. You get up. They are all\n  waiting.'\n\n  \"'Pig! I'll make you pay for this. Let me get hold of you, you\n  villain!' and he jumped out of bed; but as he did so he perceived\n  three of his other men-servants at the threshold ready to support\n  the coachman.\n\n  \"'Oh! this is a conspiracy; but I'll soon settle you. Evan, you\n  devil, where are you? Come here.'\n\n  \"Evan thus called--he was a lacquey--appeared at the door with a\n  broad grin on his face.\n\n  \"'Did you call, master?'\n\n  \"'Yes, villain; don't you see? I am going to be murdered by these\n  pigs. Go instantly for the policemen.'\n\n  \"'No, no, baron; I have gone too often for the stan's men. We can do\n  without them this morning.'\n\n \"'Come, come, master,' again struck in the tall coachman, 'don't you\n waste our time and keep the company waiting. Put on your halat; never\n mind the rest of your clothes; you won't need them for a little. You\n won't come--nay, but you must.' And he laid hold of him by the neck.\n 'Come along!' and so they dragged their victim into the great dining\n hall.\n\n  \"There, sitting round the room on chairs and lolling on the sofas,\n  were all the souls belonging to his domestic establishment, about\n  thirty in all. Pillows were spread on the floor in the middle of the\n  room; to these the steward was dragged, and forcibly stretched on\n  them face down, with two men at his feet and two at his head.\n\n  \"The coachman, who had been pretty frequently chastised in former\n  times, was ring-leader. He sat down on a large easy-chair, the seat\n  of honor, and ordered a pipe and coffee. This was brought him by one\n  of the female servants. When the long cherry-tree tube began to\n  draw, in imitation of his master's manner he puffed out the smoke,\n  put on a fierce look, stretched out his legs, and said, 'Now then,\n  go on. Give the pig forty blows! creapka (hard)!'\n\n  \"In an instant the halat was torn up, and two lacqueys, standing at\n  either side, armed with birch-rods, slowly and deliberately\n  commenced the flagellation. The coachman told {116} off the blows as\n  he smoked in dignity, 'one, two, three,' and so on to forty.\n\n  \"'Now, then,' said coachee, 'stop. Brothers and sisters, have we\n  done right?'\n\n  \"'Right!' they all said.\n\n  \"'Is there one here whom he has not beaten?'\n\n  \"'Are you satisfied?'\n\n  \"'Then go all of you home, and leave this house. Not one must\n  remain. Release the prisoner.'\n\n  \"Up jumped their tyrant, little the worse bodily for the beating he\n  had got, but he was livid with rage. His face turned green and\n  purple, he gnashed his teeth, and spat on his rebellious slaves.\n  Speech seemed gone, and they all laughed in his face.\n\n  \"'Master,' said the coachman, walking leisurely towards the door,\n  'we have not hurt you, but have given you a small taste of your own\n  treatment of us for many years; how do you like it? We are free now,\n  or will be soon, and will not be beaten any more. Good-bye; don't\n  forget the stick. And listen. It you whimper a breath against any of\n  us for this morning's work, your life is not worth a kopeck two\n  hours after.' Each made a respectful bow as he or she went out, and\n  the tyrant was left alone in the deserted house.\"\n\nThis, however, was not the end. In a short time the peasantry from a\nlong distance began to collect in the courtyard. A mill belonging to\nthe state stopped work, and its thousand hands joined the gathering\ncrowd. The steward appeared among them, and in a terrible rage ordered\nthem to work, They simply shrugged their shoulders and made him no\nanswer. He struck one of them with his open hand, and the peasant in\nreturn spat in the steward's face.\n\n  \"The Russian spit of contempt, the most unpardonable of Russian\n  insults, is unlike any other kind of spitting. The Yankee squirt is\n  a scientific affair; Englishmen who smoke short black pipes in bars,\n  on rails, and elsewhere, expectorate in an uncleanly, clumsy way.\n  But with an intense look of detestation, as he says 'Ah pig!' the\n  Russian, with the suddenness and good aim of a pistol shot, plunges\n  a ball of spittle right into the face or on the clothes of his\n  adversary, making a sound like the stroke of a marble where it hits.\n  It is a weapon always ready, I have frequently seen a duel\n  maintained with it for a considerable time at short range.\n\n  \"Matt, having thus shown his contempt, coolly leaned himself up\n  against the gate, but the steward, insulted as he had never been\n  before in this characteristic manner, before so many of his cringing\n  slaves, lost any remains of reason his rage might have left him. He\n  used hands and feet on the crowd of passive and hitherto quiet\n  surfs, and seeing the old starost--Matt's father--coming up the\n  road, he ran and colored the old man, dragged him to show where his\n  son stood, and roared out his orders to take the devil into the\n  stan's yard for punishment.\n\n  \"'Old devil!' he said, 'you are at the bottom of all this rebellion,\n  you and your son. You shall flog _him_; and then I shall make him\n  flog _you_. Go, pig, and take him away!'\n\n  \"The old man, for the first time in his life, openly disobeyed his\n  tyrant's orders. He folded his arms across his sheepskin coat, gave\n  the usual shrug, spat contemptuously on the ground, and said, 'No,\n  steward, that is your work. Now, I will not.'\n\n  \"'Dog! Devil! do you refuse to obey your master? I will, if it is my\n  work, drag you to punishment myself.'\n\n  \"With that he sees the starost by his luxuriant white beard, and\n  began pulling him towards the next house, which, I have said, was\n  the magistrate's and the police station. The old man resisted with\n  all his might, and in the struggle he fell leaving a large mass of\n  grey or rather white hair in steward's hands. The steward, finding\n  he could not pull the starost by main force, lifted his foot, shod\n  with heavy leather goloshes, and struck the old man twice on the\n  head. The blood immediately ran down. Up to this moment the crowd of\n  peasants, which had increased enormously, had been quiet spectators\n  of the scene; but the site of the old man's blood gave the finishing\n  touch to their patience. Without a word the crowd began slowly to\n  move and concentrate itself around the steward and his fallen\n  official. There might then have been five or six hundred people, and\n  the numbers were increasing every moment, as the men came in from\n  the stopped works. A rush took place, and the centre space was\n  filled up with the mass. The bleeding starost was passed to the\n  outside. The steward was surrounded, and many hands were laid on\n  him. I do not believe there had been any premeditated designed to\n  hurt the steward, cordially as they all hated him. Had he applied\n  the listen given him that morning, and apprehended the changed\n  feelings and circumstances of the serfs, he might have been passed\n  from among them without further injury. But his passions were\n  ungovernable, and he was slow to believe in the possibility of any\n  resistance on the part of the poor slaves he had so long driven. The\n  crowd swayed heavily from one side to another, tugging and pulling\n  the poor steward about; and now he was in peril of his life. My\n  window was wide open {117} He made a mute appeal to me for help. I\n  signed to him to try the window. By some extraordinary effort he\n  broke loose, and major rush and a spring to catch the sill. He\n  succeeded so far, and two pair of strong arms were trying to drag\n  the fat body through into the room; but we were too late, or rather\n  he was too heavy for us. The crowd tore him down, and held him fast.\n  Then a voice was heard, clear and decided as that of an officer\n  giving the word of command--'to the water!' The voice was\n  Mattvie's. A leader and an object had been wanted, and here there\n  were both. Instantly the order was obeyed. The crowd, dragging the\n  steward, left the front of my house and took the direction of the\n  lake.\n\n  \"We hurried through the court-yard down to the end of the\n  cotton-mail, and came out on the banks of the lake, just as the\n  raging crowd of serfs were tying a mat with a large stone in it to\n  the stewards neck.\n\n  \"Around the margin of the lake the ice was to some extent broken,\n  and their evident intention was to throw him in. We ran to meet\n  them, and if possible prevent the horrid act of retribution. But we\n  were too late; they had selected the part of the bank nearest the\n  road, as it was higher than the rest; and just as we came painting\n  up, we saw the body of the steward swaying in the hands of a dozen\n  of the man, and heard the fatal words given out by Matt: '_Ras, dwa,\n  tree_' (One, two, three); then a cry of despair, above the yelling\n  of the crowd; than a plunge in the water; no, two plunges. The\n  ragoshkie, or bark mat, containing the heavy stone which was to keep\n  the steward down, had not been a good one; for as the body passed\n  through the air, the stone fell from the mat, splashing a second or\n  two before, and a little beyond the spot where he came down. He\n  disappeared under the water for a moment or two, then made desperate\n  efforts to scrambled to his feet, in which he succeeded, standing up\n  to his shoulders in the shallow water, and with the mat bag,\n  drenched and limp, hanging from his neck. There he stood within\n  twenty feet of the bank, facing a thousand yelling enemies. Outside\n  was plenty of firm ice; but between him and them there might be\n  thirty feet of deep clear water, the bed of the lake dipping many\n  feet immediately beyond where he stood. He seemed to comprehend his\n  position, and was evidently making up his mind to contend with the\n  deep water rather than with the turned worms upon the bank. He had\n  raised one arm, either for entreaty or defiance, and had taken off\n  few steps toward the ice, when one of the many stones thrown at him\n  struck the uplifted arm and it fell powerless to his side. Another,\n  but a softer missile, struck him on the head. He fell down under the\n  water, and again recovered his feet; but the stones were now--like\n  hail about him. The serfs were as boys pelting a toad or frog--and\n  their victim in the water did look like a great overgrown toad.\n\n  \"Saunderson and I had made several attempts to be heard, or to\n  divert the attention of the people; but it was spending idle breath:\n  'Go away; it is not your business,' some of the men said; others,\n  more savage, asked how we would like the same treatment.\"\n\nThe contrivance is by which the unfortunate was rescued from his\nperilous situation was so theatrical that we can hardly help\nsuspecting that the incidents of this story have been arranged with a\nsharp eye to effect. The man's fate seemed certain when our author\nespied a sleigh approaching at a considerable distance. No doubt it\ncontained young Count Pomerin, the owner of the estate. If a little\ndelay could be obtained, the steward might be saved. At this juncture\nare friend Harry interfered. \"I'll try,\" he exclaimed; \"blow me if I\ndon't. The buffer's bad lot, but I sha'n't see him killed;\" and with\nthat he jumped into the water, and was by the steward's side in a\nmoment. The noise and stoning ceased, for Harry was a prime favorite;\nbut the mob was not to be baulked of its vengeance, and after a\nvigorous exchange of expostulations, in the course of which Harry made\nseveral remarks that were more forcible than polite, the chivalrous\nEnglishman was pulled out of the water, kicking stoutly, and the\npelting was about to be renewed.\n\nJust at this moment the sleigh, drawn by three magnificent greys,\ndashed into the centre of the crowd. Three gentlemen occupied it. Two\nwere in official costume. The third, a tall, well-built man, rose, and\nthrew off  Is rich black fox-skin cloak, and the mob beheld, dressed\nin the uniform of a general, not the young count, but his father, who\nhad been exiled years before, and was thought to be dead. He had now\ncome hack, with an imperial pardon, prepared to resume the management\nof his estates. The steward was extricated from the water, and\nimmediately called upon to {118} settle his accounts. The old count\nhad visited the estate before in disguise, and knew how it had been\nmismanaged. He had witnessed and all ready to Convict the steward of\npeculation, and the result was that the wretched man was compelled to\nrefund on the spot $750,000 of stolen wealth, and then allowed\ntwenty-four hours to leave the place.\n\nThe next scene in this pretty little drama was between the count and\nhis serfs. He called them all together, and told them they were free\nfrom that moment. He did not intend to wait for the period of\nemancipation fixed by the ukase. Moreover, he gave to each male\npeasant three acres of land, free of price--parting thus with\none-sixth of his estate. The whole assembled multitude then went down\non their knees, and cried, \"Thanks, thanks, good count, the\nillustrious master--God bless you!\" And here, according to all\ndramatic rules, unless there was somebody to be married, the thing\nought to have ended. But behold, ten grey-bearded peasants, who\nevidently had no idea of propriety, stepped forward and wanted to know\nwhat they were to do with their cows? Three acres would be enough for\ngarden and green fields, but it would not give them pasture.  Would\nnot his excellency add to his gift? and so might God bless him! Well,\nthe count allotted them pasture for ten years; and then the ten\ngrey-beards advanced again, with the cry a Russian always raises when\nyou give him anything--\"prebavit\" (add to it). Pasture was very good,\nbut how were they to get firewood? \"If it please your high-born\nexcellency, add to your gift firewood. Prebavit!\" So his high born\nexcellency added firewood; and the incorrigible peasant stepped up\nagain. \"Prebavit! How were they to get fish? Would it please his high\nborn excellency to let them fish in the lakes?\" There were the usual\nthanks and the prostrations when this was granted; and then \"prebavit\"\nagain; they wanted something else; but they did not get it, and the\nmeeting broke up. A little while afterward our author revisited the\nestate, and found that it had undergone a marvellous change. The\nvillage was no longer a collection of mud huts, but a thriving town.\nThe people were not like the same beings; and there was decided\nevidence of the rise of a middle class--a class once unknown in such\nplaces.\n\nOur author gives us an obscure glimpse of a curious religious sect in\nRussia called the _starrie verra_, or \"old faith,\" of whose\npeculiarities be knows little, and of whoso history be confesses that\nhe know a nothing at all. It's members deem the present Russian Church\nan awful departure from the primitive faith and practice; deny the\nemperor's claim to be the head of the church; believe to any extent in\nwitches; fast, scourge themselves; meet in secret, generally at night\n(for they are rigorously proscribed); hate the established religion of\nthe realm has much as the old Scotch Puritans hated prelacy; and, if\nthey had their wish, would probably advance the Czar to the dignity of\nmartyrdom. It is said that many distinguished personages privately\nadhere to them, and submit to dreadful midnight penances, by way of\ncompounding for the sin of outward subserviency to the modern heresy.\nPeople of the old faith are distinguished by a grim gravity and\nopposition to all dancing or light amusement. Our author had a\nwoman-servant of this sect, who was remarkable for never stealing\nanything, and for continually smashing crockery which she supposed to\nhave been defiled. There was a community of the old faith near his\nresidence? An old wooden building like a Druid temple, set in the side\nof a hill among trees and rocks, was pointed out to him as the place\nof their midnight conventicles. It was said to be presided over by a\npriestess who never left the temple by night or by day. A roving\nfanatic, whom the writer sometimes encountered in the village,\ncollecting {119} peasants around him and shouting like a\nstreet-ranter, was looked up to by the sectaries as a prophet; though\nhe was certainly not a very reputable one, being often helplessly\ndrunk, and not very decently clad. He wore no covering for head or\nfeet, even in the severest frost. He carried a long pole, and danced\nsome holy dance, to words of high prophetic omen. Our author was\nrather surprised to find that, thanks to his crockery-smashing cook,\nhe himself was commonly reputed a priest of the _starrie verra_; the\nbig volumes of the illustrated London News in which he used to read\nwere supposed to be illuminated Lives of the Saints, and the little\nplays and dramatic scenes which his children used to perform on winter\nevenings were looked upon with holy awe as religious rites of dreadful\npower and significance. He bore his honors without complaining, and\neven when the cook, on the night of a party, broke all his best\nWedgwood dinner-set, brought from England at a huge expense, he\nendured the loss with Christian patience: it was so delightful to have\na Russian servant who would not steal.\n\n\nFrom Russian servants to Italian brigands the transition is perfectly\nnatural. Both are rogues of the same class, only external\ncircumstances have made a difference in their modes of doing business.\nAn English gentleman named Moens has recently obtained a more intimate\nacquaintance with the robber bands of Southern Italy than any of our\nreaders need hope to make, and has given us the result of his\nobservations in a very curious and interesting volume.  [Footnote 25]\nMr. and Mrs. Moens, and the Rev. J. C. Murray Aynsley and his wife,\nhad been visiting the ruins of Paestum, on the Gulf of Salerno, on the\n15th of May, 1865, when their carriage was stopped on the way home by\na band of about twenty or thirty brigands.\n\n  [Footnote 25: English travelers and Italian Brigands. the Narrative\n  of Capture and Captivity. By W. J. C. Moens. With a Map and several\n  illustrations. 12mo. pp. 355. New York: Harper & Brothers.]\n\nThe ladies were not molested, but the gentlemen were hurried off\nacross the fields, and through woods and thickets, until nearly\ndaylight the next morning, when they were allowed to lie down to sleep\nfor a short time on the bare earth. As soon as they felt themselves in\na place of security the band halted, and their captain, a fine-looking\nfellow, named Manzo, got out paper and pen and proceeded to business.\nThe two Englishmen were to be well treated, provided they made no\nattempt to escape, and on the payment of a ransom were to be released\nwithout injury. The sum demanded for the two was at first 100,000\nducats, or about $85,000, but this was afterward reduced one-half. It\nwas now agreed that one of the two captives should be allowed to go\nfor the money, and lots were drawn to determine upon whom this\nagreeable duty should fall. Good fortune inclined to the side of Mr.\nAynsley, and the reverend gentleman set off under the care of two\nguides. He was hardly out of sight when the band was attacked by a\nparty of soldiers, and for a short time there was a sharp skirmishing\nfire, in the course of which Mr. Moens came very near being killed by\nhis would-be rescuers. He was forced to keep up with the bandits,\nhowever, and the whole party finally got away from the troops.\nWhatever plans he may have had of flight he now saw were futile. The\nbrigands ran down the mountain like goats, while he had to carefully\npick his way at every step. The robbers had eyes like cats: darkness\nand light, night and daytime, made but little difference to them.\nTheir sense of hearing was so acute that the slightest rustle of\nleaves, the faintest sound, never escaped their notice. Men working in\nthe fields, or mowing the grass, they could distinguish at a distance\nof miles, and they knew generally who they were, and to what village\nthey belonged.\n\nAfter four days of dreadful fatigue, during which the captive and his\ncaptors all suffered severely from hunger, {120} since the closeness\nof the pursuit prevented them from getting their usual supplies from\nthe peasants, our party joined the main body of the band.\n\n  \"On emerging from the trees we saw the captain and about twenty-five\n  of his men reclining on the grass in a lovely glade, surrounded by\n  large beach-trees, whose luxuriant branches swept the lawn. Several\n  sheep and goats were tethered near, cropping the grass. The men,\n  with their guns in their hands, their picturesque costumes and\n  reclining postures, the lovely light and checkered shade of the\n  trees, made a picture for Salvator Rosa. But I do not believe that\n  Salvator Rosa, or any other man, ever paid a second visit to the\n  brigands, however great his love of the picturesque might be, for no\n  one would willingly endure brigand live after one experience of it,\n  or place himself a second time in such a perilous situation.\n\n  \"The band all arose, and looked very pleased at seeing me, for we\n  had been separated from them since the fight on the 17th, and they\n  were in great fear that I might have escaped, or have been rescued\n  by the troops. I stepped forward and shook hands with the captain,\n  for I considered it my best policy to appear cheerful and friendly\n  with the chief of my captors. He met me cordially in a ready way,\n  and asked me how I was. I said I was very tired and hungry, so he\n  immediately sent one of his men off, who returned in a few minutes\n  with a round loaf of bread, and another loaf with the inside cut\n  out, and packed full of cold mutton cut into small pieces and\n  cooked. I asked for salt, and was told it was salted. When cooked\n  the meat tasted delicious to me, though it was awfully tough, for I\n  and had not had meat since luncheon on Monday, in the temples of\n  Paestum, four days before. I ate a quantity, and then asked for\n  water, which was brought to me in a large leathern flask with a horn\n  around the top, and a hole on one side serving to admit air, as the\n  water was required for drinking. I had observed a large lump of snow\n  suspended by a stick through its center, between two forked sticks;\n  the water dripping from it was collected in flasks, and then drunk.\n  There were two or three of these flasks. The captain asked me if I\n  was satisfied. I answered 'Yes.'\n\n  \"I was then told that there were two more companions for me. I was\n  taken through a gap in the trees to the rest of the band, about\n  seventeen in number. Here by found those who were destined to be my\n  companions for the next three weeks. A young man about twenty-eight,\n  with a black beard of a month's growth, dressed just like Manzo's\n  band, who was introduced to me has Don Cice alias, Don Francesco\n  Visconti, and one Tomasino, his cousin, a boy of fourteen years old.\n  I shook hands with them, and condoled them on our common fate, which\n  Don Francesco described as fearful. I was told to sit down on one\n  side, which I did and looked around me.\n\n  \"The spot seemed perfect for concealment. We were at the top of a\n  high mountain, entirely surrounded by high trees, excepting two\n  small gaps serving for entrances, opposite to each other. The\n  surface of the ground was quite level. About twenty yards away, on\n  the side opposite to where I entered, there was a quantity of snow,\n  from which they cut the large pieces for drinking purposes. I saw\n  five or six men bringing a fresh block, which they had just cut, and\n  slung on a pole. It was now a little before mid-day, and they were\n  preparing a cauldron full of _pasta_ (a kind of macaroni), which was\n  ready by twelve o'clock. Some was offered to me, which I accepted.\n  One brigand proposed putting the _pasta_ into a hollow loaf, but\n  another brigand brought forward a deep earthenwere dish of a round\n  shape. I thought milk would be an improvement, so I asked for some.\n  Two men went to the goats and brought some in the few minutes. The\n  _pasta_ was very clean and well cooked. What with the meat and\n  bread, and this _pasta_, I made an excellent dinner, and felt much\n  better. The _pasta_ was all devoured in a few minutes by the band,\n  who collected round the _caldaja_, and dipped in spoons and fingers.\n  I had now leisure to examine the men; they were a fine, healthy set\n  of fellows.\n\n  \"Here the two divisions of the band were united, thirty men under\n  the command of Gaetano Manzo,  and twelve under Pepino Cerino. The\n  latter had the two prisoners, who had been taken on the 16th of\n  April near the valley of the Giffoni, at five o'clock in the\n  afternoon, as they were returning from arranging some affairs\n  connected with the death of a relative.\n\n  \"The smaller band had for women with them, attired like the men,\n  with their hair cut short--at first I took them for boys; and all\n  these displayed a greater love of jewelry then the members of men's\n  Manzo's band. They were decked out to do me honor, and one of them\n  wore no less than twenty-four gold rings, of various sizes and\n  stones, on her hands at the same moment; others twenty, sixteen,\n  ten, according to their wealth. To have but one gold chain attached\n  to a watch was considered paltry and mean. Cerino and Manzo had\n  bunches as thick as and arm suspended across the breasts of their\n  waistcoats, with gorgeous brooches at each fastening. These were\n  sewed on for security; little bunches of charms were also attached\n  in conspicuous positions. I will now describe the uniforms of the\n  two bands. Manzo's band had long jackets of strong brown cloth, the\n  color of withered leaves, with large pockets of a circular shape on\n  the two sides, and others in the breast outside; and a slit on each\n  side gave entrance to a large pocket {121} that could hold anything\n  in the back of the garment. I have seen a pair of trowsers, two\n  shirts, three or four pounds of bread, a bit of dirty bacon, cheese,\n  etc., pulled out one after the other when searching for some article\n  that was missing. The waistcoats buttoned at the side, but had gilt\n  buttons down the center for show and ornament; the larger ones were\n  stamped with dogs' heads, birds, etc. There were two large circular\n  pockets at the lower part of the waistcoats, in which were kept\n  spare cartridges, balls, gunpowder, knives, etc.; and in the two\n  smaller ones higher up, the watch in one side and percussion caps in\n  the other. This garment was of dark blue cloth, like the trowsers,\n  which were cut in the ordinary way.\n\n  \"The uniform of Cerino's band was very similar, only that the jacket\n  and trowsers were alike of dark blue cloth and the waistcoat of\n  bright green, with small round silver buttons placed close together.\n  When the jackets were new they all had attached to the collars, by\n  buttons, _capuces_, or hoods, which are drawn over the head at night\n  or when the weather is very cold, but most of them had been lost in\n  the woods. A belt about three inches deep, divided by two\n  partitions, to hold about fifty cartridges, completed the dress,\n  which, when new, was very neat-looking and serviceable. Some of the\n  cartridges were murderous missiles. Tin was soldered round a ball so\n  as to hold the powder, which was kept in by a plug of tow. When used\n  the tow was taken out, and, after the powder was poured down the\n  barrel, the case was reversed, and, a lot of slugs being added, was\n  rammed down with the tow on top. These must be very destructive at\n  close quarters, but they generally blaze at the soldiers, and _vice\n  vers\u00e2_, at such a distance, that little harm is done from the\n  uncertain aim taken. Most of them have revolvers, kept either in the\n  belts or the left-hand pocket of their jackets; they were secured by\n  a silk cord round their necks, and fastened to a ring in the butt of\n  the pistol. Some few had stilettoes, only used for human victims.\n  Many wore ostrich feathers with turned-up wide-awakes, which gave\n  the wearers a theatrical and absurd appearance. Gay silk\n  handkerchiefs around their necks and collars on their cotton shirts\n  made them look quite dandies when these were clean, which was but\n  seldom.\n\n  \"At last, tired of watching the band, I lay down and fell asleep. I\n  slept for some hours, during which a poor sheep was dragged into the\n  enclosure, killed, cut up, cooked in the pot, and eaten. I must have\n  slept until near sunset, for when I awoke another sheep was being\n  brought forward and I watched the process of killing and cutting up\n  the poor beast. The sheep was taken in hand by two men, Generoso and\n  Antonio generally acting as the butchers of the band. One doubled\n  the fore legs of the sheep across the head; the other held the head\n  back, inserting a knife into the throat and cutting the windpipe and\n  jugular vein. It was then thrown down and left to expire. When dead,\n  a slit was made in one of the hind legs near the feet, and an iron\n  ramrod taken and past down the leg to the body of the animal; it was\n  then withdrawn and the mouth of one of the men placed to the slit in\n  the leg, and the animal was inflated as much as possible and then\n  skinned. When the skin was separated from the legs and sides, the\n  carcass was taken and suspended on a peg on a tree, through the\n  tendon of the hind leg; the skin was then drawn off the back\n  (sometimes the head was the end, but this rarely). The skin was now\n  spread out on the ground to receive the meet, etc., when cut off the\n  body; the inside was taken out, the entrails being drawn out\n  carefully and cleaned; these were wound around the inside fat by two\n  or three who were fond of this luxury--Sentonio, and Andrea the\n  executioner, generally performing this operation. These delicacies,\n  as they were considered, being made about four inches long and about\n  one inch in diameter, are fried in fat or roasted on spits. It was\n  some time before I would bring myself to eat these, but curiosity\n  first, and hunger afterward, often caused me to eat my share, for I\n  soon learned it was unwise to refuse anything.\n\n  \"While these two men were preparing the inside, the other two were\n  cutting up the carcass. The breast was first cut off, and then the\n  shoulders; the sheep was then cut in half with the axe, and then the\n  bones were laid on a stump and cut through, so that it all could be\n  cut in small pieces. One man would hold the meat, while another\n  would take hold of a piece with his left hand and cut with his\n  right. As it was cut up, the pieces would be put into a large cotton\n  handkerchief, which was spread out on the ground; the liver and\n  lungs were cut up in the same way; the fat was then put in the\n  _caldaja_, and, when this was melted, the kidneys and heart (if the\n  latter had not been appropriated by some one) were put in, cooked,\n  and eaten, every one helping himself by dipping his fingers in the\n  pot. The pieces of liver were considered the prizes. All the rest of\n  the sheep was then put in the pot at once, and after a short time\n  the pot was taken off the fire and jerked, so as to bring the under\n  pieces to the top.\n\n  \"They liked the meat well cooked; and when once pronounced done, it\n  was divided into as many equal portions as there were numbers\n  present; the captives being treated as 'companions'--the term they\n  always used in speaking of one another. I soon found that the sooner\n  I picked up my share the better. If there was no doubt about there\n  being plenty for all, the food was never divided. Then they dived\n  with their hands, {122} whoever ate fastest coming off best. I could\n  only eat slowly, having to cut all the meat into shreds, as it was\n  so tough; so I always took as much as they would let me, and retired\n  to my lair, like a dog with his bone. If I finished this before all\n  was gone, I returned for more, it being always necessary to secure\n  as much as possible, as one was never sure when more food would be\n  forthcoming, and it is contrary to brigand etiquette to pocket food\n  when eaten thus. When it was divided, I might of course do as I\n  liked with my share, but even then it was prudent not to allow them\n  to know that I had reserved a stock in my pocket, or I was sure to\n  come off short on the next division taking place. The skin was now\n  taken and stretched out to dry, and then used to sleep on.\"\n\n\nThere were five women with the band, all dressed just like the men,\nexcept that they wore corsets. Their hair was cut short, and two of\nthem carried guns, the others being armed with revolvers. They had no\nshare in the ransom-money, and were often beaten and otherwise ill\ntreated by their lords. Doniella, the partner of Pepino Cerino, one of\nthe subordinate chiefs, was a strapping young woman about nineteen\nyears old, with a very good figure and handsome features, a pretty\nsmile, and splendid teeth. She and her husband were prodigious\ngluttons, and Pepino was eventually deposed from his rank on account\nof his lawless appetite. Carmina, the companion of Giuseppe, was a\ngood-natured creature, who was often kind and generous to the English\nprisoner. Antonina, the wife of a whole-souled rascal named Generoso\ndi Salerno, had a thin, melancholy face, with magnificent great\nlotus-eyes. She was cheerful and generous, and did a great for Mr.\nMoens in the way of mending his clothes and sharing her food with him\nduring the many periods when victuals were scarce. Maria and Concetta\nwere both ugly and sulky, hardly ever spoke, and never gave away\nanything.\n\nIt was a terrible life these brigands led, very different from the\nfree and picturesque career with which poetry and romance love to\nidentify them. Hunted by the soldiers and fleeced by their friends the\npeasants; suffering the extremes of hunger, thirst and fatigue;\npassing long days and nights of apprehension among the perpetual snows\nof the mountain summits, where they often durst not light a fire to\nwarm their benumbed limbs or cook their stolen sheep or goat, for fear\nlest the flame should betray them, and where they would scarcely\nsnatch a few moments for repose, that they might be ready for instant\nflight; dreading even to take off their clothes to wash themselves,\nbecause the pursuit might be upon them at any moment; paying absurd\nprices for all that they obtained from the country people; wasting in\ngambling the sums they received for ransoms; and haunted every hour by\nthe Nemesis of past crimes and vain longings for a lawful and quiet\nlife--the most wretched captive in his dungeon seems almost happy in\ncomparison with them. Mr. Moens passed about a hundred days in their\ncompany. The ransom, finally reduced to 30,000 ducats, was not raised\nwithout some delay, in a country where he had few acquaintances, and\neven after it was raised the getting it safely to the band was a work\nof time and difficulty, for the government punishes all intercourse\nwith the brigands with great severity. The robbers meanwhile became\nimpatient. Our author was forced to accustom himself to kicks, cuffs,\nstarvation, and every species of ill-usage, and there was serious talk\nof cutting off his ears and sending them to his wife as a gentle\nincentive to haste. The money came at last, however, and he parted\nfrom the gang on very friendly terms, receiving from them before he\nleft enough money to enable him to travel to Naples \"like a\ngentleman,\" besides several interesting keepsakes, such as a number of\nrings, and a knife which had been the instrument of one or two\nmurders.\n\n\n\nThere is a sort of relief in turning from these two narratives of\nrascality to the next hook on our list, though in literary merit it is\nvery far inferior to {123} them. It is the narrative of a lady's\ntravels in Spain. There is not much novelty in the subject, and only a\nvery moderate degree of skill in the execution; but it is something to\nget into decent company. Mrs. William Pitt Byrne  [Footnote 26]\ntravelled from the Pyreneean frontier of Spain, through Valladolid,\nSegovia, Madrid, Toledo, and Cordova, to Seville. Her book, with all\nits faults, supplies some lively pictures of modern Spanish life, and\nthe reader who has patience to hunt for them will also find in her\npages some valuable bits of information about the condition and\nprospects of the kingdom. She has a great deal to say about the\ndiscomforts of travelling in Spain, and the horrors of the hotels and\ninns, which are scarcely less abominable than those of Russia. However\nuseful these particulars may be to persons meditating a trip through\nthe Peninsula, they can scarcely be thought very important to the\npublic generally; and we shall therefore content ourselves with\nextracting from Mrs. Byrne's two handsome volumes an account of a\nbull-fight at Madrid, which, notwithstanding her sex, she was induced\nby a sense of public duty to witness. We pass over the description of\nthe arena and the spectators, and the preliminary procession of the\nactors in the bloody spectacle, and come at once to the moment when\nthe bull is let into the ring:\n\n  [Footnote 26: Cosas de Espa\u00f1a: Illustrative of Spain and the\n  Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt Byrne, Author of Flemish\n  Interiors, etc. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 279, 322. London and New York:\n  Alexander Strahan.]\n\n  \"No sooner was egress offered him than he rushed headlong into the\n  circus, dashing madly round as if he sought an escape; baffled in\n  this, and scared by the fanfare of the trumpets, the glare of the\n  sun on the yellow sand, and the vociferous shouts of the people, he\n  suddenly stopped, raised his head, and stared wildly round. The\n  blood was already streaming from his neck where the _devisa_,\n  [Footnote 27] in this case a sky-blue ribbon, had been fixed.\n  Meantime the _lidiadores_, fifteen in number, were scattered about\n  the arena, each with a brightly tinted cloak of different colors\n  twisted about his arm, the _picadores_ being drawn up in a defensive\n  attitude, one behind the other, as far as possible from the centre\n  of the circus. The horses, we observed, were blindfolded, _pour\n  cause_. Some precautions were taken for the safety of the _toreros_;\n  thus there were, here and there, slits in the barriers,  [Footnote\n  28] through which an expert fellow could glide, in extreme cases,\n  and there is a step all round, from which the more readily to vault\n  over the paling. For the protection of the public, a tight rope was\n  strained all round the circus, fixed to iron stays, to arrest the\n  progress of the bull, if, in his fury, he should attempt to scamper\n  upwards among the spectators. This frequently occurs, to the great\n  delight of those who are far enough off not to be damaged, and who\n  seem to forget that the next time it may be their turn. Frightful\n  indeed are the accidents, both among actors and spectators, which\n  sometimes happen during these games; and, as they are generally of\n  some unexpected kind, one never knows whether some awful casualty\n  may not be on the point of occurring; it is always on the cards.\n\n    [Footnote 27: The _devisa_ differs in color, and indicates the\n    _ganaderia_ whence the bull has come.]\n\n    [Footnote 28: At Seville the _lidiadores_, at least those who are\n    on foot, have an additional chance of safety in the wooden screens\n    placed all around at intervals, about fifteen inches in front of\n    the fenced ring, behind which they can glide, without fear of\n    being followed by the bull.]\n\n  \"The bull now discovered his adversaries, and seemed instinctively\n  to recognize their treacherous intentions. The people became\n  impatient for an attack, and the trumpets blew; the _capeadores_\n  hovered about, dazzling, perplexing, attacking and repelling the\n  bewildered brute, according to the different colors of their cloaks,\n  and always gracefully and ingeniously eluding his vengeance. At\n  length one, emboldened by success, continued his provocations beyond\n  the bounds of discretion; the bull abandoned the others, and\n  selecting his persevering tormentor, defied him to single combat.\n  Scattering about the sand with his hoofs, he ploughed the ground\n  with his muzzle, and, putting himself in a butting attitude, he\n  pointed the back of his head and the tips of his horns with a\n  menacing determination towards the object of his just vengeance. The\n  agile _torero_, however, knew his bull; he never lost presence of\n  mind for a moment, but twisting about the _capa_ till it became\n  inflated, he flung it before the beast's face, and, under cover of\n  its folds, fled nimbly to the barrier. The bull, furiously enraged,\n  tossed the crimson silk, tearing it with his horns, and then,\n  discovering how he had been duped, made for his foe with redoubled\n  rage; but the _capeador_ had just gained the time he needed to vault\n  over into the fenced ring just as the bull came up with him. His eye\n  was dilated, and seemed to glare with fire; he had pursued his foe\n  with such fury that the impetus given to his course served him\n  instead of address, and, never losing sight of his man, he followed\n  him, tumbling rather than leaping over the barrier into the narrow\n  passage, {124} within one short section of which man and beast were\n  now shut up together.\n\n  \"The approving roars from the amphitheatre were deafening; it was\n  difficult not to be carried away by the general enthusiasm; it was a\n  moment of intense excitement; the life of a fellow-being seemed to\n  hang on a thread, and a moment more must decide his doom. It was a\n  struggle between brute force and intelligent activity:--the man got\n  the better of it. In that instant he made another desperate bound,\n  and leaped over into the next division. The people, true to its\n  character--\n\n    'Sequitur fortunam, ut semper, et odit Damnatos,'\n\nand who but now had thundered a unanimous '_Bravo toro!_' changed its\ncry, and it was the _lidiador_ they hailed. But he was not saved yet;\nthe next move--quick as thought--was on the part of the bull, who,\nmaking a second and almost supernatural bound, was seen coming up\nbehind him a third time, when the active fellow, by a happy\ninspiration, leaped back into the arena, and his brethren in arms,\nrushing to the rescue, threw open the communications to give his\nprovoked and angry foe free course, till, one of the barriers being\nopened, he spontaneously returned into the circus, when it was neatly\nclosed, and the combatant was saved for _this_ time. Still panting\nfrom the desperate chase, the disappointed brute now turned upon the\nfirst _picador_, but received a check from the point of his lance; a\nbroad stream flowed from the widening gash, crimsoning the sand, and,\nas might be expected, the wounded beast turned again with greater fury\non his assailant, who by this time had driven his spurs into his\nhorse, and by a bound had cleared the spot, so that the creature's\nhorns struck violently, and with a fearful crash, into the wooden\nwall, and the bull, who as yet had gained no advantage, baffled and\nstung, coursed once more desperately round the ring.\n\n  \"The men seemed to be taking breath; but the spectators had no\n  intention of being satisfied with this tame dallying, and they\n  vociferously signified their disapprobation. The trumpet sounded\n  once more, and the _picador_ advanced a second time to the bleeding\n  hero of the sport, and provoked him with his '_vara_,' at the same\n  time siding up to the fence, so that, in case his horse should fall,\n  he might secure an escape: the sagacious beast, albeit blindfolded,\n  seemed to have an instinctive presentiment of the fate that awaited\n  him; he trembled for a moment in every limb, as the bull, with a\n  thundering roar, rent the air; but, obedient to the spur and to his\n  master's voice, he recovered his pace, and advanced to meet the\n  inevitable attack. The bull, lowering his head, rushed at the\n  _picador_, and, with all the force of his weight, plunged his horns\n  deep into the poor beast's right flank, turning him completely round\n  as on a pivot, and lifting his hind quarters several times from the\n  ground, the horse kicking violently. It was a ghastly group. The\n  _picador_ kept his seat unmoved while the whole assemblage yelled\n  it's savage delight. The attention of the bull, as soon as the lance\n  had forced him to withdraw his horns, was called off by the\n  _chulos_, who dazzled him with the evolutions of a yellow cloak, and\n  the gored steed, now released, but frightfully torn, tottered on, a\n  hideous spectacle, endeavoring with his fast-failing strength, to\n  bear his rider out of danger. Arrived near the middle of the arena,\n  however, his broken steps were arrested; his hour was come, and,\n  making one last but futile effort, he fell with his rider heavily to\n  the ground. When a _picador_ falls, and with his horse upon him, it\n  is no easy matter for him to rise; and no sooner had the wretched\n  steed succumbed, than the bull, dashing at the struggling and\n  powerless man, 'in one red ruin blent,' attacked horse and man once\n  more with all the vigor of his horns. The  _picador_ was utterly\n  helpless; imbedded in his deep saddle and ponderous stirrups, his\n  lower limbs cased in iron, he had not the shadow of a chance of\n  extricating himself. His lance he had dropped, and all he could do,\n  and all he did, was to urge his dying horse with violent and\n  desperate blows to rise and release him. The cruelly-used beast,\n  willing and intelligent to the last, mangled as he was, and almost\n  swimming in the crimson pool beneath him, made a supreme effort to\n  rise; it was in vain, and all he could now do was to serve as a\n  shield by receiving the attack of the enraged bull, instead of his\n  master. Still the position was eminently critical; the struggles of\n  the dying horse under the horns of the infuriated full complicated\n  the position, and the next moment might decide the helpless man's\n  fate. He looked around, dismayed, when another _picador_ advanced,\n  and, driving his lance into the bull's shoulder, aroused him to the\n  consciousness of a new foe. The _toreros_ and _chulos_ took\n  advantage of the diversion to bear the bruised and wounded _picador_\n  off the field, and the expiring horse--not deemed worth of thought,\n  because, pecuniarily speaking, he was valueless--was left there, not\n  only to struggle in the agonies of a cruel death, but to form a butt\n  for the frantic bull every time he passed in the fight.\n\n  \"Meantime, as if to carry their barbarity to the lowest depth, two\n  or three _chulos_, watching their opportunity, advanced to the\n  moribund horse, and beating him violently with clubs and sticks,\n  tried to force him to rise, but in vain; his feet, once so swift,\n  were destined never to support him again, and, after several\n  attempts to comply, he dropped his head heavily, and with an almost\n  human expression of powerlessness and despair. His savage tormentors\n  were not satisfied even now, and as if determined the noble beast\n  should not even die in peace, forestalled the {125} few moments he\n  had yet to breathe, by dragging off, with frightful violence, the\n  heavy accoutrements with which he was incumbered; and, having\n  possessed themselves of these articles, departed without having even\n  had the grace to put an end to his miserable existence, the bull\n  being engaged in a deadly combat with the second _picador_ on the\n  other side of the circus. The second _picador_, indeed, came off\n  better than the first. _His_ horse, after the first goring, and when\n  just about to fall, was recalled by a sharp spur-stroke in his\n  already lacerated sides; he started off at a convulsive gala, and\n  for his rider nearly round the ring, a miserable spectacle. His\n  entrails were dragging along till, his feet getting entangled in\n  them, his master, with surprising skill, contrived to dismount\n  before he fell, and abandoned the dying and defenseless creature to\n  the fury of the bull, who again gored and tossed him violently,\n  escaped scot-free.\n\n  \"But the term of the persecuted _toro's_ own existence was\n  shortening, and the people, fearing lest his end should arrive for\n  they had had all the enjoyment that could possibly be extracted from\n  his struggles, called loudly for the _banderillas_. The trumpets\n  blew gets approving blast, and to bold _banderilleros_ presented\n  themselves, after the bull had been provoked by the _chulos_ into\n  the right position and attitude for these new tormentors to commence\n  their attack. The _banderillero_ was an accomplished _torero_, who\n  understood his business, and he took in at a glance the bull he had\n  to deal with. His is a perilous office, but he executed it with\n  intelligence, skill, and grace; he hovered about and around his\n  bewildered victim, turning and twisting his _banderillas_ with\n  provoking perseverance, and gliding aside with surprising muscular\n  accuracy every time the poor bull tried to parry a feint; at last he\n  succeeded in planting his gaudy instruments of torture into the\n  exact spot in which a clever _artiste_ is bound to spike them,\n  unless he can face the execrations of an assemblage of fastidious\n  and disappointed _connoisseurs_. As it was, they testified their\n  appreciation of the barbarous feat by the thunder of applause as the\n  nimble _torero_ eluded the pursuit of his foe by swift retreat. The\n  bespangled and befringed _banderillas_ drooped over with their own\n  weight, and slapped violently on either side of the poor wretches\n  neck, as with the sudden start and hideous roar at the unlooked-for\n  aggravation, he bounded furiously across the sand, tearing up the\n  ground with his horns and hoofs, and tossing everything in his way,\n  in his frantic efforts to rid himself of the new torment; the blood,\n  which had quite coagulated into a gory texture, hanging like a broad\n  crimson sheet from either side of his neck, completely concealed his\n  hide, now started in a fresh stream from the new wound, and his\n  parched tongue hung from his mouth, eloquently appealing in its mute\n  helplessness for one small drop of water. Strange to say, the\n  pitiful sight touched no responsive chord in the hearts of that\n  countless mass of humanity; on the contrary, like the beast of prey\n  who has once licked up blood, this insatiate crowd seemed to gloat\n  over the scene that had well-nigh sickened us; so far from being\n  moved to compassion, regret, or sympathy, they urged on the\n  remaining _banderilleros_, eager in their turn to show their skill,\n  and after the usual flourishes, two more pair of fiery _banderillas_\n  were adding their piercing points to the smarting shoulders of the\n  luckless bull, 'butchered to make a _Spanish_ holiday.' What must\n  the Roman circus have been, if this was so unendurable?--and yet\n  tender, gentle, loving womankind assisted--ay, and applauded at the\n  ghastly human sacrifice.\n\n  \"It was a relief when the trumpet blew its fatal blast, and the\n  _espada_ came forward, bowed to the president, threw off his cap,\n  and displayed his crimson flag. It was Cuchares--the great Cuchares\n  himself: the theatre rang with applause. The Toledo steel, bright as\n  a mirror, flashed in his practised hand, dexterously he felt his\n  ground; he eyed the bull, and in a moment--a critical moment for\n  him--perceived by tests his experience suggested to him the nature\n  of the animal he had to deal with, and the mode in which he must be\n  treated . . . and . . . despatched. All the other _toreros_ had\n  retired, and he stood alone, as an executioner, face to face with\n  his foredoomed victim. It was a supreme moment, and the attention of\n  the amphitheatre seemed breathlessly concentrated into a single\n  point.\n\n  \"There is a wonderful power of fascination in perfection of any\n  kind, and, notwithstanding the nature of the act in which it was to\n  be displayed, we felt ourselves insensibly drawn under its\n  influence.\n\n  \"The _matador_ began his operations by dallying with the bull:\n  possessing all the qualifications of a first-rate _espada_, the\n  confidence he had in the accuracy of his eye and the steadiness of\n  his hand was apparent in every gesture; the group formed a singular\n  _tableau_, and the attitudes supplied a series of excitements. Every\n  head was stretched forward with an eagerness which offered each\n  individual character without disguise, to be read like the page of a\n  book. The interest was intensified by a sudden and unexpected plunge\n  on the part of the bull; it was vigorous, but it was his last; the\n  poor beast was received with masterly self-possession on the point\n  of the sword, which entered deep, deep into the shoulder, just above\n  the blade, and with a fearful groan, the huge and bloody form fell,\n  an inert mass, to the ground.\n\n  \"The crimson tide of life burst like an unstemmed torrent from his\n  wide nostrils and gaping mouth, and with a quiver which seemed to\n  communicate itself to the whole {126} amphitheatre, he was still for\n  ever. The air was rent with shouts of men, screams of women, cries\n  of approbation and roars of applause, which were still at their\n  height, when one of the barriers suddenly opened, and the mules,\n  with their harness glittering, and their _gr\u00e9lots_ tinkling, trotted\n  gaily in; a rope was fastened with great dexterity around the neck\n  of the still palpitating carcase, which was then dragged off with\n  incredible rapidity, leaving a purple furrow in the sand: the dead\n  bodies of the luckless horses, one of which still lingered on, were\n  mercilessly disposed of in a similar manner; the _chulos_ came in,\n  some raked over the large deep stains beneath where the dead had\n  lain, and cleverly masked the tracks they had left, and others\n  sprinkled fresh sand over the spots. All traces of the deadly\n  contest were obliterated, and in the few moments the arena, bright\n  and sunny as ever, was prepared for a new _corrida_; the _toreros_\n  appeared again, as smart and dapper as the first, their costumes as\n  fresh, their silk stockings as spotless; not a splash of blood had\n  touched them, and their limbs appeared to retain their original\n  pliability to the last. One _corrida_ is so like another, the\n  routine is so precisely the same--never, apparently, having varied\n  since the first bull-fight that was ever exhibited in the crudest\n  times, and--unless there be an accident--the detail is so slightly\n  varied, that it would be needless to add to the notes we have\n  already recorded, especially as it is not an entertainment we would\n  willingly linger over, even in recollection. We felt we ought to see\n  it once; we saw, were utterly disgusted, and hope never to witness\n  the horrid exposition a second time.\"\n\n\n\nWe have another book on Spain, just published in London, and much\nbetter written than Mrs. Byrne's, though it does not contain a quarter\nso much information as that lady's desultory journal. It is by Mr.\nHenry Blackburn,  [Footnote 29] who made a trip through the kingdom,\nin 1864, with a party of ladies and gentlemen.\n\n  [Footnote 29: Travelling in Spain in the Present Day. Henry\n  Blackburn. 8vo. pp.248. London: Sampson, Low, Son & Marston.]\n\nHe too went to see a bull-fight at Madrid, and he really seemed to\nhave enjoyed it, his chief regret, when he thinks of the performance,\nbeing that the odds were too great _against the bull!_ If the beast\nhad only been allowed a fair chance, he would have liked it a great\ndeal better. He attended another bull-fight at Seville, and did not\nlike it at all. The great attraction on this occasion was a female\nbill-fighter, who was advertised as the \"intrepid se\u00f1orita\" She\nentered the arena in a kind of Bloomer costume, with a cap and a red\nspangled tunic, made her bow to the president, and then lo! to the\nEnglish gentlemen's unspeakable disappointment, a great tub was\nbrought, and she was lifted into it. It reached her arm-pits and there\nshe stood, waving her darts, or _banderillas_. At a given signal the\nbull was let in, his horns having been previously cut short and padded\nat the ends. \"As the animal could only toss or do any mischief by\nlowering its head to the ground, the risk did not seem great, or the\nperformance promising.\" The bull evidently considered the whole thing\na humbug, for at first he would have nothing to do with the tub, and\nkept walking round and round the ring. At last indignation got the\nbetter of him, and turning suddenly upon the ignominious utensil, he\nsent it rolling half way across the arena, with the intrepid se\u00f1orita\ncurled up inside. This seemed very much like baiting a hedgehog; but\nwhen the bull caught up the tub on his horns and ran bellowing with it\nround the ring, the sport began to look serious. There was a general\nrush of _banderilleros_ and _chulos_ to the rescue. The performer was\nextricated and smuggled shamefully out of the amphitheatre, and the\nbull was driven buck to his cage. The next act Mr. Blackburn\ncharacterizes by the appropriate name of \"skittles.\" Nine grotesquely\ndressed negroes stood up in a row, and a frisky young bull was let in\nto bowl them over. They understood their duty, and went down flat at\nthe first charge. Then they sat on chairs, and were knocked over\nagain. This was great fun, and appeared to afford unlimited\nsatisfaction to the bull, the ninepins, the audience, and everybody\nexcept Mr. Blackburn. The performance was repeated several times.\nAfter that came a burlesque of the _picadores_. Five ragged beggars,\nwith a grim smile on their dirty faces, rode {127} forward on donkeys,\nwithout saddle or bridle. The gates were opened, and the bull charged\nthem at once. They rode so close together that they resisted the first\nshock, and the bull retired. He had broken a leg of one of the\ndonkeys, but they tied it up with a handkerchief, and continued\nmarching slowly round, still keeping close together. A few more\ncharges, and down they all went. The men ran for their lives and\nleaped the barriers, and the donkeys were thrown up in the air. So,\nwith many variations and interludes, the sport went on for three\nhours; and at last, when night came, two or three young bulls were let\ninto the ring, and then _all the people!_ \"We left them there,\" says\nour author, \"rolling and tumbling over one another in the darkness,\nshouting and screaming, fighting and cursing--sending up sounds that\nmight indeed make angels weep.\"\n\nThe Spaniard does not always figure in Mr. Blackburn's book as the\nhigh-bred gentleman we are wont to imagine him. Take, for example,\nthis picture of a se\u00f1or travelling: \"For some mysterious reason, no\nsooner does a Spaniard find himself in a railway carriage than his\nnative courtesy and high breeding seem to desert him; he is not the\nman you meet on the Prado, or who is ready to divide his dinner with\nyou on the mountain-side. He is generally, as far as our experience\ngoes, a fat, selfish-looking bundle of cloaks and rugs, taking up more\nthan his share of the seat, not moving to make way for you, and seldom\noffering any assistance or civility. He is not very clean, and smokes\nincessantly during the whole twenty-four hours that you may have to\nsit next to him; occasionally toppling over in a half-sleep, with his\nhead upon your shoulder and his lighted cigar hanging from his mouth.\nHe insists upon keeping the windows tightly closed, and unless your\nparty is a large one you have to give way to the majority and submit\nto be half suffocated.\" Nor is it much better at the hotels: \"A lady\ncannot, in the year 1866, sit down to a _table d'h\u00f4te_ in Madrid\nwithout the chance of having smoke puffed across the table in her face\nall dinner-time; her next neighbor (if a Spaniard) will think nothing\nof reaching in front of her for what he requires, and greedily\nsecuring the best of everything for himself. That is an educated\ngentleman opposite, but he has peculiar views about the uses of knives\nand forks; next to him are two ladies (of some position, we may\nassume; they have come to Madrid to be presented at the lev\u00e9e\nto-morrow), but their manners at table are simply atrocious. In his\nown house, it must be admitted, the Spaniard behaves better; but it is\nonly among the few that one encounters the same degree of refinement\nand good manners that commonly prevail in England and America. The\nSpanish gentry read little and are very ignorant; and, as a rule,\nignorance and refinement are hardly ever found together.\"\n\nAs a specimen of one of the lower classes take this extract: \"Our beds\nare made by a dirty, good-natured little man, who sits upon them and\nsmokes at intervals during the process. Our fellow-travellers, who\nhave been much in Spain and have been staying here some time, say that\nhe is one of the best and most obliging servants they have met with.\nHe attends to all the families on our _\u00e9tage_, and earns 18s. or 20s.\na day! Every one has to fee him, or he will not work. We found him\nactive enough until the end of the week, when our 'tip' of 60 or 70\nreals, equal to about 2s. a day, was indignantly returned, as\ninsufficient and degrading. The latter was the grievance: his pride\nwas hurt, and we never got on well afterward. He had a knack of\nleaving behind him the damp, smouldering ends of his cigarettes; and\non one occasion, on being suddenly called out of the room, quietly\ndeposited the morsel on the edge of one of our plates on the breakfast\ntable.\"\n\n{128}\n\nThe great feature of Spanish life seems to be its laziness. Crowds of\nidlers, wrapped in their picturesque cloaks, stand about the plazas\nfrom morning till night, doing noting, rarely speaking, and scarcely\nseeming to have energy enough to light a cigarette. Sometimes they\nscratch their fusees on the coat of a passer-by, in a contemplative,\npatronizing fashion, that takes a stranger rather aback. A young\nMadrile\u00f1o is content to lounge his life away in this manner; and if he\nhas an income sufficient to provide him with the bare means of\nsubsistence, with his indispensable _cigarito_ and his ticket for the\nbull-fight, he will do no work. In the morning he lounges on the\nPuerta del Sol; in the afternoon he lounges (if he can't ride) on the\nPrado; in the evening he lounges in the cafe or the theatre. This is\nall he cares for, and about all he is fit for. The middle class--the\nshop-keepers--have as little energy as their betters. \"We went into a\nconfectioner s one day,\" says Mr. Blackburn, \"to purchase some\nchocolate, and were deliberately told that, if we liked to get it down\nfrom a high shelf, we could have it; no assistance was offered, and we\nhad to go empty away.\" Could we accept Mr. Blackburn's sketch, or Mrs.\nByrne's either, as a true picture of Spanish society, we might indeed\ndespair of the ultimate regeneration of the kingdom. But the author of\nTravelling in Spain at the Present Day has the candor to admit that he\nis only a superficial observer, and with the following honest and\ncommendable passages from his concluding chapter, we take leave of him\nand our readers together:\n\n  \"Spain is not a country to travel in, and there is no nation which\n  is more unfairly estimated by foreigners who pay it only a flying\n  visit. We have no opportunity of appreciating the Spaniards' good\n  points, nor do we become at all aware of their latent fund of humor,\n  their good-heartedness, and their true _bonhomie_. We jostle with\n  them in crowds, we rub roughly against them in travelling, our\n  patience is sorely tried, and we are apt, as Miss Eyre did, to\n  denounce them as worse than 'barbarians. But we should bear in mind\n  that Spaniards differ from other nations conspicuously in this--that\n  they become sooner '_crystallized_;' and crystals, we all no well,\n  are never seen to advantage when in contact with foreign bodies. In\n  short Spaniards are not as other men; and Spain is a dear delightful\n  land of contraries, where nothing ever happens as you expect it, and\n  where 'coming objects _never_ cast their shadow before!'\"\n\n\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nANNIVERSARY.\n\n  The brooding July noon, the still, deep heats\n  Upon the full-leaved woods and flowering maize,\n  The first wheat harvest, and the torrid blaze\n  Which on the sweating reapers fiercely beats\n  And drives each songster to its own retreats,--\n  Much less the stately lily of the field,\n  Gorgeous in scarlet, whose large anthers yield\n  The honey-bee meet prison for its sweets,\n  A flame amid the meadow-land's rich green--\n  With the revolving year is never seen\n  But o'er the sunny landscape creeps a shade\n  Of solemn recollection. Lilies! lean\n  Your brilliant coronals where once was laid\n  A boy's brow grand in death, and \"Rest in peace\" be said.\n\n------\n\n{129}\n\nFrom The Month.\n\nST. CATHARINE AT FLORENCE.\n\n\nThe history of every race, every institution, every community, and\neven every family, has facts, phenomena, and characteristics of its\nown, which are the necessary results of the operation of certain\nelements or influences that belong to the subject of the history, or\nbear upon it with a peculiar force. It is the province of the\nphilosophical historian to seize upon these characteristic features in\neach ease, and to give them their due prominence; and an intimate\nacquaintance with them and a due estimate of them are essentially\nnecessary to any one who understands the work of such a historian. To\nbe deficient in this point is enough to ruin the attempt. Thus, we\nmight have a rationalistic writer on church history free from every\nprejudice, and endowed with literary powers of the highest\nkind--candid, impartial, industrious, judicious, full of generous\nsympathies, and large-minded and clear-sighted enough to take rank by\nthe side of Thucydides or Tacitus--and yet he would fail even\nludicrously as a Christian historian, because he did not recognize the\never living supernatural agency which the fortunes of the church are\nordinarily guided--the force of prayer, the power of sanctity, the\nsoftening and restraining influences of faith, charity, and\nconscience, even on men or masses of men but imperfectly masters of\ntheir own passions, and by no means unstained by vice.\n\nIt is our object in these papers to give prominence to some of what\nmay be conceded to be the more characteristic features of Christian\nhistory, which may nevertheless be left in the shade by those to whom\nit is little more than the history of Greece or Rome. Thus, a\nphilosophical historian might see in the return of the Holy See from\nits long sojourn at Avignon a stroke of profound policy, by which it's\nemancipation from the straitening influences of nationalism was\ncheaply purchased, even at the cost of the great scandals which\nfollowed, and which a calculating politician might have foreseen. But\nto such a writer the manner in which the step was brought about would\nseem to be a riddle; for nothing is clearer than that it was\nconsciously no stroke of policy at all. The wisest heads and the most\npowerful influences at the pontifical court were united against it; it\nwas the work of an irresistible impulse on the conscience of a gentle\nand peace-loving Pope, the subject of a secret vow, a design conceived\nunder the personal influence of one saintly woman--of princely race\nindeed, and reverend age, and large experience--but carried out under\nthat of another in whom these last qualities were wanting; young,\npoor, the daughter of an artisan, yet who was able to succeed in her\nmission when success seemed hopeless, and to become the instrument of\nstrengthening the successor of St. Peter in an emergency that might\nhave taxed the courage of the great apostle himself.\n\nCatholic art has sometimes represented St. Catharine of Siena as\ntaking a part in the triumphal procession with which Gregory XI.\nentered Rome, and so terminated the long exile of the Holy See at\nAvignon. These representations, although true in idea, are false as to\nthe historical fact; for St. Catharine never entered Rome in the\nlifetime of Gregory. After having seen him embark from Genoa on his\n{130} voyage toward the Holy City, she betook herself, with her\ncompany of disciples, to her own home at Siena, where she seems to\nhave remained, with occasional excursions into the neighboring\ncountry, for nearly a year. She then reappears in public, having been\nsent once more by the Pope to Florence, in the hope that her presence\nthere might strengthen the hands of the better party in the Republic,\nand bring it round again to peace with the church. In the interval she\nresumed her usual occupations, exerting herself in every possible way\nfor the good of souls. Her letters at this time show great anxiety for\nthe peace, which had not yet been obtained in Italy; for the crusade,\nwhich was always in her heart; and, perhaps more than all, for the\nmost difficult, yet most necessary of the objects that were so dear to\nher--the reform of the clergy, and especially of the prelacy. It\nwould be a thankless task to inquire into the many causes which had\nfoster worldliness among churchmen at that time, and so prepared all\nthe elements for the great scandal that was so soon to follow in the\n\"schism\" of the West. The best interests of the church had, in\nreality, more deadly enemies than Barnabo Visconti or the \"Eight\nSaints\" at Florence, in men who wore the robes of priests and even the\nmitre of bishops.\n\nThere is every reason to suppose that the corruption was not widely\nspread; but it had infected many in high station and authority, and\neven a few bad and ambitious prelates can at any time do incalculable\nmischief. The illuminated eye of Catharine had become familiar with\nthe evil that was thus gnawing at the very heart of the church,\nmanifesting its presence already by the pride, ambition, and luxury of\necclesiastics, and ready, when the moment came to give it full play,\nto break out into excesses still more deplorable than these. She saw\npassion and vice enough to produce the worst of the evils by which the\nprovidence of God permits the church to be afflicted, if only the\nprovocation came that would fan into full blaze the fire that was\nalready kindled. The B. Raymond tells us that, so far back as the\nbeginning of the troubles in the Pontifical States, when the news came\nof the revolt of Perugia, he went to her in the deepest affliction to\ntell her what had happened. She grieved with him over the loss of\nsouls and the scandal given in the church; but, seeing him almost\noverwhelmed with sorrow, she bade him not begin his mourning so soon.\n\"You have far too much to weep for: what you see now is as milk and\nhoney to that which is to follow.\"\n\n\"How can any evil be greater than this,\" he replied, \"when we see\nChristians cast away all devotion and respect to Holy Church, show no\nfear of her censures, and by their actions publicly deny their\nvalidity? Nothing remains for them now to do but to renounce entirely\nthe faith of Christ.\"\n\n\"Father,\" said Catharine, \"all this the laity do: soon you will see\nhow much worse that is which the clergy will do.\"\n\nThen she told him that there would be rebellion among them also, when\nthe Pope began to reform their bad manners, and that the consequences\nwould be a widespread scandal in the church; \"not exactly a heresy,\nbut which would divide it and afflict it much in the same way as if it\nwere.\" This prophecy was made about two years before the time of which\nwe are now speaking. It is no wonder that, with this clear view of the\nexisting elements of evil before her, Catharine should have urged upon\nGregory XI. the apparently impossible project of a reform of the\nclergy. It was apparently impossible, partly from the circumstances of\nthe time, partly from the character of the pontiff himself. The\ntroubles of Italy still continued: all attempts at pacification\nfailed, and the fortune of the war was by no means favorable to the\ncause of the church, Moreover, at Rome, the _banderesi_ or bannerets,\nwho had for some {131} time had possession of the chief power in the\ncity, had laid, indeed, their rods of office at the feet of Gregory at\nhis entrance, but they still exercised their authority without regard\nto his orders for his wishes, and he found himself, therefore, not\neven master in his own capital. This was not the time to undertake\nthat most difficult of all tasks, which was yet imperatively required\nfor the welfare of the church. Nor was Gregory, with his feeble\nhealth, with the hand of death already upon him, and with his gentle\nand patient disposition, fitted rather for suffering than for action,\nthe natural instrument for a work that called for sternness severity.\nNevertheless, Catharine urged it upon him with a firmness that shows\nfact once the influence she had required, and her burning sense of the\nnecessity of the measure. In one of the three letters to him that\nbelong to this time, she tells him that the supreme truth demands this\nof him: that he should punish the multitude of iniquities committed by\nthose who feed themselves in the garden of the Holy Church: \"Beasts\nought not to feed themselves on the food of men. Since this authority\nhas been given to you, and you have accepted it, you ought to use your\npower: if you will not use it, it were better to renounce it, for the\nhonor of God and the salvation of souls.\" She insists also upon the\nnecessity of granting peace to the revolting cities on any terms that\nwere consistent with the honor of God and the rights of the church.\n\"If I were in your place, I should fear that the judgment of God might\nfall on me; and therefore I pray you most tenderly, on the part of\nJesus Christ crucified, that you obey the will of God--though I know\nthat you have no other desire than to do his will; so that that hard\nrebuke may never be made to you, 'Woe to thee, for that thou hast not\nused the time and the power that were committed to thee'\" (Lett.\nxiii.) These were strong words. Catharine sent Father Raymond about\nthe same time to Rome with a number of practical proposals for the\ngood of the church. It appears from a letter to Raymond himself that\nGregory XI. was displeased with her, either for her great liberty of\nspeech, or, as is more probable, for the ill-success that seemed to\nhave followed the step that he had taken at her advice. Nothing can be\nmore beautiful or more touching than her humble apology for\nherself--she is ready to believe that all the calamities of the church\nwere occasioned by her own sins.\n\nGregory had in fact continually occupied himself with endeavors for\npeace with Florence and the other confederated cities; but there had\nbeen the usual insincerity on the other side, and besides, the\nbarbarities committed by the Breton troops at Cesena had produced\ntheir natural effect of alienating still more his revolted subjects.\nNegotiations had been recommenced even before the departure of the\nPope from Avignon, at least so far that the Florentines had been\ndesired to send ambassadors to meet him at Rome. He did not arrive\nthere by the time appointed, and wrote again from Corneto to fix a\nlater time. The negotiation failed, as we have said, not from any lack\nof a desire for peace on the part of Gregory, but on account of the\nbad faith of the rulers of Florence, who really wished the war to\ncontinue. Their cause seemed to gain strength with time; for Visconti\nnow took their side, regardless of the treaty that had been made with\nhim, and the English company under Sir John Hawkwood entered their\nservice. A gleam of hope came when one of the revolted leaders, the\nLord of Viterbo, made his peace with the church. Gregory immediately\ndespatched two envoys to Florence, but their efforts were in vain; and\nin the autumn of 1377 the Eight, who still held the supreme power,\nventured on a step which gave still greater scandal than any of their\nformer excesses, and seemed to widen still further the breach between\nthe Republic and the Holy See.\n\n{132}\n\nFlorence had now been for nearly a year and a half under an interdict,\nThe churches were closed--the sacred offices could not be performed,\nnor the sacraments administered, except in private. This weighed\nheavily on the mass of the population. There were probably but few,\nbesides the Eight and their immediate followers, who regarded it with\nindifference. The Italian character is in many respects unintelligible\nto those who have not studied it in Italy itself. We can hardly\nunderstand how nine-tenths of the population of a city or a duchy can\nsubmit quietly to be governed by a handful of usurpers, who proclaim\nthemselves the representatives of the people--the great majority of\nwhom have abstained from the nominal voting that had conferred that\ncharacter upon them--and let things take their course under the\ntyranny of their new masters, though that course lead to financial\nruin, burdensome taxation, and the spoliation of the best institutions\nof the country, as well as to open persecution of religion and\ndeliberate attacks on morality. An Anglo-Saxon population would either\nhave brought public opinion and general feeling to bear irresistibly\nupon the magistrates, or would have taken the matter into its own\nhands, and sent the \"Eight Saints\" floating down the Arno if they had\nnot conformed their policy to the all but universal desire for peace.\nBut the Florentines waited and suffered, showing their attachment to\nthe church and to the services from which they were debarred in many\ntouching ways, some of which have been specially recorded by the\nhistorians of the time. It was forbidden, for instance, that the\ndivine office--at which, at that time, it was the custom of the laity\nto assist--should be sung publicly in the churches; but pious persons\ncould not be forbidden from practising such devotions as might occur\nto them in place of the regular services; and we find that in\nconsequence they organized themselves into confraternities, and went\nabout in processions singing hymns in praise of God. Many of these\nseem to have been composed by followers or disciples of St. Catharine.\nThere was a movement of popular devotion to make up for the solemn\necclesiastical worship which was suspended. No doubt it was a symptom\nof an irrepressible feeling in the public mind which frightened the\n\"Eight Saints.\" At length the feast-day of St. Reparata\napproached--Oct. 8th. She was the titular saint of the cathedral,\n[Footnote 30] and her feast was usually celebrated with splendor and\npopular devotion. Were the people to be shut out of the church again\non the day of their patron saint? The Eight had, as we have seen, just\nconcluded their league with the lord of Milan, and strengthen their\narms by the accession of Hawkwood, and their envoys had have returned\nfrom Rome without terms of peace. They determined to brave the Pope\nstill further, and to plunge the city into still more flagrant\nrebellion against his authority, by ordering the violation of the\ninterdict. They would indulge the religious wishes of the people,\nmaking them, at the same time, partners in a gross insults to\nreligion. They would force the clergy themselves to the alternative of\ntaking part against the church, or of suffering civil penalties and\npersecution if they refused to do so.\n\n  [Footnote 30: the Duomo of Florence, as it is signified by its\n  name--S. Maria del Flore--is dedicated in honor of our Blessed Lady;\n  but it was originally called after St. Reparata, an early martyr in\n  Palestine, in gratitude for the deliverance of the city from a horde\n  of Huns that besieged it in the fifth century; which deliverance\n  took place on the date of the saint--Oct. 8th. The feast was kept as\n  one of the first class, with an octave. The epithet \"del Flore,\"\n  added to our Lady's name in the present title, signifies Florence\n  itself, the emblem of the city being a lily.]\n\nSt. Catharine, in one of her letters about this time, blames certain\nmembers of the clergy, and some of the mendicant friars, as having\neither counselled this outrage, or as having been induced by worldly\nmotives to justify and defend it in pulpit. In a numerous clergy,\nconnected by countless ties with every party and {133} every class, it\nis far more surprising that so few should ordinarily be found to help\non tyranny and persecution such as that of the Eight, then that some\nshould be weak enough to yield to its threats or its bribes. But the\nscandal was very great, and it would seem that the great body of the\nclergy, notwithstanding heavy fines levied on those who did not obey\nthe order of the government, stood firm. The bishop--a Ricasoli--had\nalready left the city rather than expose himself to the danger of\ncoercion. But there was the greatest danger for the better party both\namong the people and among the ecclesiastics; and the state of things\ncalled for the most vigorous exertions on the part of Pope to provide\na remedy before matters screw still worse. It may seem very strange to\nthe ideas of our century to say that the remedy adopted by Gregory was\nthe most fitting that could have been found, and the same of which the\nFlorentines had bethought themselves when they had wished to make\ntheir own peace at Avignon. It had failed indeed, then, on account of\ntheir bad faith; but it had produced another great result for which\nProvidence had destined it. The odious government that had plagued the\nFlorentine republic into so many excesses was to be overthrown by the\nbetter and sounder part among the citizens themselves, who still might\nhave been too timid to exert themselves on the side of peace and order\nif they had not had a saint among them to encourage and direct them.\nWe should all think ourselves foolish if we were to deny that such\nresults are the natural and lawful consequence of the exertion of\npersonal influence: it is only that we cannot bring ourselves to\nconceive that the personal influence of great and recognized sanctity\nmay be more powerful than any other.\n\nFather Raymond, the friend and biographer of St. Catharine, tells us\nthat he was then in Rome, governing the great convent of the Minerva.\nHe had had some conversation, before leaving Siena, with Niccolo\nSoderini, a noble Florentine, who had told him that the great majority\nof the citizens wished for peace with the Holy See, and that it might\neasily be brought about if some of the present magistrates were\ndeprived of their offices. He even pointed out the way in which it\nmight be done. One morning the Pope sent for Father Raymond, and told\nhim he had received letters suggesting that peace might be made if\nCatharine were sent to Florence to use her influence there; and he\nbade him, accordingly, prepare a paper stating with what powers it\nwould be expedient to invest her. The bulls were at once drawn up, and\nCatharine received orders to go to Florence as legate of the Holy See.\nShe was joyfully received, and at once set to work to confer with the\nmost influential persons in the state. The first fruit of her\nexhortations was, that the interdict was again observed, and the first\ngreat scandal thus removed. The next step was a more difficult one.\nHow were the obnoxious magistrates to be removed without a revolution?\nThe friends of peace were obliged to have recourse to a curious\ninstitution, belonging to that long-established party organization\nwhich had been the fruit of the division of the Italian cities, and of\neach city, more or less, within itself, into the hostile factions of\nGuelphs and Ghibellines. Florence had always been Guelphs, and it\nappears that certain elected leaders of the dominant party had\nobtained a recognized right, in order to maintain the government of\nthe city on their own side, to object to persons of the opposite\nparty, and remove them from any post that they might chance to hold. A\npower like this was of course liable to great abuse: it has reappeared\nnow and then in history in some of the worst times, and been the\ninstrument of the greatest injustice and wrong. In Florence it seems\nto have been exercised with more moderation than in many modern\ninstances; still it had sometimes been used {134} unscrupulously, and\nmade the means of satisfying private malice and personal revenge or\nambition. It was therefore very unpopular, and seems to have been\npractically disused at the time of which we speak. Catharine, however,\nthought that it might now be put in use with advantage, to take the\nreins of government out of the hands of the Eight, and break down\ntheir pernicious influence; and it is certain that a fairer use of\nsuch a power could never have been made. The plan seems to have been\nsuggested by her friend Niccolo Soderini, whom we lately mentioned. It\nwas urged on the Guelph officials by Catherine; and one of the Eight\nwas accordingly \"admonished,\" as the phrase was, that he was not to\noccupy himself with public affairs for the future. He was a man of\nmuch influence, but he does not seem to have resisted the admonition.\n\nUnfortunately, the leaders of the Guelph party were willing to make\npeace with the Holy See, but their dominant idea was to restore\nthemselves to power and ruin their enemies. They began to \"admonish\"'\non all sides, and to use the name and authority of Catharine as\nvouchers for the purity of their motives and the wisdom of their\npolicy. It is said that in the space of eight months they either\nremoved as many as ninety citizens from posts of authority, or\nprevented them from acquiring them. It may easily be imagined that\nthis could not be done without exciting furious passions; a storm soon\nbegan to gather, which did not wait long to burst. Catharine protested\nand entreated, and, to some extent, checked the evil. She had already\nprevailed on the government to entertain seriously the project of\npeace. It was agreed that a congress should assemble at Sarzano for\nthe settlement of the troubles that agitated Italy. The Pope sent a\ncardinal and the Bishop of Narbonne as his representatives; France,\nNaples, Florence, Genoa, and Venice were to send others; and Barnabo\nVisconti was to be present in person to arbitrate between the Pope and\nFlorence. A strange position for that inveterate plotter against the\nchurch; but one which shows, at all events, that Gregory XI. was\nwilling to do a great deal for the sake of peace. Everything seemed to\npromise well; but while the congress was deliberating, Gregory died,\nand nothing could therefore be concluded. His death took place in\nMarch, 1378. Catharine was still at Florence, and seems to have had\ngood hopes of bringing matters to a favorable issue, notwithstanding\nthe failure of the congress. The new \"gonfaloniere\" seems to have been\nelected on the first of May. He bore a name afterward destined to\nbecome connected with the later splendors of his country--Salvestro\ndei Medici--and he was a man of firmness and standing sufficient to\nenable him to defy and check the extravagances of the Guelph\nofficials. It was agreed between them that there should be no more\n\"admonitions,\" except in the case of persons really tainted with\nGhibelline principles; and that in no case should the \"admonition\" be\nvalid after the third time. He was, moreover, bent on carrying out the\npeace with the Pope, and, as it seems at the entreaty of St.\nCatharine, sent fresh ambassadors to Urban VI., who had now succeeded\nGregory on the pontifical throne.\n\nThese fair prospects were soon clouded over by the mischievous\nobstinacy of the Guelph party. The time came on, very soon after the\ninstallment of the new \"gonfaloniere,\" for the selection of new\n\"chiefs,\" into whose hands would pass the obnoxious power of\n\"admonishing.\" The new men did not consider themselves bound by the\npromises made by their predecessors; they were not friends of\nCatherine, as some of the others had been, and they began to use their\npower in the former reckless manner. They especially threw down the\ngauntlet to Salvestro and to the other magistrates, by their exclusion\nof two men of distinction, which showed their determination {135} to\ncarry things to extremities. Here, again, we meet with the historic\nname of Ricasoli. One of that family was among the captains of the\nGuelphs, and is said to have forced this exclusion on his less willing\ncolleagues. The strain became at length too great, and Salvestro\nhimself sanctioned a popular outbreak against the Guelph officials; a\nmovement over which he soon lost all control, and which led in a few\nmonths to a still more terrible outbreak, known as the affair of the\nCiompi. The fury of the people, led by the Ammoniti--those who had\nbeen excluded from office by the exercise of the power lately\nmentioned--and unchecked by any attempt on the part of the legitimate\nauthorities to restraint it, was irresistible. Many lives were\nsacrificed; the leaders of the Guelphs saved themselves by flight,\nleaving their houses to be sacked and burnt. Niccolo Soderini and\nother friends of Catharine were among the fugitives, though they had\nnot taken part in the excesses that provoked the rising. As the tumult\ngathered strength, and the people became blinder in their fury,\nominous voices were heard calling for the death of Catherine herself.\nHer name had been freely used by the Guelph officials, though she had\nprotested publicly against their violent acts, and had entreated them\nrepeatedly to be guided by justice and prudence. The scene that\nfollowed, a kind of turning-point in her life, shall be told in the\nwords of her simple biographer. When the rumor of the intended attack\non Catherine spread, \"the people of the house in which she dwelt with\nher companions bade them depart, for they did not wish to have the\nhouse burnt down on their account. She meanwhile, conscious of her own\ninnocence, and willingly suffering anything for the cause of the Holy\nChurch, did not lose a jot of her wonted constancy, but smiling and\nencouraging her followers to emulate her Spouse, she went out to a\ncertain place where there was a garden, and first gave them a short\nexhortation, and then set herself to pray. At last, while she was thus\npraying in the garden, after the example of Christ, those satellites\nof the devil came to the place, a tumultuous mob armed with swords and\nstaves, crying out, 'Where is this cursed woman? Where is she?'\nCatharine, when she heard this, as if she had been called to to a\ndelightful banquet, made herself ready at once for the martyrdom which\nfor a long time she had desired, and placing herself in the way of one\nwho had his sword drawn, and was crying louder than the rest, 'Where\nis Catharine?' she cast herself with a joyous countenance on her\nknees, and said, 'I am Catharine; do therefore with me all that which\nour Lord permits you to do; but I command you, on the part of Almighty\nGod, not to hurt any of my companions.' When she said these words, the\nwretch was so terrified and deprived of all strength, that he did not\ndare either to strike her or to remain in in her presence. Though he\nhad so boldly and eagerly sought for her, when he found her he drove\nher away, saying, 'Depart from me.' But Catharine, wishing for\nmartyrdom, answered, 'I am well here, and where should I go? I am\nready to suffer for Christ and for his church, because this it is that\nI have long desired and sought with all my prayers. Ought I to fly now\nthat I have found what I have longed for? I offer myself a living\nvictim to my dearest Spouse. If thou art destined to be my sacrificer,\ndo at once whatever thou wiliest, for I will never fly from this spot;\nonly do no harm to any of mine.' What more? God did not permit the man\nto carry his cruelty any further against her, but he went away in\nconfusion with all his companions.\" And then Fr. Raymond goes on to\ntell us how, when all her spiritual children gathered round her full\nof joy at her escape, she alone was overwhelmed with sorrow, and\nlamented that she had lost through her sins the crown of martyrdom.\n\n{136}\n\nShe was reserved for further labors, and for a martyrdom of another\nkind in the same cause; and she had soon the consolation of seeing\nthat her mission to Florence had not been fruitless. The death of\nGregory XI. dispersed the congress of Sarzona; but the Florentines\nremained, amid all their intestine troubles, firm in their resolution\nto make peace with the Holy See. Before the outbreak of which we have\njust spoken, they had arranged terms with Catharine, and ambassadors\nhad been chosen to go to Rome to treat with the new Pope. Catharine,\nwho had known Urban VI. when she was at Avignon, now wrote to him\nearnestly entreating him to accept the terms; she was afraid lest the\nscenes of violence and bloodshed that had lately taken place might\nmake him less inclined to peace. Her entreaties were successful. The\nterms of peace were honorable to the Holy See. Everything was to\nreturn to the state in which it had been before the war; the\nFlorentines were to pay 150,000 florins--a very moderate indemnity for\nthe mischief they had caused in the Papal States; and two legates were\nto be sent to absolve the city from the censures it had incurred.\nCatherine, full of joy, returned to Siena. She had refused to leave\nthe Florentine territory after the outbreak in which her life was\nthreatened, saying that she was there by order of the Pope; but she\nhad withdrawn for a while to the monastery of Vallombrosa.\n\nThe peace with Florence was of immense importance to the church at\nthat moment. The great storm which Catharine had predicted was already\ngathering; she herself was to be called on for still greater exertions\nin the cause of the papacy, and within a year and a half to be in a\ntrue sense the victim of the struggle. After leaving Florence, she\nspent a few months in repose at Siena, during which she dictated to\nher disciples her only formal work, known by the name of the Dialogue.\nIt has always been a great treasure of spiritual doctrine, though\nnever so widely popular as the collection of her marvellous Letters.\nIt is in the course of these few months that an author as fitted as\nany other to decide the question of time places a remarkable anecdote\nof the saint, to which we have already alluded, and which shall form\nthe subject of the conclusion of this paper.  [Footnote 31]\n\n  [Footnote 31: M. Cartier, who had paid great attention to the\n  chronology of the life of St. Catherine, is our authority for\n  placing the execution of Niccolo Tuldo at this time. As our\n  acquaintance with the facts comes entirely from one of St.\n  Catherine's own letters, which, like the rest, is without date, and\n  which contains no internal notes by which to fix its time, it must\n  be more or less than matter of conjecture. Fr. Capecclatro puts it\n  much earlier--indeed, as it would seem, at a date when the letter,\n  which is addressed to Fr. Raymond, who did not become her confessor\n  until 1373, could not have been written. M. Cartier quotes the\n  Venice copy of the Process of Canonization to support the date he\n  assigns, in having access to which he has been more fortunate than\n  the Bollandists themselves.]\n\nAs is so frequently the case in times of political instability, the\nvarious governments that so rapidly succeeded one another in the rule\nof the small Italian republics, seem to have been in the habit of\nattempting to secure themselves in power by measures of the most\nextravagant severity against any one who might seem to be disaffected\nto them. We have already seen the issue of the odious powers of\n\"admonishing\" possessed by the Guelph party in Florence; and at the\nvery time of which we are speaking, that republic was suffering under\na fresh tyranny of the lowest orders of her populace, who proscribed\nand excluded from all civil authority anyone more worthy of power than\nthemselves. In Siena also the democratic party, so to call it, held\nsway; the chief power was in the hands of a set of magistrates called\n\"Riformatori,\" who governed by fear, and by the exercise of the most\njealous watchfulness over the rest of the citizens, particularly the\nnobles. We are told by the historians of Siena that it was made a\ncapital crime to strike, however lightly, one of these officials, and\nthat a certain citizen was severely punished because he had given a\nbanquet to which none of them had been invited. In such a state of\nthings, the anecdote of St. Catharine of which we are {137} speaking\nfinds a very natural place. A stranger in the town, a young noble of\nPerugia, by name Niccolo Tuldo, had allowed himself to speak\ndisrespectfully and slightingly of the government. His words were\ncarried to the magistrates; he was seized, tried, and condemned to\ndeath. We do not know what sort of life he had led before; but he was\nyoung, careless, and had never, at all events, been to communion in\nhis life. He was not a subject of Siena, yet he found himself of a\nsudden doomed to be legally murdered for a few light words. No wonder\nthat his spirit revolted against the injustice, and that he was\ntempted to spend his last few hours of life in a fury of indignation\nand despair. Here was a case for Catharine--a soul to be won to\npenance, peace, and resignation, with the burning sense of flagrant\ninjustice fresh upon it, from which it could not hope to escape. Word\nwas brought to her, and she hastened to the prison. No one had been\nable to induce the poor youth to think of preparing for death; he\nturned away at once, either from comfort or from exhortation.\n\nCatharine went to the prison, and he soon fell under the spell of that\nheavenly fascination which is rarely imparted save to souls of the\nhighest sanctity. She won him to peace, and forgiveness of the injury\nhe had received. She led him to make his confession with care and\ncontrition, and to resign his will entirely into the hands of God. He\nmade her promise that she would be with him at the place of execution,\nor, as it is still called in Italy, the place of justice. In the\nmorning she went to him early, led him to mass and communion, which he\nhad never before received, and found him afterward in a state of\nperfect resignation, only with some fear left lest his courage might\nfail him at the last moment. He turned to her as his support, bowed\nhis head on her breast, and implored her not to leave him, and then\nall would be well. She bade him be of good courage, he would soon be\nadmitted to the marriage-feast in heaven, the blood of his Redeemer\nwould wash him, and the name of Jesus, which he was to keep always in\nhis heart, would strengthen him--she herself would await him at the\nplace of justice. All his fears and sadness gave place to a transport\nof joy; he said he should now go with courage and delight, looking\nforward to meeting her at that holy place. \"See,\" says she, in her\nletter to Fr. Raymond, \"how great a light had been given to him, that\nhe spoke of the place of justice as a holy spot!\" She went there\nbefore the time, and set herself to pray for him; in her ardor, she\nlaid her head on the block, and begged Our Lady earnestly to obtain\nfor him a great peace and light of conscience, and for her the grace\nto see him gain the happy end for which God had made him. Then she had\nan assurance that her prayer was granted, and so great a joy spread\nover her soul that she could take no notice of the crowd of people\ngathering round to witness the execution. The young Perugian came at\nlast, gentle as a lamb, welcoming the sight of her with smiles, and\nbegging her to bless him. She made the sign of the cross over him.\n\"Sweet brother, go to the heavenly nuptials; soon wilt thou be in the\nlife that never ends!\" He laid himself down, and she prepared his neck\nfor the stake, leaning down last of all, and reminding him of the\nprecious blood of the Lamb that had been shed for him. He murmured her\nname, and called on Jesus. The blow was given, and his head fell into\nher bands.\n\nCatharine tells her confessor, in the letter from which our account is\ndrawn, that she had the greatest reward granted to her that charity\nsuch as hers could receive. At the moment of execution, she raised her\nheart to heaven in one intense act of prayer; and then she became\nconscious that she was allowed to see how the soul that had just fled\nwas received in the other world. The Incarnate Son, who had {138} died\nto save it, took it into the arms of his love, and placed it in the\nwound of his side. \"It was shown to me,\" she says, \"by the Very Truth\nof Truths, that out of mercy and grace alone he so received it and for\nnothing else.\" She saw it blessed by each person of the Divine\nTrinity. The Son of God, moreover, gave it a share of that crucified\nlove with which he had borne his own painful and shameful death, out\nof obedience to his Father, for the salvation of mankind. And then,\nthat all might be complete, the blessed soul itself seemed to turn and\nlook upon her. \"It made a gesture,\" she says, \"sweet enough to win a\nthousand parts: what wonder? for it already tasted the divine\nsweetness. It turned as the bride turns when she has come to the door\nof the home of her bridegroom; looks round on the friends that have\naccompanied her to her new home, and bows her head to them, as a sign\nthat she thanks them for their kindness.\"\n\n--------\n\nMISCELLANY.\n\n\n_The Population of Balloons_.--A very curious apparatus for the above\npurpose has been devised by Mr. Butler, one of the members of the\nAeronautical Society, which has been lately established. It consists\nof a pair of wings, to operate from the car of the balloon, and whose\ndownward blow is calculated to strike with a force exceeding forty\npounds, a power equivalent to an ascensive force of one thousand cubic\nfeet of carburetted hydrogen. The action required is somewhat similar\nto that of rowing, and would be exactly so if at the end of the stroke\nthe oars sprang backward out of the hands of the rower; but, in this\ncase, the body is stretched forward as if toward the stern of the\nboat, to grasp the handle and repeat the process, during which an\naction equivalent to \"feathering\" is obtained. It is anticipated that\nthese wings, acting from a pendulous fulcrum, will produce, in\naddition to the object for which they are designed, two effects, which\nmay possibly be hereafter modified, but which will be unpleasant\naccompaniments to a balloon ascent, namely, the oscillation of the car\nand a succession of jerks upward, first communicated to the car from\nbelow, and repeated immediately by an answering jerk from the\nballoon.--_London Popular Science Review_.\n\n\n\n_The Poisonous Principle of Mushrooms._--This, which is called\namanitine, has been separated and experimented on by M. Letellier, who\nhas quite lately presented a paper recording his investigations to the\nFrench Academy of Medicine. He experimented with the alkaloid upon\nanimals, and found the same results as those stated by Bernard and\nothers to follow the action of narceine. He thinks amanitine might be\nused in cases where opium is indicated; and states that the best\nantidotes in cases of poisoning by this principle are the preparations\nof tannin. The general treatment in such cases consists in the\nadministration of the oily purgatives.\n\n\n\n_The Conditions of Irish Vegetation_.--The inquiries of Dr. David\nMoore have shown that whilst Ireland is better suited than any other\nEuropean country to the growth of green crops, it is unsuited to the\ngrowth of corn and fruit-trees. This is attributable to the following\ncircumstances; the extreme humidity of the climate, and the slight\ndifferences between the winter and summer temperatures--a difference\nthat in Dublin amounts to only seventeen and a half degrees, and on\nthe west coast is only forty-four degrees. The mean temperature of\nIreland is as high as though the island were fifteen degrees nearer\nthe equator.\n\n\n_Libraries of Italy_.--There are 210 public libraries in Italy,\ncontaining in the aggregate 4,149.281 volumes, according to the _Revue\nde l'Instruction Publique_. Besides these, there are the libraries of\nthe two Chambers, that of the {139} Council of State, and many large\nprivate collections, easily accessible. Then there are 110 provincial\nlibraries, and the collections belonging to 71 scientific bodies. In\nthe year 1863,  988,510 volumes were called for by readers, of which\n183,528 related to mathematics and the natural sciences; 122,496 to\nliterature, history, and the linguistics; 70,537 to philosophy and\nmorals; 54,491 to theology; 193,972 to jurisprudence; 261,869 to the\nfine arts; 101,797 to other subjects.\n\n\n\n_The Poisonous Effects of Alcohol_--Supporters of teetotalism will be\npleased to peruse an essay on this subject by M. G. Pennetier, of\nRouen. The memoir we refer to is a \"doctor's\" thesis, and it treats\nespecially of the condition known as alcoholism. The following are\nsome of the author's conclusions: (1) Alcoholism is a special\naffection, like lead-poisoning; (2) the prolonged presence of alcohol\nin the stomach produces inflammation of the walls of this organ and\nother injurious lesions; (3) the gastritis produced by alcohol may be\neither acute or chronic, and may be complicated by ulcer, or general\nor partial hypertrophy, or contraction of the opening of the stomach,\nor purulent sub-mucous infiltration; (4) in certain cases of alcoholic\ngastritis, the tabular glands of the stomach become inflamed, and pour\nthe pus, which they secrete, into the stomach or into the cellular\ntissue of this organ.--_Popular Science Review._\n\n\n\n_The Influence of Light on the Twining Organs of Plants._--At a\nmeeting of the French Academy, held on Oct 26th, a valuable paper on\nthis subject was read by M. Duchartre. The memoir deals with the\nquestions already discussed by Mr. Darwin, and in it the French\nbotanist records his own experiments and those of other observers, and\nconcludes that there are two groups of twining plants: 1. Such plants\nas _Dioscorea Batatas_ and _Mandevillea suaveolens_, which have the\npower of attaching themselves to surrounding objects only under the\ninfluence of light 2. Species such as _Ipomoea purpurea_ and\n_Phaseolus_, which exhibit this power equally well in light and\ndarkness.\n\n\n\n_Chronicles of Yorkshire_.--To the series of works published under the\ndirection of the Master of the Rolls, the first volume of the\ninteresting chronicles of an ancient Yorkshire religious house, the\nCistercian Abbey of Meaux, near Beverley, has been added. Its title\nruns thus: \"Chronica Monasterii de Melsa, a Fundatione usque ad Annum\n1396, Auctore Thoma de Burton, Abbate, accedit continuatio ad Annum\n1406, a Monacho quodam Ipsius Domus. Edited from the autographs of the\nauthor, by Edward A. Bond, Assistant-Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton\nLibrarian in the British Museum.\" The abbey was founded in 1150, by\nWilliam le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, and its first abbot and builder\nwas Adam, a monk of Fountains Abbey. Thomas of Burton, who was abbot\nin 1396, brings the history down to that year. This first volume ends\nwith the year 1247.--_Reader_.\n\n--------\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS.\n\n\nThe See of St. Peter, the Rock of The Church, The Source or\nJurisdiction, And The Centre or Unity. By Thomas William Allies, M.A.,\netc. With a Letter to Dr. Pusey. 1 vol. 18mo, pp. 324. Republished by\nLawrence Kehoe, 145 Nassau Street, New-York. 1866.\n\n\n\nWe cannot sufficiently praise and recommend this little work, by far\nthe best on its topic for the ordinary reader, as well as really\nvaluable to the theologian. It was written before the author had been\nreceived into the church, and immediately translated into Italian by\nthe order of the Holy Father. Mr. Allies was a noted writer of the\nAnglican Church, and one of its beneficed clergymen. He held out long,\nbefore he became, by the grace of God, a Catholic; and made strenuous\nand able efforts to clear the Church of England from the charge of\nschism. In becoming a Catholic he sacrificed a valuable benefice, with\nthe prospect before him of being obliged to struggle for a living,\nand, we believe, was for a time in very straitened circumstances.\n\n{140}\n\nIn this book, the argument for the Papal Supremacy from Scripture and\nTradition is presented in a clear and cogent manner, with solid\nlearning, admirable reasoning, and in a lucid and charming style,\nrendering it perfectly intelligible to any reader of ordinary\neducation. It is impossible for any sophistry or cavilling to escape\nfrom the irresistible force of Mr. Allies's reasoning. It is a moral\ndemonstration of the perpetual existence and divine institution of the\npapacy in the Christian church.\n\nAn attempt has been made to detract from its force by representing\nthat the author himself had in a previous work drawn a different\nconclusion from the same premises. This objection would have force in\nrelation to a matter of metaphysical demonstration; but has none at\nall in the present case, which is one of moral demonstration arising\nfrom the cumulative force of a great number of separate probabilities.\nThe former conclusion which the author drew was not one totally\nopposite to his later one, but merely a partial, defective conclusion\nin the same line.\n\nIn his first book be admitted the primacy of the Roman See, but not in\nits full extent, or complete application to the state of bodies not in\nher communion. Preconceived prejudices, and an imperfect grasp of the\nlogical and theological bearings of the question, hindered him from\ncomprehending fully the nature of the primacy, whose existence he\nadmitted. His second book is, therefore, a legitimate development from\nthe principles of the first, although this very development has led\nhim to quite opposite conclusions respecting certain important facts.\n\nThe policy of the enemies of the Roman See is, to accumulate all\npossible instances of resistance to her authority, disputes to regard\nto its exercise, ambiguous expressions concerning its nature and\norigin, intricate questions of law, special pleadings of every kind,\ngathered from the first eight centuries of Christianity. In this way\nthey file a bill of exceptions against the supremacy of the Holy See.\nThese disconnected, accidental shreds are patched together into a\ntheory, that the supremacy of the Holy See has been established by a\ngradual usurpation. Starting on this _\u00e0 priori_ assumption, the\nadvocates of the claims of Rome are required to prove categorically\nfrom the monuments of the first, second, third, and other early\ncenturies the full and complete doctrine of the supremacy, with all\nits consequences, as now held and taught by theologians. Whatever is\nclearer, stronger, more minutely explicated at a later period than at\nan earlier, is made out to be a proof of this preconceived usurpation.\nIn this way, these shallow and sophistical writers endeavor to\nbewilder, and confute the minds of their readers amid a maze of\ndocuments, so that they may give up the hope of a clear and plain\nsolution, and stay where they are, because they are there. A book of\nthis kind has just been translated and republished in this country,\nfrom the French of M. Guett\u00e9e, a priest who had left the Catholic\nChurch for the Russian schism, under the auspices of the American Mark\nof Ephesus, Bishop Coxe. From a cursory examination of the French\noriginal, we judge it to be as specious and plausible a resum\u00e9 of the\nmaterials furnished by Jansenists and Orientals--whose skirts the\nAnglicans are making violent efforts to seize hold of just now--as\nany that has appeared. Wherefore we trust that it may be soon and\neffectually refuted.\n\nIt is plain to every fair mind and honest heart, that this method of\nargument is, in the first place, false and unsound, and, in the second\nplace, unsuited for the mass of readers. Greeks and Anglicans use it\nagainst the papacy, intending to hold on to the trunk of their\nheadless Catholicism. It can be applied, however, just as well to\necumenical councils, and all of the rest of the hierarchical system.\nSo, also, to the Liturgy, to the canon of Scripture, then to dogma,\nand finally to the doctrines of natural religion. The real order of\nboth natural and supernatural truth is one in which positive,\nindestructible, eternal principles are implanted as germs, which\nexplicate successively their living power. With all their sophistry,\nthe enemies of Rome can never banish from Scripture and tradition the\nevidence of the perpetual existence and living force of the primacy of\nSt. Peter.\n\n{141}\n\nThey cannot form a theory which can take in, account for, and totalise\nall the documents of fathers, councils, history, in the integrity of a\ncomplete Catholic idea. They deny, explain away, object, question.\nThey have a separate special pleading for each and every single proof\nor document. But there still remains the cumulative force of such a\nvast number of probable evidences, all of which coalesce and integrate\nthemselves in the doctrine of the supremacy. The true way is to\ninterpret and complete the earlier tradition, by that which is later.\nThis is done by our adversaries in regard to the canon, to sacraments,\nto episcopacy, to the authority of councils. It ought to be the same\nin regard to the papacy. The grand fact of one Catholic Church,\ncentred in Rome as the See of Peter, stares us in the face. If we can\ntrace it regularly back, without a palpable break of continuity, to\nits principle and source in the institution of Christ, that is enough.\nThose who set up another Catholicity are bound to exhibit to the world\nsomething more palpable, more universal, more plainly marked by the\ncharacteristics of truth, which can be legible to all mankind. They\nmust solve the problem of all the ages, explain all history, assert a\nmastery over the whole domain of the earth, and prove that their\ndoctrine and church can fill all things like an ocean; or, they must\nstep aside out of the way of the two gigantic combatants, who are now\nstripping for the fight, Rome and Lawless Reason.\n\nBesides, it is absurd to think that any except scholars can be\nexpected to wade through a discussion like that of a dry law-book, or\nabstruse treatise on politics, examining the history and decisions of\ncouncils, and all kinds of official documents. The essential signs and\nmarks of the truth and the church must be plain, obvious, level to the\ncommon capacity. If the Roman Church be the true church, she must be\nable to show it by plain signs, which will put all doubt at rest,\nwhere the heart is sincere. So of the Anglicans, so of the Russians.\n\nTherefore it is that Mr. Allies's book is especially valuable. It\nbrings out the clear, unmistakable evidence of the supremacy given to\nSt. Peter and his successors by Jesus Christ. It shows the great sign\nof Catholicity to be communion with the Holy Roman Church, the See of\nPeter. We recommend it to all, but especially to converts or those who\nare studying, and who wish to instruct themselves fully on this\nfundamental topic of Catholic doctrine. There cannot be a topic which\nit is more, important to study at the present time. The cause of the\npapacy is the cause of revelation and of sound reason, of law and of\ntrue liberty, the cause of Christ, the cause of God. Whoever defends\nit successfully is a benefactor to the human race.\n\n\n\nFelix Holt, The Radical. A Novel. By George Eliot, author of Adam\nBede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Scenes of Clerical Life,\nRomola, etc. 8vo. pp. 184. New-York: Harper and Brothers. 1866.\n\n\n\nWhatever may be thought of the philosophy of this book, there can be\nno question that, considered simply as a work of art, it is one of the\nmost admirable productions of the day. There are passages in it which\ndeserve to be classed among the gems of English literature, and\ncharacters which will live as long as English fiction itself. With\nFelix Holt, the hero, we are less satisfied than with any of the other\npersonages in the story. Full of generous impulses, and burning with\nhalf-formed noble thoughts, he is, after all, when you look at him in\ncold blood, only an impracticable visionary, who wastes his energy in\nvain striving after some dimly-seen good, which neither he, nor the\nreader, nor, we are persuaded, the author herself, fully understands\nand at the end he drops quietly into a grumbling sort of happy life,\nno nearer the goal of his indefinite aspirations than he was at the\nbeginning, and having succeeded no further in his schemes for the\nelevation of the people than persisting in his refusal to brush his\nown hair, or wear a waistcoat. It is very true that such is generally\nthe end of reformers of his character; the fundamental defect of the\nbook is that the author seems unconscious of the hollowness of Felix's\nphilosophy, and we are not quite sure that she is even conscious of\nhis ultimate failure.\n\nMrs. Holt, the hero's mother, is an exquisitely humorous conception,\nwho deserves a place by the side of Dickens's Mrs. Nickleby. She never\npresents her austere \"false front,\" or shows the \"bleak north-easterly\nexpression\" in her eye, without arousing a smile; and her {142}\nrambling, inconsequential, dolorous conversation is a spring of\nnever-failing merriment. There is a plenty of humor too in several of\nthe minor characters, and there is delicate and unaffected pathos in\nthe fanatical and somewhat wearisome little preacher, Mr. Lyon, and\nthe proud, suffering Mrs. Transome, whoso youthful sin pursues her\nlike an avenging fury, and whose whole sad life, \"like a spoiled\npleasure-day,\" has been such an utter, pitiful disappointment. But the\ncharm of the book is in the heroine, Esther Lyon. Never, we believe,\nhas the conception of refined physical beauty been so perfectly\nconveyed by words as in the delineation of this exquisite character.\nWe are told nothing of Esther's features; we get no inventory of her\ncharms, no description of her person: a few words suffice for all that\nthe author has to tell us of her appearance; but she floats through\nthe book a vision of unsurpassed loveliness. She never enters a room\nbut we are conscious of the tread of dainty little feet, the fine\narching of a graceful neck, the gloss of beautiful hair, the soft play\nof taper fingers, and a delicate scent like the breath of the\nviolet-laden south. The art with which this exquisite effect is kept\nup all through the book, without repetition, and without the slightest\napproach toward sensuality, is so perfect that we are tempted to call\nit a stroke of genius. And the character of Esther is as fascinating\nas her beauty. The author has thrown her whole heart into the\ndescription of the ripening and development of this girl, and the\ncasting aside of the little foibles of her fine-ladyism under the\ninfluence of Felix. The scenes between these two strongly contrasted\ncharacters are scenes to be read again and again with never increasing\ndelight.\n\nThe pictures of English provincial life; the petty talk of ignorant\nfarmers and shopkeepers; the election scenes, the canvassing, the\nnominations, the tavern discussions, the speeches, and the riot at the\npolls, are all admirable, and their naturalness is almost startling.\nThere is no exaggeration in any part of the book, and not even in the\nrichest of the humorous scenes is there a single improbable passage.\n\n\n\nEssays on Woman's Work. By Bessie Rayner Parkes. Second Edition. 16mo.\npp. 240. London: Alexander Strahan, 1866.\n\n\nThe serious questions discussed in this little book have happily a\nless pressing significance in this country than in England; but even\nhere the problem of how to find suitable employment for destitute\neducated women is often one of no slight importance, and as years pass\non, it will more and more frequently present itself for solution. Miss\nParkes approaches the subject not with the visionary notions of a\nsocial \"reformer,\" but in a spirit of practical and experienced\nbenevolence, which entitles her remarks to great weight. She points\nout how the tendency of modern mechanical improvements is to banish\nfrom domestic life a large and consistently increasing class of women,\nand she pleads with eloquence and eagerness for a better provision\ntoward their moral and intellectual improvement than is made at\npresent. She treats of the various pursuits to which educated women\nnow resort for a livelihood--teaching, literature art, business, and\nso on, and of others for which they are well fitted and which society\nought to lay open to them. She gives a very interesting account of\ncertain excellent associations founded in England for the assistance\nof working women, with some of which Enterprises Miss Parkes herself\nhas been prominently connected. We advise our friends to read her\nwell-written essays, that they may understand something of the\nterrible suffering which prevails largely abroad, and to some extent\nalso at home, among a class of poor who have very strong claims upon\nour commiseration, but seldom or never appeal in person two our\nbeneficence. The evils which she describes, and for which she\nindicates alleviations, if not remedies, are constantly growing with\nthe growth of population, and we ought to be prepared to meet them.\n\n\n\nSix months at the White House with Abraham  Lincoln. The Story of a\nPicture. By F. B. Carpenter,  16mo, pp. 359. New York: Hurd and\nHoughton. 1866\n\n\nMr. Carpenter is a young New York artist, who, in 1863, conceived the\npurpose of painting a historical picture commemorative of the\nproclamation of emancipation {143} by President Lincoln. Through the\nintervention of influential friends, he obtained not only the\nPresident's consent to sit for a portrait, but permission to establish\nhis studio in the White House during the progress of the work; or, as\nMr. Lincoln expressed it, in his homely way, \"We will turn you in\nloose here, Mr. C--, and try to give you a good chance to work out\nyour idea.\" During the six months that he spent at the picture, Mr.\nCarpenter was virtually a member of the President's family. He saw Mr.\nLincoln in his most familiar and unguarded moments; he won a great\ndeal of his confidence and regard; and he has now set down in this\nlittle book his impressions of the President's personal character, and\na great store of anecdotes and incidents, many of which have not\nbefore been published. For the work he has done and the manner in\nwhich he has done it we have only words of praise. He has given us the\nbest picture of Mr. Lincoln's character as a man that has ever been\ndrawn, and he has done it with care, modesty, and good taste. We\nbelieve that no man, however far he may have stood apart from Mr.\nLincoln on political questions, can read this admirable little book\nwithout feeling a deep respect for our late President's\nstraightforward, honest, manly intellect, and faithfulness to\nprinciples, and without loving him for his tenderness of heart, and\nhis many sterling virtues. Mr. Carpenter writes in a tone of ardent\nadmiration, but not of extravagant eulogy. He has the pains-taking\nfidelity of a Boswell, but without Boswell's pettiness or sycophancy.\nHe has written a book which will not only be perused with eagerness by\nthe reader of the present hour, but will achieve a permanent and\nhonorable place in biographical literature.\n\n\n\nAn Introductory Latin Book, intended as an Elementary Drill-Book on\nthe Inflections and Principles of the Language, and as an Introduction\nto the Author's Grammar, Reader, and Latin Composition. By Albert\nHarkness, Professor in Brown University. 12mo, pp. 162.1 New York: D.\nAppleton and Co. 1866.\n\nThe Latin books which Professor Harkness has published for more\nadvanced pupils have enjoyed a flattering popularity, and in schools\nwhich have adopted them the present volume will prove very acceptable\nfor preparatory classes. It is intended, however, to be complete in\nitself, and comprises an outline of Latin grammar, exercises for\ndouble translation, suggestions to the learner, notes, and\nEnglish-Latin and Latin-English vocabularies. Unnecessary matters seem\nto have been carefully excluded, and the work has an appearance of\ngreat clearness and compactness.\n\n\n\nPhilip Earnscliffe; or, The Morals of Mayfair. A Novel. By Mrs.\nEdwards, author of Archie Lovell, Miss Forrester, The Ordeal for\nWives, etc., etc. 8vo, pp. 173. New-York: The American News Company.\n\n\n\nThis is a clever, unartistical, readable, repulsive, and utterly\nunprofitable story, vulgar in tone and vicious in sentiment. Both hero\nand heroine are perfectly impossible and inconsistent characters, and\nnobody will be the better for reading anything about them.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Catholic Teacher's Improved Sunday-School Class Book. Lawrence\nKehoe, New York.\n\nThis little book should be in the hand of every Catholic Sunday-school\nteacher. It provides for the registry of the scholars names, age,\nresidence, attendance, lessons, conduct, and everything necessary for\nthe good order and welfare of the school or class. It is more\ncomprehensive, and more easily kept, than anything yet published.\n\nIt also has a column in which to record the number of the book taken\nby the scholar from the Sunday-school library. A library is necessary\nto the complete success of every Sunday-school. From the catalogues of\nour Catholic publishers a list of about four hundred books can be\nselected, tolerably well adapted for this purpose. This, however, is\nabout one-third as many as an ordinary Sunday-school requires. We must\nalso confess it is not pleasant to be obliged to pay for these about\ntwice as much as Protestant Sunday-schools do for books published in\nthe same style. But it may be replied that they have societies\npossessing a large capital, whose aim is to publish their {144} books\nas cheap as possible, in order to spread them far and wide. True. And\nwhy cannot the 5,000,000 Catholics in the United States, with 4,000\nchurches, and 2,500 priests, support a Publication Society, with\ncapital enough to publish Sunday-school requisites as cheap as they!\nThis Class Book is printed on good paper, and is not only more\ncomplete than any other, but is furnished much cheaper.\n\n\n\nA History of England or the Young. A new edition revised. 12mo, pp.\n373. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. 1866.\n\nThis is an American reprint of an English book, and England is spoken\nof throughout it as \"our country\"--an expression which will be very\napt to lead to misconceptions in the juvenile mind. The unknown\ncompiler seems to have spared no pains to make the book\nunexceptionable in a religious point of view, for use in Catholic\nschools; but we cannot commend it for clearness, and we think it might\nbe advantageously weeded of various anecdotes and trivial details, and\nof a great deal of turgid rhetoric. There is need of a good English\nhistory for our schools, but we do not believe this publication is\ndestined to supply it. So far as our examination has gone, it is full\nof errors. The account of the American Revolution is absurd--the very\ncause of it being egregiously misstated. The story of the Crimean war\nis not much better told, and the history of the Sepoy mutiny in India\nis very careless and inaccurate.\n\n\n\nThe Mormon Prophet and His Harem; or, An Authentic History of Brigham\nYoung, his numerous Wives and Children. By Mrs. C. V. Waite. 12mo, pp.\n280. New York: Hurd and Houghton. 1866.\n\nAs Mrs. Waite resided for two years in the midst of the society which\nshe has undertaken to describe, and has also received a great deal of\ninformation from persons long in the service of Brigham Young, her\naccount of the Mormon system and its arch-priest may reasonably be\nassumed as authentic. To anybody who wants to read the disgusting\nrecord of human imbecility and wickedness which disfigures the history\nof Western civilization, Mrs. Waite's volume will, no doubt, be found\nsufficiently full and interesting.\n\n\n\nMr. Winkfield. A Novel. 8vo. pp. 160 New-York: The American News\nCompany. 1866.\n\nThe unknown author of this book, which we can hardly call a story, as\napparently endeavored to satirize life and society in New-York. His\nsuccess has not been equal to his expectations.\n\n\n\nAlfonso; or, The Triumph of Religion. A Catholic Tale, P. F.\nCunningham, Philadelphia.\n\nThis is a very interesting and instructive tale, designed to show \"the\nlamentable effects in your religious system of education will\ninfallibly produce.\" We hope the talented authoress will give us other\nstories for our young people equally good. We think, however, she\ncrowds her hero along too fast. The charm of the story would be\nincreased by a more natural and easy concurrence of events.\n\n\n\nBOOKS RECEIVED\n\n\n\nFrom Hurd & Houghton, New York. Spanish Papers and other Miscellanies,\nhitherto unpublished or uncollected. By Washington Irving. 2 vols.\n12mo, pp. 487 and 466.\n\n\n\nP. Donahoe, Boston. Redmond, Count O'Hanlon, The Irish Rapparee, and\nBarney Brady's Goose. By William Carleton. 1 vol. 18mo.\n\n\nAndrew J. Graham, New York. Standard Phonographic Visitor Edited and\npublished by Andrew J. Graham.\n\n\n\nWe have also received the Seventh Annual Report of the Trustees of the\nCooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; and the\nTwenty-fifth Annual Report of the Mercantile Library Association of\nthe City of New York for 1866.\n\n\n\nJ. J. O'Connor & Co., Newark, N.J., have in press and will soon\npublished the work entitled \"Curious Questions,\" by the Rev. Dr.\nBrann.\n\n--------\n\n{145}\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\n\nVOL. IV., NO. 20.--NOVEMBER, 1866.\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nPROBLEMS OF THE AGE.\n\n\nIX.\n\nA FURTHER EXPLANATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER.\n\n\nIt has been already remarked, that the Incarnation is a more profound\nand inscrutable mystery than even the Trinity. The reason is that the\ntrinity is a necessary truth, included in the very idea of God as most\nsimple being and most pure act. The incarnation is not a truth\nnecessary in itself, but only necessary on the supposition that it has\nbeen decreed by God. The trinity of persons proceeds from a necessity\nof nature in God, the incarnation from an act of free will. But the\nacts of the divine free will are more mysterious and inexplicable than\nthose which proceed from necessity of nature.\n\nWithout revelation the incarnation would be inconceivable, and even\nwhen it is disclosed by revelation, the analogies by which it can be\nillustrated are faint and imperfect. The union between soul and body\nin animal nature and between the animal and spiritual nature in man\nfurnish the only analogies of anything like a hypostatic union in the\nnatural world. But these analogies do not illustrate the dark point in\nthe mystery, to wit: the union of two _intelligent_ natures in one\n_subsistence_, or one common personal principle of imputability to\nwhich the acts of both are referrible. We have but little difficulty\nin apprehending that acts proceeding from two distinct natures in man,\nthe animal and the spiritual, should be referred to one principle of\nimputability or one personality. These acts are so very distinct and\ndifferent from each other, that they evidently have no tendency to\nbecome blended or confused, by the absorption of one nature into the\nother. But if we should try to conceive of a hypostatic union between\nthe angelic and human natures in one person, it would be impossible to\navoid imagining that one intelligent nature would be absorbed in the\nother. If there is but one principle of imputability, how can there be\ntwo distinct intelligent voluntary operations? Our opinion is, that a\nunion of this kind between two finite natures is impossible. The {146}\npossibility of assuming a distinct intelligent nature must then belong\nto a divine person only, and be included in the infinitude of the\ndivine essence. The difficulty of understanding it lies then in the\nincomprehensibility of the divine essence. We apprehend nothing in the\ndivine essence distinctly, except that which is apprehensible through\nthe analogy which created essences bear to it. Evidently that in the\ndivine essence which renders it totally dissimilar from all created\nessences cannot be represented by a similitude in created essences.\nAnd as the divine essence subsisting in the second person renders it\ncapable of assuming human nature by an attribute which renders it\ntotally dissimilar from all finite personality, there can be no\nanalogy to it in finite things. In order to understand this it is\nnecessary to recall to mind a principle laid down by St. Thomas, that\nwe cannot affirm anything, whether being, intelligence, will,\npersonality, or whatever other term of thought we may propose, of God\nand a creature, _univocally_, that is, in the same identical sense.\nThe essence of God differs as really from the spiritual essence of\nangels and human souls as it does from the essence of animal souls and\nof matter. We apprehend what the intelligence and the will of God are\nonly through the analogy of human intelligence and will, in a most\nimperfect and inadequate manner. In themselves they are\nincomprehensible to the human understanding. In the very essence of\nGod as incomprehensible, or super-intelligible, is situated that\ncapacity of being the personality of created intelligent nature which\nconstitutes the mystery of the hypostatic union. The only analogy\ntherefore in created things which is appreciable by the human mind, is\nan analogy derived from the union of natures whose difference is\nintelligible to us, as the spiritual and animal. This analogy enables\nus to understand that the divine and human natures, not being\nintelligent natures in a univocal sense, but being dissimilar not only\nin degree of intelligence but in the very essence of intelligence, are\ncapable of union in one personality. There is no analogy, however,\nwhich enables us to understand what this difference is, because it\nwould be a contradiction in terms to suppose in the creature any\nanalogy to that which is above all analogies and is peculiar to the\ndivine nature as divine. The utmost that reason can do is to\napprehend, when the mystery of the incarnation is proposed by\nrevelation, that the incomprehensibility of the divine essence renders\nit impossible to judge that it cannot be hypostatically united to a\ncreated intelligent nature, and that it increases our conception of\nits infinitude or plenitude of being to suppose that a divine person\ncan terminate a created nature as well as the nature which is\nself-existing. All that reason can do then is to demonstrate, after\nthe mystery of the incarnation is proposed, that the impossibility of\nthe incarnation cannot be demonstrated on the principles of reason,\nand that it is therefore credible on the authority of revelation; and,\nby the illumination of faith, to apprehend a certain degree of\nprobability or verisimilitude in the mystery itself.\n\nOnce established, however, as a dogma or fundamental principle in\ntheology, its reason and fitness in reference to the final cause of\nthe universe, the harmony of all other facts and doctrines with it,\nand the grandeur which it gives to the divine economy, can be\nconclusively and abundantly proved by rational arguments.\n\nWe know that it must be fitting and worthy of the divine majesty to\ndecree the incarnation, because he has done it. But we can also see\nthat it is so, and why. We can see that it befits Almighty God to\nexhaust his own omnipotence in producing a work which is the\nmasterpiece of his intelligence and the equivalent of the archetype\ncontained in his Word. To show his royal magnificence in bestowing the\ngreatest {147} possible boon on created nature. To pour forth his love\nin such a manner as to astound the intelligence of his rational\ncreatures, by communicating all that is contained in filiation and the\nprocession of the Spirit, so far as that is in itself possible. To\nglorify and deify the creature, by raising it as nearly as possible to\nan equality with himself in knowledge and beatitude.\n\nThe reason for selecting the human rather than the angelic nature for\nthe hypostatic union is obvious from all that has preceded. Human\nnature is a microcosm, in which all grades of existence are summed up\nand represented. In taking human nature the Word assumes all created\nnature, from the lowest to the highest. For, although the angelic\nnature is superior to the human, it is only superior to it in certain\nrespects, and not as a rational essence. Moreover, this superiority is\npart only temporary, enduring while the human nature is in the process\nof explication; and as to the rest, the inferiority of the human\nnature is counterbalanced by the supernatural elevation given to it in\nthe hypostatic union, which raises the natural, human operation of the\nsoul of our Lord Jesus Christ far above that of the angelic nature.\nAlthough, therefore, in the series of grades in the natural order of\nexistence, the angelic nature is above the human, it is subordinated\nto it in the supernatural order, or the order of the incarnation, and\nin relation to the final cause. For it is through the human nature\nunited to the divine nature in the person of the Word that the angelic\nnature completes its return to God and union with him.\n\nThe elevation of created nature to the hypostatic union with God in\nthe person of the Word introduces an entirely new principle of life\ninto the intelligent universe. Hitherto, we have considered in the\ncreative act a regular gradation in the nature of created existences,\nfrom the lowest to the highest. Each grade is determined to a certain\nparticipation in being superior in intensity to that of the one below\nit and to a mode of activity corresponding to its essence. There can\nbe no grade of existence in its essence superior to the rational or\nintelligent nature, which is created in the similitude of that which\nis highest in the divine essence. No doubt, the specific and minor\ngrades included under the universal generic grade of rationality might\nbe indefinitely multiplied. As the angels differ from man, and the\nvarious orders of the angelic hierarchy differ from each other, so God\nmight continue to create _ad infinitum_ new individuals or new\nspecies, each differing from all others, and all arranged in an\nascending series, in which each grade should be superior in certain\nparticulars to all below it. It is evidently possible that a created\nintelligence should be made to progress from the lowest stage of\ndevelopment continuously and for ever. Let us fix our thought upon the\nmost distant and advanced limit in this progression which we are able\nto conceive. It is evident that God might have created an intelligent\nspirit in the beginning at that point, as the starting-point of his\nprogression, and might have created at the same time other intelligent\nspirits at various distances from this point in a descending series.\nSuppose now that this is the case, and that the lowest in the scale\nprogresses until he reaches the starting-point of the most advanced.\nThe one who began at this advanced point will have progressed\nmeanwhile to another point equally distant, and will preserve his\nrelative superiority. But even at this point, God might have created\nhim at first, with another series of intervening grades at all the\nintermediate points which he has passed over in his progressive\nmovement. We may carry on this process as long as we please, without\never coming to a limit at which we are obliged to stop. For the\ncreation being of necessity limited, and the creative power of God\nunlimited, it is impossible to equalize the two terms, or to conceive\nof a creation which is equal to God as creator. Nevertheless, {148}\nall possible grades of rationality are like and equal to each other as\nrespects the essential propriety of rationality, and never rise to a\ngrade which is essentially higher than that of rational nature. The\nonly difference possible is a difference in the mode in which the\nactive force of the intellect is exercised, and in the number of\nobjects to which it is applicable, or some other specific quality of\nthe same kind. Whatever may be the increase which rational nature can\nbe supposed to receive, it is only the evolution of the essential\nprinciple which constitutes it rational, and is therefore common to\nall species and individuals of the rational order. Although,\ntherefore, God cannot create a spirit so perfect that it cannot be\nconceived to be more perfect in certain particulars, yet it is\nnevertheless true that God cannot create anything which is generically\nmore perfect than spirit or intelligent substance. From this it\nfollows as a necessary consequence, that God cannot create a nature\nwhich by its essential principles demands its last complement of being\nin a divine person, or naturally exists in a hypostatic union with the\ndivine nature. For rational nature, which is the highest created\ngenus, and the nearest possible to the nature of God,--\"Ipsius enim\net genus sumus,\"  [Footnote 32]--developed to all eternity, would\nnever rise above itself, or elicit an act which would cause it to\nterminate upon a divine person, and bring it into a hypostatic union\nwith God.\n\n  [Footnote 32: \"For we are also his offspring.\" Acts xvii. 28.]\n\nProduce a line, parallel to an infinite straight line, to infinity,\nand it will never meet it or come any nearer to it. The very essence\nof created spirit requires that it should be determined to a mode of\napprehending God an image reflected in the creation. The activity of\nthe created intelligence must proceed for ever in this line, and has\nno tendency to coincide with the act of the divine intelligence in\nwhich God contemplates immediately his own essence. Increase as much\nas you will the perfection of the created image, it remains always\ninfinitely distant from the uncreated, personal image of himself which\nthe Father contemplates in the Word, and loves in the Holy Spirit,\nwithin the circle of the blessed Trinity. It has been proved in a\nprevious number that infinite intelligence is identical with the\ninfinite intelligible in God. If a being could be created which by its\nessence should be intelligent by the immediate vision of the divine\nessence, it would be intelligent _in se_, and therefore possess within\nits own essence its immediate, intelligible object, which, by the\nterms of the supposition, is the divine essence. It would possess in\nitself sanctity, immutability, and beatitude. It would be, in other\nwords, beatified precisely because existing, that is, incapable of\nexisting in any defective state, and therefore incapable of error,\nsin, or suffering. And as, by the terms, it is what it is, by its\nessence, its essence and existence are identical; it is essentially\nmost pure act, essentially existing, therefore self-existent,\nnecessary being, or identical with God. It is therefore impossible for\nGod to create a rational nature which is constituted rational by the\nimmediate intuition of the divine essence. For by the very terms it\nwould be a creature and God at the same time. It would be one of the\npersons in the unity of the divine nature, and yet have a nature\ntotally distinct. In the natural order, then, it is impossible that a\ncreated nature should either at its beginning, or in the progress of\nits evolution, demand as its due and necessary complement of being a\ndivine personality. Personality is the last complement of rational\nnature. Divine nature demands divine personality. Finite nature\ndemands finite personality. It is evident, therefore, that there\ncannot be a finite nature, however exalted, which cannot come to its\ncomplete evolution within its own essence, or which can explicate out\nof the contents of its being an act which necessarily terminates upon\na divine person, so as to bring it into a hypostatic union with the\ndivine nature.\n\n{149}\n\nLet us go back a little in the scale of being, in order to develop\nthis principal more fully. Lifeless matter is capable of indefinite\nincrease in its own order, but this increase has no tendency to\nelevate it to the grade of vegetative life. A new and different\nprinciple of organization must be introduced in order to construct\nfrom its simple elements a vegetative form, as, for instance, a\nflower. So, also, the explication of vegetative life has no tendency\nto generate a sentient principle. The plant may go on producing\nfoliage, flowering, germinating, and reproducing its species for ever,\nbut its vital activity can never produce a sentient soul, or proceed\nto that degree of perfection that it requires a sentient soul as its\nlast complement or the form of its organic life. Suppose a plant or\nflower to receive a sentient soul; this soul must be immediately\ncreated by God, and it would be the principle or form of a new life,\nwhich, in relation to the natural, vegetative life of the flower,\nwould be _super_-natural, elevating it to an order of life above that\nwhich constitutes it a flower.\n\nA sentient creature, as a dog or a bird, has no tendency to explicate\nfrom the constitutive principle of its animal soul intelligence, or to\nattain a state of existence in which an intelligent personality is due\nto it as its last complement. If the animal soul could have an\nintelligent personality, it must be by hypostatic union with an\nintelligent nature distinct from itself, which would then become the\n_suppositum_, or principal of imputability to the animal nature. The\nanimal would then be elevated to a state which would be\n_super_-natural, relatively to the animal nature, or entirely above\nthe plane of it's natural development.\n\nIn like manner, the rational nature has no tendency or power to rise\nabove itself, or to do more than explicate that principle which\nconstitutes it rational. If it is elevated to a higher order, it must\nbe by a direct act of omnipotence, an immediate intervention of the\ncreator, producing in it an act which could never be produced by the\nexplication of its rationality, even though it should progress to all\neternity. This act is supernatural in the absolute sense. That is, it\nlies in an order above created nature as a totality, and above all\nnature which might be created; _supra omnem naturam creatam atque\ncreabilem_.\n\nIt is beyond the power even of divine omnipotence to create a rational\nnature which, by its intrinsic, constitutive principle of\nintelligence, is affiliated to the Father through the Holy Spirit.\nSuch a nature would be equal to the Word, and another Word, and\ntherefore equal to the Father, or, in other words, would be a divine\nnature although created; which is absurd. The Father can have but one\nSon, eternally begotten, not made; and the only possible way in which\na created nature can be elevated to a strictly filial relation to the\nFather, is by a hypostatic union with the divine nature of the Son in\none person, so that there is a communication of properties between the\ntwo natures, and but one principle of imputability to which all the\ndivine and human attributes and acts can be referred. This union can\nbe effected only by a direct intervention of God, or by the Word\nassuming to himself a created nature. For rational nature finds its\nlast complement of personality, its _subsistentia_, or principle of\nimputability, within its own limits, which it never tends to\ntranscend, even by infinite progression. The human nature individuated\nin the person of Jesus Christ, by its own intrinsic principles was\ncapable of being completed in a finite personality, like every other\nindividual human nature. The fact that the place of the human\npersonality is supplied by a divine person, and the human nature thus\ncompleted only in the divine, is due to the direct, divine act of the\nWord, and is therefore supernatural. In this supernatural relation it\nbecomes the recipient, so to speak, of the divine vital current, and\nparticipates in the {150} act in which the divine life is consummated,\nwhich is the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father.\nThis act consists radically and essentially in the immediate\ncontemplation of the divine essence. Created intelligence, therefore,\nelevated to the hypostatic union, contemplates the essence of God\ndirectly, without any intervening medium, by the immediate intuition\nor beatific vision of God.\n\nThus, in the incarnation, the creation returns back to God and is\nunited to him in the most perfect manner, by participating in the good\nof being in a way sublime above all human conception, exhausting even\nthe infinite idea of God. Created intelligence is beatified,\nglorified, and deified. In Jesus Christ, man, in whose essence is\nincluded the equivalent of all creation, and God meet in the unity of\none person. The nature of God becomes the nature of man in the second\nperson, who is truly man; and the nature of man becomes the nature of\nGod in the same person, who is truly God. Creation, therefore, attains\nits final end and returns to God as final cause in the incarnation;\nwhich is the most perfect work of God, the crown of the acts of his\nomnipotence, the summit of the creative act, the completion of all\ngrades of existence, and the full realization of the divine archetype.\n\nIn Jesus Christ, the creative act is carried to the apex of\npossibility. In his human nature, therefore, he is the most\npre-eminent of all creatures, and surpasses them all, not only singly\nbut collectively. He has the primogeniture, and the dominion over all\nthings, the entire universe of existences being subordinated to him.\nNevertheless, his perfection is  not completed merely by that which he\npossesses within the limits of his individual humanity. He is the\nsummit of creation, the head of the intelligent universe, the link\nnearest to God in the chain of created existences. The universe,\ntherefore, by virtue of the principle of order and unity which\npervades it, ought to communicate with him through a supernatural\norder, so that the gradation in the works of God may be regular and\nperfect. The chasm between rational nature in its natural state and\nthe same nature raised to the hypostatic union is too great, and\ndemands to be filled up by some intermediate grades. Having taken\ncreated nature, which is by its very constitution adapted to\nfellowship between individuals of the same kind; and, specifically,\nhuman nature, which is constituted in relations of race and family,\nthe Son of God ought, in all congruity, to have brethren and\ncompanions capable of sharing with him in beatitude and glory. Being\nspecifically human and of one blood with all mankind, it is fitting\nthat he should elevate his own race to a share in his glory. Being\ngenerically of the same intellectual nature with the angels, it is\nalso fitting that he should elevate them to the same glory. This can\nonly be done by granting them a participation in that supernatural\norder of intelligence and life which he possesses by virtue of the\nhypostatic union; that is, a participation in the immediate, beatific\nvision of the divine essence.\n\nThis supernatural order is denominated the order of regeneration and\ngrace. It is cognate with the order of the hypostatic union, but not\nidentical with it. The personality of the divine Word is communicated\nonly to the individual human nature of Jesus Christ, who is not only\nthe first-born but the only-begotten Son of God. God is incarnate in\nChrist alone. The union of his created substance with the divine\nsubstance, without any permixture or confusion, in one person, is\nsomething inscrutable to reason. The knowledge, sanctity, beatitude,\nand glory of his human nature are effects of this union, but are not\nit. These effects, which are due to the humanity of Christ as being\nthe nature of a divine person, and are its rightful and necessary\nprerogatives, are communicable, as a matter of grace, to other\nindividuals, personally distinct from Christ. {151} That is to say,\nsanctity, beatitude, and glory do not require as the necessary\ncondition of their community ability the communication of a divine\npersonality, but are compatible with the existence of an indefinite\nnumber of distinct, finite personalities. All those rational\ncreatures, however, who are the subjects of this communicated grace,\nare thereby assimilated to the Son of God, and made partakers of an\nadopted sonship. This adoptive sonship is an inchoate and imperfect\nstate of co-filiation with the Son of God, which is completed and made\nperfect in the hypostatic union. The order of grace, therefore, though\ncapable of subsisting without the incarnation, and not depending on it\nas a physical cause, can only subsist as an imperfect order, and\ncannot have in itself a metaphysical finality. The incarnation being\nabsent, the universe does not attain an end metaphysically final, or\nactualise the perfection of the ideal archetype. The highest mode of\nthe communication of the good of being, the most perfect reproduction\nof the operation of God _ad intra_, in his operation _ad extra_, which\nthe Father contemplates in the Word as possible, remains unfulfilled.\nThose who hold, therefore, that the incarnation was not included in\nthe original creative decree of God must maintain that in that decree\nGod did not contemplate an end in creating metaphysically final. They\nare obliged to suppose another decree logically subsequent to the\nfirst, by virtue of which the universe is brought to an metaphysically\nfinal in order to repair the partial failure of the angelic nature and\nthe total failure of human nature to attain the inferior, prefixed end\nof the first decree. Nevertheless, decrees of God are eternal, God\nalways had in view, even on this hypothesis, the incarnation as the\ncompletion of his creative act; and only took the be occasion which\nthe failure of his first plan through sin presented to introduce one\nmore perfect. Billuart, therefore, as the interpreter of the Thomist\nschool, maintains that God revealed the incarnation to Adam before his\nfall, though not the connection which the fulfilment of the divine\npurpose had with his sin as its _conditio sine qua non_. If this\nlatter view is adopted, it cannot be held that the angelic and human\nnatures were created and endowed with supernatural grace in the\nexpress view of the incarnation, or that the angels hold, and that man\noriginally held, the title to glorification from Jesus Christ as their\nhead, and the meritorious cause of original grace. Nevertheless, as\nthe incarnation introduces a new and higher order into the universe,\nelevating it to an end metaphysically final of which it previously\nfell short, all angels and all creatures of every grade are\nsubordinated to Jesus Christ, who is the head of the creation,\nreuniting all things to the Father in his person.\n\nThis explanation is made in deference to the common opinion, although\nthe author does not hold this opinion, and in order that those who do\nhold it may not feel themselves bound to reject the whole argument\nrespecting the relation of the creative act to the incarnation.\n\nIt is in regard to the doctrine of original grace, or the elevation of\nthe rational nature to that supernatural order whose apex is the\nhypostatic union, that Catholic theology comes into an irreconcilable\nconflict with Pelagianism, Calvinism, and Jansenism. These three\nsystems agree in denying the doctrine of original grace. They maintain\nthat rational nature contains in its own constituent principles the\ngerm of development into the state which is the _ultimatum_ of the\ncreature, and the end for which God created it, and was bound to\ncreate it, if he created at all. They differ, however, fundamentally\nas to the principles actually constitutive of rational nature. The\nPelagian takes human nature in its present condition as his type. The\nadvocates of the other two systems take an ideal human nature, which\nhas become essentially {152} corrupted by the fall, as their type.\nTherefore, the Pelagian says that human nature, as it now is, has in\nitself the principle of perfectibility by the explication and\ndevelopment of its essence. But the Calvinist and Jansenist say that\nhuman nature as it was first created, or as it is restored by grace to\nits primal condition, has the principle of perfectibility; but as it\nnow is in those who have not been restored by grace, is entirely\ndestitute of it. The conception which these opponents of Catholic\ndoctrine have of the entity of that highest ideal state to which\nrational nature is determined, varies as the ratio of their distance\nfrom the Catholic idea. Those who are nearest to it retain the\nconception of the beatific union with God, which fades away in those\nwho recede farther, until it becomes changed into a mere conception of\nan idealised earthly felicity.\n\nThe Catholic doctrine takes as its point of departure the postulate,\nthat rational nature of itself is incapable of attaining or even\ninitiating a movement towards that final end, which has been actually\nprefixed to it as its terminus. It needs, therefore, from the\nbeginning, a superadded gift or grace, to place it in the plane of its\ndestiny, which is supernatural, or above all that is possible to mere\nnature, explicated to any conceivable limit. At this point, however,\ntwo great schools of theology diverge from each other, each one of\nwhich is further subdivided as they proceed.\n\nThe radical conception of one school is, that nature is in itself an\nincomplete thing, constituted in the order of its genesis in a merely\ninchoate capacity for receiving regeneration in the supernatural\norder. Remaining in the order of genesis, it is in a state of merely\ninchoate, undeveloped, inexplicable existence, and therefore incapable\nof attaining its destination. There is, therefore, no end for which\nGod could create rational existence, except a supernatural end. The\nnatural demands the supernatural, the order of genesis demands the\norder of regeneration, and the wisdom and goodness of God require him\nto bestow on all rational creatures the grace cognate to the beatific\nvision and enabling them to attain it.\n\nThe radical conception of the other school is, that rational nature,\n_per se_ requires only the explication and perfection of its own\nconstituent principles, and may be left to attain its finality in the\npurely natural order. The elevation of angels and men to the plane of\na supernatural destiny was, therefore, a purely gratuitous concession\nof the supreme goodness of God, in view, as some would add, of the\nmerit of the incarnate Word.\n\nThese different theories are entangled and interlaced with each other,\nand with many different and intricate questions related to them, in\nsuch a way as to make a thicket through which it is not easy to find a\nsure path. It is necessary, however, to try, or else to avoid the\nsubject altogether.\n\nThe obscurity of the whole question is situated in the relation of\ncreated intelligence to its object which constitutes it in the\nintelligent or rational order. It is evident that a created substance\nis constituted an intelligent principle by receiving potentiality to\nthe act connoted by this relation of the subject to its object, and is\nexplicated by the reduction of this potentiality into act. The end of\nintelligent spirit is to attain to its intelligent object, by the act\nof intelligence. In the foresight of this, the exposition of the\nrelation between intelligence and the intelligible has been placed\nfirst in this discussion.\n\nIt is agreed among all Catholic theologians: 1. That created\nintelligence can, by the explication of its own constitutive\nprinciples, attain to the knowledge of God as _causa altissima;_ or,\nthat God is, _per se_, the ultimate object of reason. 2. That there is\na mode of the relation of intelligence to its ultimate object, or to\nGod, a permanent state of the intuition of {153} God, by a created\nspirit, called the intuitive, beatific vision of the divine essence,\nwhich can be attained only by a supernatural elevation and\nillumination of the intelligence.\n\nThe point of difference among theologians relates to the identity or\ndifference of the relations just noted, Is that relation which\nintelligence has _per se_ to God, as its ultimate object, the relation\nwhich is completed by supernatural elevation, or not? If not, what is\nthe distinction between them? Establish their identity, and you have\nestablished the theory which was mentioned in the first place above.\nEstablish their difference, and you have established the second\ntheory.\n\nIf the first theory is established, rational creatures are _ipso\nfacto_ in a supernatural order. The natural order is merely the\ninchoation of the supernatural, cannot be completed without it, and\ncannot attain its end without a second immediate intervention of God,\nequal to the act of creation, by which God brings back to himself, as\nfinal cause, the creature which proceeded from him as first cause.\nThis second act is regeneration; and creation, therefore, implies and\ndemands regeneration. It follows from this, that reason is incapable\nof being developed or explicated by the mere concurrence of God with\nits principle of activity, or his concurrence with second causes\nacting upon it, that is, by the continuance and consummation of the\ncreative, generative influx which originally gave it and other second\ncauses existence. A regenerative influx is necessary, in order to\nbring its latent capacity into action, and make it capable of\ncontemplating its proper object, which is God, as seen by an intuitive\nvision.\n\nOne great advantage of this theory is supposed to be, that it leaves\nthe naturalists no ground to stand upon, by demonstrating the absolute\nnecessity of the supernatural, that is, of revelation, grace, the\nchurch, etc. This presupposes that the theory can be demonstrated. If\nit cannot be, the attempt to do too much recoils upon the one who\nmakes it, and injures his cause. Beside this, it may be said that the\nproposed advantage can be as effectually secured by proving that the\nnatural order is actually subordinated in the scheme of divine\nProvidence, as it really exists, to a supernatural end, without\nprofessing to prove that it must be so necessarily.\n\nThe great positive argument in favor of this hypothesis is, that\nrational nature necessarily seeks God as its ultimate object, and\ntherefore longs for that clear, intellectual vision of him called the\nbeatific. If this be true, the question is settled for ever. Those who\nseek to establish its truth state it under various forms. One way of\nstating it is, that reason seeks the universal, or the explanation of\nall particular effects, in the _causa altissima_, This is the doctrine\nof St. Thomas. God is the _causa altissima_, the universal principle,\nand therefore reason seeks for God.\n\nAgain, it is affirmed that there is a certain faculty of\nsuper-intelligence, which apprehends the super-intelligible order of\nbeing, not positively, but negatively, by apprehending the limitation\nof everything intelligible. Intelligence is therefore sensible of a\nwant, a vacuum, an aimless, objectless yearning for something unknown\nand unattainable; showing that God has created it for the purpose of\nsatisfying this want, and filling this void, by bringing intelligence\ninto relation to himself as its immediate object, in a supernatural\nmode.\n\nIn a more popular mode, this same idea is presented under a countless\nvariety of forms and expressions, in sermons, spiritual treatises, and\npoems, as a dissatisfaction of the soul with every kind of good\nattainable in this life, vague longing for an infinite and supreme\ngood, a plaintive cry of human nature for the beatitude of the\nintuitive vision of God. \"Irrequietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat\nin te\"--\"Our heart is unrestful until it finds repose in thee,\" is the\nlanguage {154} of St. Augustine, which is echoed and reechoed on every\nside.\n\nThese considerations are not without great weight; nevertheless, they\ndo not appear to us sufficient to prove conclusively the hypothesis in\nsupport of which they are adduced, or to over-balance other weighty\nconsiderations on the opposite side.\n\nReason seeks for the _causa altissima_, but it remains to be proved\nthat it seeks for any other knowledge of it but that which is\nattainable by a mode connatural to the created spirit.\n\nReason is conscious of its own limitation. But this does not prove\nthat it aspires to transcend this limitation. Beatified spirits are\nconscious of their own limitation. Those who are in the lowest grade\nare aware of numerous grades above them, and the highest are aware of\ntheir inferiority to the exalted humanity of Jesus Christ, united to\nthe divine nature in his person. All together, including Jesus Christ\nhimself, as man, are aware of an infinite incomprehensibility in the\ndivine nature. In the words of the greatest of all mystic theologians,\nSt. John of the Cross: \"They who know him most perfectly, perceived\nmost clearly that he is infinitely incomprehensible. To know God best,\nis to know he is incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear\nvision do not perceive so distinctly as the others how greatly he\ntranscends their vision.\"  [Footnote 33]\n\n  [Footnote 33: Spiritual Canticle, stanza vii. Oblate Ed. vol. ii. p. 44.]\n\nBeatified spirits do not feel any void within themselves, or any\nunsatisfied longing for the comprehension of the super-intelligible.\nNeither do they aspire even to those degrees of clearer vision which\nare actually conceded to spirits of a higher order than their own. Why\nthen should a rational creature necessarily desire to transcend its\nown proper and connatural mode of intelligence? The apprehension of\nthe super-intelligible shows that the intellect cannot be satisfied\nwith a limitation of itself to a mere knowledge of second causes and\nthe contingent--that it must think about God, and apprehend in some\nway without infinite, eternal, necessary being and attributes of the\ncreator and first cause of all things. But it does not show that it\nmust apprehending God in the most perfect way possible, much less in\nsuch a way that he does not remain always infinitely beyond its\ncomprehension.\n\nThe dissatisfaction of the human heart may proceed in great measure\nfrom the fact that God purposely disquiet's it by withholding from it\nthe good it naturally seeks, in order to compel it to seek for\nsupernatural good. Another cause of it is, that most persons have\ncommitted so many sins themselves, and are so much involved in the\nconsequences of the sins of others, that they cannot possess the full\nmeasure even of that natural enjoyment of which human nature is\ncapable. That the human heart in its misery and unhappiness turns\nlongingly toward the hope of a supreme beatitude in the contemplation\nof God as he is revealed to the saints in heaven, may be owing to the\nfact that God, who proposes this beatitude to men, stirs up a longing\nfor it in their souls by a supernatural grace.\n\nThe question, therefore, reverts to this, as has been repeatedly said\nalready, What is the principle constitutive of the intelligent life\nand activity of a created spirit? When this principle is evolved into\nact, the created spirits fulfils its type, and realises its ideal\nperfection in its own order. Now, according to the preliminary\ndoctrine we have laid down, this is an active power to apprehend the\nimage of God in the creation, or to contemplate a created image of God\nwhich is a finite similitude of the infinite, uncreated image of God,\nthat is to say, the Word. Beatific contemplation is a contemplation of\nthis infinite, uncreated image without any intervening medium. Yet is\nan intellectual operation of which God is both the object and the\nmedium. It is not therefore the operation which {155} perfects created\nintelligence in its own proper order, but one which elevates it above\nthat order, giving it a participation in the divine intelligence\nitself. Created intelligence is perfected in its own proper order by\nits own natural operation; and although the intervention of God is\nnecessary in order to conduct it to that perfection, so that it is\nstrictly true that a supernatural force is necessary to the\ninitiation, explication, and consummation of the natural order of\nintelligence, yet this does not elevate it to a supernatural mode and\nstate of activity in the strict and theological sense of the word.\nCreated intelligence is perfected by the contemplation of the Creator\nthrough the creating, and has no tendency or aspiration to rise any\nhigher. True, it has an essential capacity to become the subject of a\ndivine operation elevating it to the immediate intuition of God, or it\nnever could be so elevated. This is the really strong argument in\nfavor of the hypothesis that God, if he creates at all, must create an\nintelligent order determined to the beatific union. It is equally\nstrong in favor of the hypothesis, that he must complete his creative\nact in the incarnation, because created nature is essentially capable\nof the hypostatic union. For what purpose is this capacity? Does it\nnot indicate a demand for the order of regeneration, and the\ncompletion of this order in the incarnation? It is not our purpose to\nanswer this question definitely, but to leave it open, as it has no\npractical bearing upon the result we are desirous of obtaining.\nPresupposing, however, that God determines to adopt the system of\nabsolute optimism in creating, and to bring the universe to an end\nmetaphysically final, as he actually has determined to do, this\nquestion, as we have previously stated, must be answered in the\naffirmative. There is no metaphysical finality short of the hypostatic\nunion of the created with the uncreated nature, which alone is the\nadequate, objective externisation of the eternal idea in the mind of\nGod. The metaphysical, generic perfection of the universe demands the\nincarnation, with its appropriate concomitants. But this demand is\nsatisfied by the elevation of one individual nature to the hypostatic\nunion, and the communication of the privileges due to this elevated\nnature to one or more orders of intelligent creatures containing each\nan adequate number of individuals. It does not require the elevation\nof all intelligent orders or all individuals, but admits of a\nselection from the entire number of created intelligences of a certain\nprivileged class. It is only on the supposition that God cannot give\nan intelligent nature its due perfection and felicity without\nconceding to it the beatific vision, that we are compelled to believe\nthat God cannot create intelligent spirits without giving them the\nopportunity of attaining supernatural beatitude. And it is merely this\nlast supposition against which we have been contending.\n\nThe view we have taken, that rational nature precisely as such is not\nnecessarily created merely in order to become the subject of elevating\ngrace, but may be determined to an end which does not require it to\ntranscend its natural condition, comports fully with the Catholic\ndogma of sanctifying grace. The church teaches that affiliation to God\nby grace is a pure boon or favor gratuitously conferred by God\naccording to his good pleasure and sovereign will. It is not due to\nnature, or a necessary consequence of creation. The beginning,\nprogress, and consummation of this adoptive filiation is from the\ngrace of God, both in reference to angels and men. It was by grace\nthat the angels and Adam were placed in the way of attaining the\nbeatific vision, just as much as it is by grace that men are redeemed\nand saved since the fall. If rational nature cannot be explicated and\nbrought to a term suitable for it, which satisfies all its exigencies,\nwithout this grace, it is not easy to see how it can be called a grace\nat all, since grace signifies gratuitous favor. Rather it would be\nsomething due to nature, which the goodness of God bound {156} him to\nconfer when he had created it. It would be the mere complement of\ncreation, and an essential part of the continuity of the creative act\nas much as the act of conservation, by virtue of which the soul is\nconstituted immortal. In this case, it would be very difficult to\nreconcile the doctrine of original sin, and the doom of those who die\nin it before the use of reason, with the justice and goodness of God.\nIt would be difficult also to explain the whole series of doctrinal\ndecisions which have emanated from the Holy See, and have been\naccepted by the universal church, in relation to the Jansenist errors,\nall of which easily harmonise with the view we have taken.\n\nMoreover, the plain dogmatic teaching of the church, that man, as he\nis now born, is \"saltem negative aversatus a Deo,\" \"at least\nnegatively averted from God,\" and absolutely incapable of even the\nfirst movement of the will to turn back to him without prevenient\ngrace, cannot be explained on the theory we are opposing without\nresorting to the notion of a positive depravation of human nature by\nthe fall, a notion completely irreconcilable with rational principles.\nIf rational nature as such is borne by a certain impetus toward God as\npossessed in the beatific vision, it will spring toward him of itself\nand by its own intrinsic principles, as soon as he is extrinsically\nrevealed to it, without grace. To say that it does so, is precisely\nthe error of the Semipelagians which is condemned by the church. It is\ncertain that it does not; and therefore we must explain its inability\nto do so, either with the Calvinists and Jansenists by maintaining\nthat its intrinsic principles are totally perverted and depraved, or\nby maintaining that rational nature, as such, is determined by its\nintrinsic impetus to an inferior mode of apprehending and loving God\nas its last end, which is below the plane of the supernatural.\n\nThis view accords fully with the teachings of the great mystic\nwriters, who are the most profound of all philosophers and\ntheologians. They all teach most distinctly, that when God leads a\nsoul into a state of supernatural contemplation it has an almost\nunconquerable repugnance and reluctance to follow him, and is thrown\ninto an obscure night, in which it undergoes untold struggles and\nsufferings before it can become fit for even that dim and imperfect\nlight of contemplation which it is capable of receiving in this life.\nWhy is it that the human soul turns toward the supernatural good only\nwhen excited, illuminated, and attracted by the grace of God, and even\nthen with so much difficulty? Why does it so easily and of preference\nturn oh wait from it, unless it is, that it naturally seeks to attain\nits object by a mode more connatural to its own intrinsic and\nconstitutive principles?\n\nThe conclusion we draw is, that rational nature of itself is capable\nof attaining its proper perfection and felicity, without being\nelevated above its own order, by the mere explication of its\nrationality, and aspires no higher, but even prefers to remain where\nit is. The fact that it is in a state which in comparison with the\nstate of elevation is merely inchoate existence, and is _in potenti\u00e2_\nto a state not realised _in actu_, does not show that its felicity or\nthe good order of the universe requires it to be elevated any higher,\nunless it is elected as a subject of elevating grace.  [Footnote 34]\n\n  [Footnote 34: This does not mean that any human being is at liberty\n  to choose to decline proffered grace. The human race _en masse_ is\n  elected to grace, and at least all those to whom the faith is\n  proposed have the proffer of grace, with a precept to accept it.\n  Moreover, God has not provided any order except the supernatural for\n  mankind in which the race can attain its proper perfection and\n  felicity.]\n\nGod alone is _actus purissimus_ without any admixture of potentiality.\nThe finite is always inchoate and potential, because finite. Its very\nnature implies what is called metaphysical evil, or a limitation of\nthe possession of good in act. Every finite nature except that of the\nincarnate Word is limited, not only in respect to the infinite, but\nalso in respect to some other finite nature superior to itself. It's\nproper perfection consists in the possession of good, with that\nlimitation {157} which the will of God has prefixed to it as its term.\nThe perfection and order of the universe, as a whole, are constituted\nby the subordination and harmony of all its parts in reference to the\npredetermined end. The individual felicity of a rational creature and\nhis due relation to the final cause of the universe, do not require\nhis being elevated to the utmost summit of existence of which he is\ncapable, unless God has predetermined him to that place. The mere\ninert capacity of receiving an augmentation or elevation of his\nintellectual and voluntary operation does not give him any tendency to\nexceed his actual limit, unless that inert capacity begins to be\nactualized, or unless the principle of a new development is implanted\nand vitalized. The inert capacity of being united to the divine nature\nby the hypostatic union, is actualised only in Christ. If, therefore,\nrational nature could not attain its proper end and completion without\nthe utmost actualization of its passive capacity, Christ alone would\nattain his final end. We most certainly admit, however, that the\nblessed in heaven all attain their final end and a perfect beatitude,\neach one in his own degree. We are not to understand, therefore, that\nthe relation of the creation to God as final cause consists solely and\npurely in the return of the creature to God in the most sublime manner\npossible, and that everything which exists is created solely as a\nmeans to that end. If this were so, the hypostatic union of the human\nto the divine nature in the person of Jesus Christ would be the sole\nterminus of the creative act, the only end proposed by God in\ncreating. Nothing else could or would have been created, except as a\nmeans to that end. The rest of creation, however, cannot contribute to\nthat end. The union of the human nature to the divine in Christ and\nits filiation to God, by which it is beatified, glorified, and\ndeified, is completely fulfilled within itself; and the rest of\ncreation adds nothing to it. If God had no other end in view, in the\nreproduction of the immanent act within himself by a communication of\nhimself _ad extra_, except the hypostatic union, he would have created\nonly one perfect nature for that purpose. The beatification and\nglorification of the adopted brethren of Christ must be therefore\nincluded in the end of creation.\n\nThis is not all, however, that is included in it. The supernatural\norder includes in itself a natural order which is not absorbed into\nit, but which has its own distinct existence. _Gratia supponit\nnaturam_, grace supposes nature, but does not supersede or extinguish\nit. The inferior intellectual operations of our Lord are not\nsuperseded by his beatific contemplation, nor do they contribute to\nits clearness of intuition. The operation of his animal soul--that is,\nof the principle within his rational soul which contains in an eminent\nmode all the perfection that is in a soul purely animal, and adapts\nhis rational soul to be the form of a body--continues also, together\nwith the activity of the senses and of the active bodily life. This\noperation does not conduce to the perfection of the act of beatific\ncontemplation, which does not require the mediation of the senses. The\nsame is true of the inferior, natural operations of all beatified\nangels and men. If supernatural beatitude were the exclusive end of\nthe creation, there would be no reason why these inferior operations\nshould continue, any more than the exercise of faith, hope, patience,\nfortitude, or works of merit, which, being exclusively ordained as\nmeans for attaining beatitude, cease when the end is gained. The\nbeatific act would swallow up the entire activity of the beatified,\nand all inferior life would cease. For the same reason, all corporeal\nand material organization would be swept out of the way as a useless\nscaffolding, and only beatified spirits, exclusively occupied in the\nimmediate contemplation of God, would continue to exist for ever.\n\n{158}\n\nThis is not so, however. The body is to rise again and live for ever.\nThe universe is to remain for ever, with all its various grades of\nexistence, including even the lowest, or those which are purely\nmaterial. There is therefore a natural order coexisting with the\nsupernatural in a subordinate relation to it--a minor and less\nprincipal part, but still an integral part of the divine, creative\nplan. There is a _cognitio matutina_ and a _cognitio vespertina_, a\nmatutinal and vesperal knowledge, in the blessed; the one being the\nimmediate intuition of the trinity in unity, the other the mediate\nintuition of the idea or infinite archetype of creation in God,\nthrough his creative act. There is a natural intellectual life in the\nangels, and a natural intellectual and physical life in man, in the\nbeatific state. The natural order is preserved and perfected in the\nsupernatural order, with all its beauty and felicity--with its\nscience, virtue, love, friendship, and society. The material world is\neverlasting, together with the spiritual. All orders together make up\nthe universe; and it is the whole complex of diverse and multitudinous\nexistences which completely expresses the divine idea and fulfils the\ndivine purpose of the creator. The metaphysical finality or apex of\nthe creative act is in the incarnate Word, but the relation to the\nfinal cause exists in everything, and is fulfilled in the universe as\na totality, which embraces in one harmonious plan all things that have\nbeen created, and culminates in Jesus Christ, through the hypostatic\nunion of the divine and human natures in his person.\n\nIn this universe there may be an order of intelligent existences,\ntouching at its lowest point the highest point of irrational\nexistence, and at its highest point the lowest in the grade of the\nbeatified spirits. That inferior order of knowledge and felicity may\nexist distinctly and separately which exists conjointly with\nsupernatural beatitude in the kingdom of heaven. The perfection of the\nuniverse requires that there should be a beatified, glorified order at\nits summit. It may even the maintained that this consummation of\ncreated nature in the highest possible end is the only one which the\ndivine wisdom could propose in creating. Yet this does not exclude the\npossibility of an inferior order of intelligence, upon which the grace\nelevating it to a supernatural state is not conferred.\n\nWe are prepared, therefore, to proceed to the consideration of the\nnature and conditions of that grace, as a cure, gratuitous gift of\nGod, conferred upon angels and upon the human race through his free\nand sovereign goodness. From the point of view to which the previous\nreasoning has conducted us, the angels and mankind appear to us, not\nas mere species of rational creatures conducted by their creator along\nthe path of rational development by natural law, but as the elect\nheirs of an entirely gratuitous inheritance of glory--candidates for a\ndestiny entirely supernatural. The relation which they sustain to God\nin this supernatural scheme of grace will therefore be our topic next\nin order.\n\n--------\n\n{159}\n\nOriginal\n\nSONG.\n\n\n  What magician pulls the string\n  That uncurtains pretty Spring?\n  And the swallow with his wing\n      Against the sky 1\n  Who brings the branch its green,\n  And the honey-bee a queen?\n      \"Is it I?\"\n      Said April, \"I?\"\n      \"Yes, 'tis I.\"\n\n  What a\u00ebrial artist limns\n  Rock and cloud, with brush that dims\n  Titian's oils and Hogarth's whims\n       In shape and dye?\n  What Florimel embowers\n  Lawn and lake with arching flowers?\n      \"Is it I?\"\n      Said bright July, \"I?\"\n      \"Yes, 'tis I.\"\n\n  What good genii drop the grains\n  Of brown sugar in the canes?\n  Who fills up the apple's veins\n      With sweetened dew?\n  Who hangs the painted air\n  With the grape and golden pear?\n      Is it you,\n      October? You?\n      Yes, 'tis you.\n\n  Who careering sweeps the plain,\n  Scoffing at the violet's pain.\n  Echoing back and back again\n      His wild halloo?\n  Who makes the Yule-fire foam\n  Round the happy hearth of home?\n      Is it you,\n      December? You?\n      Aye, 'tis you.\n\nT. W. K.\n\n--------\n\n{160}\n\n\nFrom The Dublin University Magazine,\n\nCOWARDICE AND COURAGE.\n\n\nShakespeare, the universal teacher, who knew every phase of the heart,\nand touched every chord of feeling, has declared aphoristically,\nspeaking as Julius Caesar:\n\n  \"Cowards die many times before their deaths;\n  The valiant only taste of death but once.\n  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.\n  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;\n  Seeing that death, a necessary end,\n  Will come when it will come.\"\n\nNotwithstanding this, fear is one of the strongest impulses of our\nnature--fear of discovery, shame, or punishment when we have done\nwrong: fear of pain, danger, or death. Dr. Johnson said in\nconversation: \"Fear is one of the passions of humanity of which it is\nimpossible to divest it. You all remember that the Emperor Charles V.,\nwhen he read upon the tomb of a Spanish nobleman, 'Here lies one who\nnever knew fear,' wittily observed, 'Then he never snuffed a candle\nwith his fingers.'\" In opposition to this we may quote an anecdote\ntold of Lord Howe, when in command of the Channel Fleet. One night he\nwas suddenly awakened by an officer, who, in great trepidation, told\nhim the ship was on fire close to the powder-room; the admiral coolly\nreplied: \"If it is so, sir, we shall very soon know it.\" Some minutes\nafterwards the lieutenant returned, and told his lordship he had no\noccasion to be afraid, for the fire was extinguished. \"Afraid!\"\nreplied Lord Howe, hastily; \"what do you mean by that, sir? I never\nwas afraid in my life.\"\n\nNo emotions of the human frame are more opposite than cowardice and\ncourage, each taken in its simple sense, yet both spring from the same\nsources--physical temperament early training. We do not make our own\nnervous system, which is often grievously tampered with or perverted\nby silly, ill-conditioned nurses, servants, and teachers, who\nfrightened children with tales of bugbears, monsters and hobgoblins,\nuntil they scream if left in the dark for a moment, and dare not sleep\nin a room by themselves. Pillory or flogging at the cart's tail would\nbe too mild a punishment for those moral Thugs, who strangle wholesome\nfeelings in the first dawn of their existence, and supply their place\nwith baneful impressions, which, strongly implanted in early youth,\ngrow and strengthen to a period of life when reason on to subdue them,\nbut frequently fails to do so. Viewed in this light, constitutional\ntimidity is a misfortune rather than a crime, however contemptible it\nmay be considered; while mere animal insensibility to danger, which\nreadily calls for admiration, has no claim to rank as a virtue. We\nspeak not here of the moral courage which may be engrafted on a nature\noriginally pusillanimous, by pride, education or a sense of duty and\nstation. Henry IV., of France, and Frederick the Great, of Prussia,\nare illustrious examples of this victory of over matter. Both were\ninstinctively afraid of danger, and both are recorded as evincing\nperfect self-possession and displaying prodigies of valor in many a\nhotly-contested field. Henry's flesh quivered the first time he found\nhimself in action, although his heart was firm. \"Villanous nature, I\nwill make thee ashamed of thyself!\" he exclaimed, as he spurred his\nhorse through a {161} breach before which the bravest veterans paused;\nand ever afterward the white plume was recognized as the rallying\npoint of battle. Frederick turned from the field of Molwitz, and left\nhis marshals to win the day without him; but it was his first and only\nmoment of wavering through a life of hard campaigns.\n\nSome natures are so constant that no surprise can shake them. An\ninstance occurs in the career of Crillon, called by distinction, \"The\nBrave,\" in an Army where all were valiant. He was stationed with a\nsmall detachment in a lone house. Some young officers, in the dead of\nnight, raised a cry that the enemy were upon them, a company by loud\nshouts and the firing of musketry. Crillon started from his bed,\nseized his sword, and rushed down-stairs in his shirt, calling on all\nto follow him and die at their posts like men. A burst of laughter\nbehind arrested his steps, and he at once penetrated the joke. He\nre-ascendant, and seizing one of the perpetrators roughly by the arm,\nexplained: \"Young man, it is well for you that your trick failed. Had\nyou thrown me off my guard, you would have been the first I should\nhave sacrificed to my lost honor. Take warning, and deal in no such\nfolly for the future.\"\n\nCharles XII. was gifted from infancy with iron nerves. \"What is that\nnoise?\" he asked, as the balls whistling past him when landing in\nDenmark--a mere stripling, under a heavy fire. \"The sound of the shot\nthe fire at your majesty,\" replied Marshal Renschild. \"Good!\" said the\nking; \"henceforth that shall be my music.\" And so he made it, with\nlittle intermission, until the last and fatal bullet, whether fired by\ntraitor or foe, which entered his brain, and finished his wild career\nat Fredericshall, eighteen years later.\n\nMurat and Lannes were the admitted paladins of the Imperial army; yet\nboth once came to a stand-still before the battery which vomited forth\nfire and death. \"Rascals!\" muttered Napoleon, bitterly; \"have I made\nyou too rich?\" Stung by the taunt, they rushed on, and the victory was\ngained. No epidemic is so contagious as a panic. When once caught, it\nexpands with the velocity of an ignited train. A celebrated case\noccurred in Henry the Eighth's time, at the Battle of the Spurs, in\n1513, so called because the defeated force fled with such haste that\nit was impossible for the best mounted cavaliers to overtake them.\nThus the killed and wounded made but a poor figure. Then came Falkirk,\nin 1746, of which Horace Walpole said: \"The fighting lay in a small\ncompass, the greater part of both armies running away.\" Then the\nmemorable \"Races of Castlebar,\" of which the less that is said the\nbetter; then the _sauve qui peut_ of Waterloo; and though last, far\nfrom least, the pell-mell rout of Bull's Run, which inaugurated the\nlate American war. Livy records, and Sir William Napier quotes the\nanecdote, that after a drawn battle a god, calling out in the night,\ndeclared that the Etruscans had lost one man more than the Romans!\nwhereupon a panic fell on the former, and they abandoned the field to\ntheir adversaries, who gathered all the fruits of a real victory.\n\nThere are some who think they can face danger and death until the\nmoment of trial arrives, and then their nerves give way. In the\nbiographies of John Graham, Viscount of Dundee, we find it related\nthat, during the civil wars of that period, a friend of his, a loyal\nand devoted partisan of the house of Stuart, like himself, committed\nhis favorite son to his charge. \"I give him to the king's cause,\" said\nthe father; \"take care that he does not dishonor his name and race. I\ndepend on you to look after him.\" In the first action, the unlucky\nyouth exhibited undoubted symptoms of cowardice. Dundee took him aside\nand said  \"The service in which we are engaged is desperate, {162} and\nrequires desperate resolution on the part of all concerned in it. You\nhave mistaken your trade. Go home, before worse happens.\" The youth\nshed bitter tears, said it was a momentary weakness, implored for\nanother trial, and promised to behave better the next time. Dundee\nrelented. The next trial soon came, with the same result. Dundee rode\nup to the recreant, pistol in hand, and exclaiming, \"Your father's son\nshall never die by the hands of the hangman,\" shot him dead upon the\nspot.\n\nExperienced military authorities have delivered their opinion that of\none hundred rank and file, taken indiscriminately--Alexanders at\nsix-pence per diem, as Voltaire sneeringly designates them--one third\nare determined daredevils, who will face any danger, and flinch from\nnothing; the next division are waverers, equally disposed to stand or\nrun, and likely to be led either way by example; while the residue are\nrank cowards. Dr. Johnson took a more unfavorable view. At a dinner at\nGeneral Paoli's, in 1778, when fears of an invasion were circulated,\nMr. John Spottiswoode, the solicitor, observed that Mr. Fraser, an\nengineer, who had recently visited Dunkirk, said the French had the\nsame fears of us. \"It is thus,\" remarked Dr. Johnson, \"that mutual\ncowardice keeps us in peace. Were one half mankind brave, and one half\ncowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all\nbrave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually\nfighting; but being all cowards, we go on tolerably well.\"\n\nIt is difficult to invest with interest a quality so universally held\nin contempt as cowardice; yet Sir Walter Scott has succeeded in\nobtaining sympathy for _Conachar_, or _Eachin M'Ian_. the young\nHighland chieftain, in the Fair Maid of Perth. He evidently conceived\nthe character _con amore_, and has elaborated it with skill and care.\n\nMontaigne observes of fear that it is a surprisal of the heart upon\nthe apprehension of approaching evil; and if it reaches the degree of\nterror,  and the evil seems impendent, the hair is raised on end, and\nthe whole body put into horror and trembling. After this, if the\npassion continues, the spirits are thrown into confusion, so that they\ncannot execute their offices; the usual successors of reason fail,\njudgment is blinded, the powers of voluntary motion become weak, and\nthe heart is insufficient to maintain the circulation of the blood,\nwhich, stopping and stagnating in the ventricles, causes painting and\nswooning, and sometimes sudden death. The quaint old essayist then\nillustrates by examples. He tells of a jester who had contrived to\ngive his master, a petty prince of Italy, a hearty ducking and a\nfright to boot, to cure him of an ague. The treatment succeeded; but\nthe autocrat, by way of retaliation, had his audacious physician tried\nfor treason, and condemned to lose his had. The criminal was brought\nforth, the priest received his confession, and the luckless buffoon\nknelt to prepare for the blow. Instead of wielding his axe, the\nexecutioner, as he had been instructed, threw a pitcher of water on\nthe bare neck of the criminal. Here the jest was to have ended; but\nthe shock was too great for poor Gonella, who was found dead on the\nblock.\n\nMontaigne also says, that fear manifests its utmost power and effect\nwhen it throws men into a valiant despair, having before deprived them\nof all sense both of duty and honor. In the first great battle of the\nRomans against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of twenty\nthousand men that had taken flight, seeing no other escape for their\ncowardice, threw themselves headlong upon the great mass of their\npursuing enemies, with wonderful force and fury they charged, and cut\na passage through, with a prodigious slaughter of the Carthaginians;\nthus purchasing an ignominious retreat at the same price which might\nhave won for them glorious victory.\n\n{163}\n\nBut if fear is a destructive, it also sometimes acts in an opposite\nsense. Dr. Thomas Bartoline tells us in his history of anatomy, that\nfear has been known to cure epilepsy, gout, and ague. He relates that\na woman of condition, who was affected with the tertian ague, was so\nterrified by the explosion of a bomb, which was fired off during her\nfit, that she fainted away and was thought to be dead. \"Having then\nsent for me to see her,\" he adds, \"and finding her pulse still pretty\nstrong, I prescribed for her some slight cordials, and she soon\nrecovered from her state of weakness without any appearance of fever,\nwhich had afterward no return.\"\n\nBartoline says again that a young lady who had a quartan ague for\nseveral months successively, was invited by some of her acquaintance\nto take an excursion on the water, with a view to dissipate the\nmelancholy ideas occasioned by her illness; but they had scarcely got\ninto the boat when it began to sink, and all were terribly shocked\nwith the dread of perishing. After escaping this danger, the patient\nfound that the terror had cured her ailment, and she had no return of\nthe ague.\n\nA third instance recorded by Bartoline is even more extraordinary than\nthe two we have already named. A man forty-two years of age, of a hot\nand moist constitution, subject to a colic, but the fits not violent,\nwas seized one evening, about sunset, with an internal cold, though\nthe weather on that day was unusually warm. Different medicines were\nadministered to him, but without success. He died within eighteen or\nnineteen hours, without the least agitation or any of the convulsions\nthat frequently accompany the parting agony, so that he seemed to\nsubside into a placid sleep. His friends requested Dr. Bartoline to\nopen his body, and it was found that he had died of a mortification of\nthe punereus. He was a very fat subject, and what was surprising in to\nhuge and corpulent a body, his bones were as small as those of a young\ngirl, and his muscles extremely weak, thin, and membraneous rather\nthan fleshy. While the doctor was making these observations on the\ndissected corpse, a brother of the deceased, who had been absent for\nsixteen years, and was of the same size, constitution, and habit of\nbody, entered the room suddenly and unexpectedly. He looked on the\nremains of his relative, heard the detail of the circumstances of his\ndeath, the cause of which he saw confirmed with his own eyes, and\nreasoned for some time calmly and sensibly on the mournful event. All\nat once he became stupefied, speechless, and fell into a fainting fit,\nfrom which neither balsams nor stimulants, nor any of the remedies\nresorted to in such cases, could recover him. The opening of a vein\nwas suggested, but this advice was not followed. All present appeared\nas if paralyzed with horror. The patient seemed to be without pulse or\nrespiration, his limbs began to stiffen, and he was pronounced to be\non the point of expiring. A sudden idea struck Bartoline, for which he\nsays he could not account, but he said aloud, \"Let us recompose the\ndead body and sew it up; in the meantime the other will be quite dead,\nand I will dissect him also.\" The words were scarcely uttered when the\ngentleman supposed to be _in articulo mortis_ started up from the sofa\non which he had been laid, roared out with the lungs of a bull,\nsnatched up his cloak, took to his heels, as if nothing had happened\nto him, and lived for many years after in an excellent slate of\nhealth.\n\nFear has been known to turn the hair in a single night from black to\ngrey or white. This happened, amongst others, to Ludovico Sforza. The\nsame is asserted of Queen Marie Antoinette, although not so suddenly,\nand, as some say, from grief, not fear. The Emperor Louis, of Bavaria,\nanno 1256, suspected his wife, Mary of Brabant, without just cause,\ncondemned her, unheard, for adultery, and caused her chief\nlady-in-waiting, who was also {164} innocent, to be cast headlong from\na tower, as a confederate in his dishonor. Soon after this horrible\ncruelty he was visited by a fearful vision one night, and rose in the\nmorning with his dark locks as white as snow.\n\nA young Spaniard of noble family, Don Diego Osorio, being in love with\na lady of the court, prevailed on her to grant him an interview by\nnight in the royal gardens. The barking of a little dog betrayed them.\nThe gallant was seized by the guard and conveyed to prison. It was a\ncapital crime to be found in that place without special permission,\nand therefore he was condemned to die. The reading of the sentence so\nunmanned him that the next morning he stood in presence of his jailer\nwith a furrowed visage and grey hair. The fact being reported to King\nFerdinand as a prodigy, he was moved to compassion, and pardoned the\nculprit, saying, he had been sufficiently punished in exchanging the\nbloom of youth for the hoary aspect of age. The same happened to the\nfather of Martin Delrio, who, lying sick in bed, heard the physicians\nsay he would certainly die. He recovered, but the fright gave him a\ngrey head in a few hours, and this instance of the terror he had\nsuffered never afterward left him.\n\nRobert Boyle, in his Philosophical Examples, relates the following\nincident of the same class: \"Being about four or six years since,\" he\nsays, \"in the county of Cork, there was an Irish captain, a man of\nmiddle age and stature, who came with some of his followers to\nsurrender himself to the Lord Broghill, who then commanded the English\nforces in those parts, upon a public offer of pardon to the Irish that\nwould lay down their arms. He was casually met with in a suspicious\nplace by a party of the English, and intercepted, the Lord Broghill\nbeing then absent. He was so apprehensive of being put to death before\nthe return of the commander-in-chief, that his anxiety of mind quickly\naltered the color of his hair in a peculiar manner. It was not\nuniformly changed, but here and there certain peculiar tufts and\nlocks, whose bases might be about an inch in diameter were suddenly\nturned white alone; the rest of his hair, whereof the Irish used to\nwear good store, retained its natural reddish color.\"\n\nA sudden shock operates on the memory as well as on the hair. In\nPliny's Natural History we read of one who, being struck violently and\nunexpectedly by a stone, forgot his letters, and could never write\nagain; another, he says, through a fall from the roof of a very high\nhouse, lost his remembrance of his own mother, his nearest kinsfolks,\nfriends, and neighbors; and a third, in a fit of sickness, ceased to\nrecognize his own servants. Messala Corvinus, the great orator, being\nstartled suddenly, forgot his own name, and was unable to remember it\nfor a considerable time. The same thing happened to Sidney Smith, not\nfrom fear, but from absence of mind. He called on a friend, who was\nnot at home, and he happened to have no card to leave. \"What name,\nsir?\" said the servant. \"That's exactly what I can't tell you,\" was\nthe reply.\n\nAugustus Caesar was not a valiant man, in the popular acceptation of\nthe word. He shrank in his tent from the onset at Philippi, skulked in\nthe hold of the admiral's galley during the sea-fight with Sextus\nPompey in the Straits of Messina, and was a safe spectator on shore at\nActium. Antony, and even his own friend and lieutenant, Agrippa,\ntaunted him with his want of courage. He was so terrified at thunder\nand lightning that he always carried with him the skin of a sea-calf\nas an antidote. If he suspected the approach of a tempest, he ran to\nsome underground vault until the symptoms passed over. Yet Suetonius\nsays he once, under necessity, showed a bold front to a danger he\ncould not avoid. He was walking abroad with Diomedes, his steward,\nwhen a wild boar, which had broken loose, rushed directly toward them.\n{165} Thus steward in his terror, ran behind the emperor and\ninterposed him as a shield betwixt the assailant and himself. Augustus\nstood his ground, because flight was barred, and the boar turned tail.\nBut knowing that fear, not malice, had prompted the conduct of his\nservant, he had the magnanimity to confine his resentment to a\nperpetual just. Caligula, who affected to contemn the gods, was\nequally terrified with Augustus at the least indication of thunder and\nlightning. He covered his head, and if the explosions chanced to be\nloud and near, leaped from his couch and hid himself under it.\n\nHistory mentions several sovereigns who loved war, but had no taste\nfor personal participation in its perils. Charles the Fifth, and his\nson, Philip the second, are amongst the number, The leading\ncharacteristic of the latter was cruelty, a disposition generally\nassociated with cowardice. Diocletian, after he became emperor, fought\nmore by his lieutenants than in person. Lactantius said of him that he\nwas timid and spiritless in all situations of danger. _Erat in omni\ntumultu meticulosus et animi dejectus_.  [Footnote 35]\n\n  [Footnote 35: Lactant. De Mortibus Persecutorum, c. ix.]\n\nA commander should be self-collected in a battle, calm under a shower\nof darts or the whistling of artillery; but to prove his courage, he\nis not called upon to charge windmills with the chivalric madness of\nDon Quixote, or to slay eight hundred enemies with his own hand, as\nrecorded of Aurelian and Richard Coeur de Lion. Charles of Sweden and\nAttila loved fighting for fighting's sake; for the _certaminis\ngaudia_, as Cassiodorus writes; \"the rapture of the strife,\" as Lord\nByron translates the passage. Yet a brave general is not obliged to be\na vulture snuffing blood like the truculent king of the Huns. He can\nmaintain his reputation for personal courage without jumping alone\ninto the midst of an army of foes, as Alexander did from the walls of\nOxydrace; or resisting a host of many thousands with three hundred\nmen, as Charles XII. did at Bender; or of placing his foot first on\nthe scaling ladder in emulation of the extreme daring of the Constable\nBourbon, under extreme circumstances, at the storming of Rome. Charles\nthe First lacked _moral_ courage, but he was no craven physically. His\nbravery in the field, and calm dignity on the scaffold, went far in\natonement of his political weaknesses and shortcomings.\n\nThe mind naturally revolts from sudden or violent death. Yet it has\nits recommendations. It is never painful. The important consideration\nis lest it should be unprepared for. We mourn the loss of a friend or\nrelative who is killed in battle more than we do that of one who dies\nin the course of nature, or of an incidental fever. We lament a\nsoldier's death because it seems untimely. A sufferer who languishes\nof disease, ends his life with more pain but with less credit. He\nleaves no example to be quoted, no honor to be cherished as an\nheirloom by his descendants. We affect to be greatly shocked at the\nmisfortunes or death of a friend or acquaintance, but there is\nsomething pharisaical in this exuberance of sympathy, only we are\nunwilling to confess the truth openly.\n\nFoote, who was a scoffer, and in all respects an irreligious man,\nsaid, when very ill, that he was not afraid to die. David Hume, an\n_esprit fort_ of a more pretentious character, declared that it gave\nhim no more uneasiness to think he should not be after this life, than\nthat he had not been before he began to exist. An ingenious sophistry,\nlike his essay on miracles. We do not believe that any one ever really\npersuaded himself that he was not a responsible being, and not\nanswerable for his deeds done in the flesh. Sir Henry Halford, in his\nessays, expresses his surprise that of the great number of patients he\nhad attended, so few appeared reluctant to die. \"We may suppose,\" he\nadds, \"that this willingness to submit to the common and irresistible\ndoom, arises from an {166} impatience of suffering, or from that\npassive indifference which is sometimes the result of debility and\nextreme bodily pain.\"\n\nThemistocles was quite as unwilling to die, although he assigned a\nbetter reason for his love of life. Finding his mental and physical\npowers beginning to decay, in such a manner as to indicate his\napproaching end, he grieved that he must now depart, when, as he said,\nhe was only beginning to grow wise. As an instance of superstitious\nterror, Plutarch tells us that Amestis, the wife of the great Xerxes,\nburied twelve persons alive, offering them as a sacrifice to Pluto for\nthe prolongation of her own days. Mecaenas, the great patron of\nlearning, and favorite of Augustus, had such a horror of death, that\nhe had often in his mouth, \"all things are to be endured so long as\nlife is continued.\" The Emperor Domitian, from innate timidity, caused\nthe walls of the galleries wherein he took daily recreation to be\ngarnished with the stone called phangites, the brightness of which\nreflected all that was passing behind him. Theophrastus, the\nphilosopher, who lived to be one hundred and seven years of age, was\nso attached to life that he complained of the partiality of nature in\ngranting longevity to the crow and the stag beyond that accorded to\nman. Plutarch, in his life of Pericles, names a skilful engineer\ncalled Artemon, who was withal so timorous that he was frightened at\nhis own shadow, and seldom stirred out of his house for fear some\naccident should betide him. Two of his servants always held a brazen\ntarget over his head lest anything might fall upon it; and if\nnecessity compelled him to go abroad, he never walked, but was carried\nin a litter which hung within an inch or two of the ground.\n\nWe read, in a more recent author, of a certain Rhodius, who, being\nsentenced to perpetual imprisonment in a dungeon, by a tyrant, for\nindulging in unseasonable liberty of speech, was treated in all\nrespects like a caged beast, with great torture and ignominy. His food\nwas scanty and loathsome; his hands were amputated, his face gashed\nand disfigured with wounds. In this miserable plight, some of his\nfriends suggested to him to put an end to his sufferings by voluntary\nstarvation. \"No,\" he replied; \"while life remains all things are to be\nhoped for.\" He clung to mere existence when death would have been a\nrelief. How are we to reconcile or account for these strange\ncontradictions? The sum of all appears to be that human nature is a\ncomplex mystery, beyond the powers of man to fathom with the limited\nfaculties attached to his transitory condition.\n\nLet us turn now to a more attractive quality, courage and, manly\ndaring as exhibited in life and and death, particularly in the \"last\nscene of all.\" _Finis coranat opus_--the end crowns the work. When\nEpaminondas asked whether Chabrias, Iphicrates or himself deserved the\nhighest place in the esteem of their fellow-beings, he replied, \"You\nmust see us die before that question can be answered.\" His own exit at\nMantinea, in the moment of a glorious victory, was singularly\nbrilliant, and his parting sentiments illustrated the purity of his\nlife. The situation finds an exact parallel in the fall of Gustavus\nAdolphus, under the same circumstances, at Lutzen. The name of the\npatriot who seals with blood his devotion to his cause, on a winning\nfield, is encircled with and imperishable halo of glory, the thought\nof which would stir the pulse of an anchorite. Claverhouse, in Old\nMortality, describes the feeling with true military enthusiasm. \"It is\nnot,\" he says, \"the expiring pang that is worth thinking of in an\nevent that must happen one day, and may befall us at any moment--it is\nthe memory which the soldier leaves behind him, like the long train of\nlight that follows the sunken sun; that is all which is worth caring\nfor, which distinguishes the death of the brave or the ignoble. When I\nthink of death, as a chance of {167} almost hourly occurrence in the\ncourse before me, it is in the hope of pressing one day some\nwell-fought and hard-won field of battle, and expiring with the shout\nof victory in my ear; _that_ would be worth dying for, and more, it\nwould be worth having lived for.\" And so fell the real Claverhouse on\nthe field of Killiecrankie, and with him vanished the passing gleam of\nsunshine in the fortunes of the master he served so loyally and well.\nHad he lived to improve his victory, he would have been in Edinburgh\nin two or three days, and it is difficult to say what turn the pages\nof coming history might then have taken. As soon as it was known that\nhe was killed, his army of Highland clans dispersed, and never\ncollected again. They were held together by his single name, and had\nno faith in any other leader.\n\nA heathen poet, Antiphanes, who lived a century earlier than Socrates\nor his pupil Plato, and five hundred years before the Christian\nrevelation, has a remarkable passage to this effect, of which the\nfollowing verbal translation is given by Addison in the Spectator:\n\"Grieve not above measure for deceased friends. They are not dead, but\nhave only finished that journey we are all necessitated to take. We\nourselves must go to that great place of reception in which they are\nall of them assembled, and in this general rendezvous of mankind live\ntogether in another state of being.\"\n\nMen of the most opposite characters have jested on the point of death.\nSir Thomas More, a Christian philosopher, said to the executioner,\n\"Good friend, let me put my beard out of the way, for that has\ncommitted no offence against the king.\"\n\nThe following instance, recorded by the Abb\u00e9 Vertot, in his history of\nthe revolutions of Portugal, may claim comparison, for intrepidity and\ngreatness of soul, with anything that we read of in Greek or Roman\nlore. When Don Sebastian, King of Portugal, invaded the territories of\nMuley Moloch, Emperor of Morocco to de-throne him and set his crown on\nthe head of his nephew, Moloch was wearing away with a distemper which\nhe himself knew and felt to be incurable. However, he prepared for the\nreception of the formidable foreign enemy. He was so utterly exhausted\nby his malady, that he scarcely expected to outlive the day when the\ndecisive battle was fought at Alcazar. But knowing the fatal\nconsequences that would happen to his children and people in case he\nshould die before he put an end to that war, he gave directions to his\nprincipal officers that if he died during the engagement they should\nconceal his death from the army, and should ride up to the litter in\nwhich his corpse was carried, under pretence of receiving orders from\nhim as usual. Before the action began he was carried through all the\nranks of his host, with the curtains of the litter drawn up, as they\nstood in battle array, and encouraged them to fight valiantly in\ndefence of their religion and country. Finding the action at one\nperiod of the day turning against him, and seeing that the decisive\nmoment had arrived, he, though verging on his last agonies, threw\nhimself out of his litter. The enthusiasm of his spirit for the moment\nconquered the feebleness of his body; he was lifted upon a horse,\nrallied his troops, and led them to a renewed charge, which ended in a\ncomplete victory on the side of the Moors. The King of Portugal was\nkilled. At least, he disappeared mysteriously, and never was seen\nagain; his body, like that of James the Fourth at Flodden, was not\nclearly identified, and more than one pretender from time to time came\nforward to personate him; his entire army was dispersed, slain, or\nrendered captive. Muley Moloch lived to witness the effect of his\ncharge, when nature gave way; his officers replaced him in his litter;\nhe was unable to speak, but laying his finger on his lips to enjoin\nsecrecy on all who stood around him, died a few moments afterwards in\nthat posture.\n\n{168}\n\nFortitude and valor are, after all, more derived from constitution and\nexample than from any inherent power of the mind. When Sylla beheld\nhis army on the point of defeat by Archelaus, the general of\nMithridates, he alighted from his horse, snatched a standard from the\nbearer, and rushing with it into the midst of the enemy, cried out,\n\"Here, comrades, I intend to die; but for you, when asked where you\nleft your general, remember it was at Orchomenus.\" The soldiers, moved\nby his speech and example, returned to their ranks, renewed the fight,\nand converted an imminent overthrow into a decisive victory. At\nMarathon, Cynegirus, an Athenian, having pursued the Persians to their\nships, grasped a boat in which some of them were putting off from the\nshore, with his right hand, holding it until his hand was cut off; he\nthen seized it with the left, which was also immediately severed.\nAfter that, he retained it with his teeth, nor did he relinquish that\nlast hold until his fleeting breath failed, and thereby disappointed\nthe resolute intention of his mind.\n\nThe exploits of Mutius Seaevola, who thrust his hand into the fire to\nfrighten Porsenna, and of Horatius Cocles, who defended a bridge\nsingly against an army, are familiar to every school-boy. The latter,\nin the glowing verses of Macaulay, is a favorite subject of selection\nat school speech-days, and for public readings or recitations.\nAccording to the same authority, Plutarch, the heroism of Seaevola had\nbeen anticipated by Agesilaus, the brother of Themistocles. When\nXerxes arrived with his countless hosts at Cape Artemisium, the bold\nAthenian, disguised as a Persian, came into the camp of the\nbarbarians, and slew one of the captains of the royal guard, supposing\nhe had been the king himself. He was immediately brought before\nXerxes, who was then offering sacrifices upon the altar of the Sun.\nAgesilaus thrust his hand into the flame, and endured the torture\nwithout sigh or groan. Xerxes  ordered them to loose him. \"All we\nAthenians,\" said Agesilaus, \"are of the same determination. If thou\nwilt not believe it, I will also suffer my left hand to be consumed by\nthe fire.\" The king, awed and impressed with respect for such\nundaunted constancy, commanded him to be carefully kept and well\ntreated. Did one story suggest the other, or are both real  or\nfabulous?\n\nValerius Maximus relates the following anecdote: \"After the ancient\ncustom of the Macedonians, certain noble youths waited on Alexander\nthe Great when he sacrificed to the gods. One of these, holding a\ncenser in his hand, stood before the king. It chanced that a live coal\nfell upon his arm, and so burnt it that the smell of the charred flesh\naffected the bystanders; yet the sufferer suppressed the pain, in\nsilence, and held his arm immovable, lest by shaking the censer he\nshould interrupt the sacrifice, or by his groaning disturb the king.\nAlexander, that he might still further try his fortitude, purposely\ncontinued and protracted the sacrifice; yet the noble-hearted boy\npersisted in his resolute intention.\" To this rare instance of\nfortitude he adds another. \"Anaxarchus, a philosopher of Abdera, was\nremarkable for freedom of speech, which no personal consideration\nrestrained. He was a friend of Alexander, and when the great conqueror\nwas wounded, said bluntly, 'Behold the blood of a man and not of a\ngod.' But Alexander was too noble to be offended at such a home truth.\nIt was otherwise with Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus, to whose court\nAnaxarchus betook himself on the death of Alexander. When the sage\nopenly reproached him with his cruelties, Nicocreon seized and\nthreatened to pound him in a stone mortar with iron hammers. 'Pound\nthe body of Anaxarchus at thy pleasure,' exclaimed he; 'his soul thou\ncanst not pound.' The tyrant, in a paroxysm of rage, ordered his\ntongue to be cut from his mouth. {169} 'Effeminate wretch,' cried the\nundaunted monitor, 'neither shall that part of my body be at thy\ndisposal.' So saying, he bit off his own tongue, and spat it in the\nface of his persecutor.\"\n\nBacon, in his History of Life and Death, mentions a certain tradition\nof a man, who being under the executioner's hands for high treason,\nafter his heart was plucked from his body, was yet heard to murmur\nseveral words of prayer. He also instances another strange example in\nthe case of the Burgundian who murdered the Prince of Orange. When the\nfirst part of his sentence, which only related to cutting off his\ncurls of hair, was carried out, he absolutely shed shed tears; yet,\nwhen scourged with rods of iron, and his flesh torn with red-hot\npincers, he uttered neither sigh nor grown. Before his sense of\nfeeling became extinct under reiterated tortures, a part of the\nscaffold fell on the head of a spectator. The criminal was observed to\nlaugh at the accident.\n\nIt is recorded of Caius Marius, seven times Roman consul, and conquer\nof the Cimbri and Teutones, that a short time before his death, in his\nseventieth year, a swelling in the leg location the necessity of its\nbeing cut off. To this he submitted without a distortion of the face\nor any visible sign of suffering. The surgeon told him the other leg\nwas as badly affected and peremptorily demanded the same remedy, if he\nwished his life to be prolonged. \"No,\" said Marius, \"the pain is\ngreater than the advantage.\" Something very similar occurred at the\ndeath of General Moreau on the field of Dresden, in 1813. A cannon\nball, as he was in conversation with the Emperor of Russia, shattered\nhis right knee, passed through the body of the horse, and left his\nother leg suspended by a few ligaments. He sat up and coolly smoked a\ncigar while undergoing the amputation of the left. On being told that\nhe must also lose the right, he shrugged his shoulders, and said to\nthe surgeons, \"On with your work, if it must be so; but if I had known\nat the beginning, I would have kept my legs and spared your trouble.\"\nHe survived only a few hours.\n\nIn 1571 Marc Antonio Bragandino, a noble Venetian, who was governor of\nFamagusta, in the island of Cyprus, defended that city with\nindomitable perseverance during a long siege, which cost Mustapha, the\ngeneral of the Turkish army, many thousands of his bravest soldiers.\nThe promised aid from Venice not arriving in time, Bragandino was\ncompelled to surrender on honorable conditions, which Mustapha\nviolated with consummate treachery. He caused the principal officers\nto be beheaded in sight of their commander, who was reserved for a\nmore inhuman punishment. Three times the scimetar was drawn across his\nthroat, that he might endure the pain of more than one death, yet the\nillustrious victim quailed not nor wavered in his intrepid demeanor.\nHis nose and ears were then cut off, and loaded with chains he was\ncompelled to carry earth in a hod to those who were repairing the\nfortifications. With this heavy burden he was forced to bend and kiss\nthe ground every time he passed before Mustapha. Still his courage\nsupported him, and he kept dignified silence. Finally he was lashed to\nthe yard-arm of one of the Turkish galleys, and flayed alive. He\nendured all with unshaken firmness, and to the last reproached the\ninfidels with their perfidy and inhumanity. His skin was carried in\nparade along the coasts of Syria and Egypt, and deposited in the\narsenal of Constantinople, whence it was obtained by the children of\nthe illustrious hero, and preserved as the most glorious relic in\ntheir family.\n\nWe find it written in Baker's Chronicle that King William Rufus, being\nreconciled to his brother Robert, assisted him to recover Fort St.\nMichael, in Normandy, forcibly held by Prince Henry, afterwards Henry\nthe First. During the siege, William one day {170} happening to be\nriding carelessly along the shore, was set upon by three knights, who\nassaulted him so fiercely that they drew him from his saddle, and the\nsaddle from his horse. But catching up his saddle, and drawing his\nsword, he defended himself until rescue came. Being afterwards blamed\nfor his obstinacy in risking his life for a trifling part of his\nequipment, \"It would have angered me to the very heart,\" he replied,\n\"that the knaves should have bragged they had won the saddle from me.\"\nThe same authority tells us that \"Malcolm, king of the Scots, a\ncontemporary of William Rufus, was a most valiant prince, as appears\nby an act of his of an extraordinary strain. Hearing of a conspiracy\nand plot to murder him, by one whose name is not recorded, he\ndissembled all knowledge of it, till being abroad one day hunting in\ncompany with the concealed traitor, he took him apart in a wood, and\nbeing alone, 'Here now,' said he, 'is fit time and place to do that\nmanfully which you intended to do treacherously; draw your weapon, and\nif you now kill me, none being present, you can incur no danger.' By\nthis speech of the king's the fellow was so daunted, that presently he\nfell down at his feet and humbly implored forgiveness; which being\ngranted, he proved himself ever after a loyal and faithful servant.\nThis same Malcolm, son of the Duncan who was murdered by Macbeth, was\nhimself killed at the siege of Alnwick Castle, in 1093. A young\nEnglish knight rode into the Scottish camp, armed only with a slight\nspear, whereon hung the keys of the castle, and approaching near the\nking, lowered his lance, as if presenting the keys in token of\nsurrender. Suddenly he made a home thrust at the monarch's eye, which\nran into his brain, and he fell dead on the instant, the bold\nEnglishman saving himself by the swiftness of his horse. From this act\nof desperate valor came the surname of Piercy, or Percy, ever since\nborne with so much honor by the noble house of Northumberland.\"\n\nA Dutch seaman being condemned to death, his punishment was changed,\nand he was ordered to be left on the island of St. Helena, at that\ntime uninhabited. The horrors of solitude, without the hope of escape,\ndetermined him to attempt one of the strangest actions ever recorded.\nThere had been interred that day in the same island an officer of the\nship. The seaman took the body out of the coffin, and having made a\nkind of or of the upper board, ventured to see in it. There was\nfortunately for him a dead calm, and as he glided along, early the\nnext morning he came near the ship lying immovable within two leagues\nof the island. When his former companions saw so strange a float upon\nthe waters, they imagined it was a spectral delusion, but when they\ndiscovered the reality, were not a little startled at the resolution\nof the man who durst hazard himself on the sea in three boards\nslightly nailed together. He had little hope of being received by\nthose who had so lately sentenced him to death. Accordingly it was put\nto the question whether he should be saved or not. After some debates\nand much difference of opinion, mercy prevailed. He was taken on\nboard, and came afterwards to Holland, where he lived in the town of\nHoorn, and related to many how miraculously God had delivered him.\n\nRaleigh's History of the World abounds in anecdotes of undaunted\naction. Amongst many others, the following is not the least\nremarkable: \"Henry, Earl of Alsatia, surname Iron, because of his\nstrength, obtained great favor with Edward the Third by reason of his\nvalor, and of course became a mark of envy for the courtiers. One day,\nin the absence of the king, they counselled the queen that forasmuch\nas the earl was unduly preferred before all the English peers and\nknights, she would make trial whether he was so highly descended as he\ngave out, by causing a lion to be let loose on him unawares, affirming\nthat if Henry were truly noble the lion would {171} refuse to assail\nhim. They obtained leave to the effect that they desired. The earl was\naccustomed to rise before day, and to walk in the lower court of the\ncastle in which he resided, to enjoy the fresh air of the morning. A\nlion was brought in during the night, in his cage, the door of which\nwas afterward raised by a mechanical contrivance, so that he had\nliberty of escape. The earl came down in his night gown, with girdle\nand sword, when he encountered the lion, bristling his hair and\nroaring in the middle of the court. Not in the least astonished or\nthrown off his guard he called out with a stout voice, 'Stand, you\ndog!' Whereupon the lion crouched at his feet, to the great amazement\nof the courtiers, who peeped from their hiding-places to see the issue\nof the trick they had planned. The earl grasped the lion by the mane,\nshut him up in his cage, and left his night-cap upon his back, and so\ncame forth, without even looking behind him. 'Now,' said he to them\nthat skulked behind the casements, 'let him amongst you that standeth\nmost upon his pedigree go and fetch My night-cap.' But they, one and\nall, ashamed and terrified, withdrew themselves in silence.\"\n\nBut the most brilliant deeds and daring of warriors on the\nbattle-field, stimulated by all the excitements of pride, ambition,\nand man's applause, in the estimate of true heroism fall far below the\nglory of the patient, unpretending martyr, who dies for his faith at\nthe stake, amidst the blaspheming yells of his persecutors.\n\nHow impressive is the character drawn by Modestus, deputy of the\nEmperor Valens, of St. Basil the Great, as he is justly called, whom\nhe sought to draw, with other eminent bishops, into the heresy of\nArius. He attempted it at first with caresses and all the sugared\nphrases that might be expected from one who had words at command.\nDisappointed in this course, he tried threats of exile, torture, and\ndeath. Finding all equally fruitless, he returned to his lord with\nthis character of Basil--\"Firmior est quam ut verbis, praestantior\nquam ut minis, fortior quam ut blanditiis vinci possit.\" He is so\nresolute and determined, that neither words, threats, nor allurements\nhave any power to alter him.\n\nA sense of duty, in its high moral definition, ranks far beyond the\nmere courage of the soldier, the selfish love of fame, the thirst of\nglory, or the desire of personal pre-eminence. The late Duke of\nWellington was duty personified. The following illustrative anecdote\nhas never, we believe, been in print, and came to the present relater\nthrough a source which vouches its authenticity. The duke was also\nreticent, and not given to communicate his arrangements more openly to\nhis officers than was required for their exact comprehension and the\nfulfilment of their instructions. It is generally supposed that Lord\nHill was second in command at Waterloo, and that he would have assumed\nthe direction of affairs had the great duke been killed or wounded\nduring the battle. This is a mistake. Lord Uxbridge, afterwards\nMarquis of Anglesea, was senior in rank, by the date of his\nlieutenant-general's commission, to Lord Hill, and on him the command\nwould have devolved in the possible and not improbable contingency\nalluded to. The duke communicated with him most frankly and cordially\non all professional points, but from family incidents there was not\nthat perfect unreserve and friendly intercourse in private which\notherwise might have been. On the evening of the 17th of June, Lord\nUxbridge said to Sir Hussey Vivian, his old friend and brother officer\nof the 7th Hussars, \"I am very unpleasantly situated. There will be a\ngreat battle to-morrow. The duke, as we all know, exposes himself\nwithout reserve, and will, in all probability, do so more than ever on\nthis occasion. If an unlucky shot should strike him, and I find myself\nsuddenly in command, I have not the most distant idea of what his\nintentions are. I would give the world to know, as they {172} must be\nprofoundly calculated, and far beyond any I could hit upon for myself\nin a sudden crisis. We are not personally intimate enough to allow me\nto ask or hint the question. What shall I do?\" \"Consult Alava,\"\nreplied Vivian. \"He is evidently more in the duke's confidence than\nany one else, and will perhaps undertake to speak to him.\" Lord\nUxbridge followed the suggestion, rode over to head-quarters, and\nfinding General Alava, stated the object of his visit. \"I agree with\nyou,\" said the Spaniard; \"the question is serious; but honored as I am\nby the duke's confidence, _I_ dare not propose it to him. I think,\nhowever, that _you_ can and ought to do so. If you like, I will tell\nhim you are here.\" Lord Uxbridge, not without reluctance, consented,\nand being introduced to the duke's apartments, with some hesitation\nstated, as delicately as he could, the matter which disturbed him. The\nduke listened until Lord Uxbridge ceased to speak; his features\nindicated no emotion; and when he replied, it was without impatience,\nsurprise, or any alteration of his usual manner. After a short pause\nhe said, \"Who do you expect will attack to-morrow, I or Bonaparte?\"\n\"Bonaparte, I suppose,\" answered Lord Uxbridge. \"Well, then,\" rejoined\nthe duke, \"he has not told me his plans; how then can I tell you mine,\nwhich must depend on his?\" Lord Uxbridge said no more; he had nothing\nmore to say. The duke seeing that he looked a little blank, laid his\nhand gently on his shoulder: \"But one thing, Uxbridge,\" he observed,\n\"is quite certain; come what may, _you and I will both do our duty_.\"\nAnd so, with a cordial pressure of the hand, they parted.\n\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nSAINT LUCY.\n\n\n      The giving of my eyes\n      In loving sacrifice\n      Was my appointed way;\n  No soft decline from the meridian day\n  Through dusky twilight slowly into dark,\n  But blackness, bloody, swift, and stark\n      From hands unkind.\n      And I was blind.\n\n  Thus reads the story, writ on sacred scroll,\n  Of Lucy, virgin martyr: that sharp dole\n  Won heaven's eternal brightness for her soul;--\n  The blotting out of sunshine, the recoil\n  From utter blackness, the heart's gasp and spasm\n  Before the unseen void, the imagined chasm\n  Of untried darkness, was the martyr toil\n  Whose moment's agony surpasses years--\n  The love, long years of patience and of tears\n  Allotted unto others. \"All for all;\"\n  Not doling out with a reluctant hand,\n  But in one holocaustal offering grand,\n  Will, senses, mind, responding to heaven's call.\n\n{173}\n\n  \"Bought at whatever price, heaven is not dear,\"\n  Sounds like an echoed chorus full of cheer\n  From crypts of mangled martyrs, and charred bones,\n  And blood-stained phials of the catacombs:\n  And that young Roman girl's adoring eyes,\n  One moment darkened, opened in surprise\n  Upon the face of God. The cruel, taunt\n  Of judges obdurate, the accuser's vaunt,\n  The mob's wild shout of triumph deep and hoarse,\n  Might still be heard around the bloody corse\n  When her sweet soul, in peace, at God's own word\n  Had tasted its exceeding great reward;\n  To \"see as she was seen,\" to know as known;\n  The beatific vision all her own.\n\n  Upon the sacred canon's sacred page.\n  Invoked by vested priest from age to age,\n  Stand five fair names of virgins, martyrs all,\n  As if with some peculiar glory crowned\n  That thus their names should crystallize; \"their sound\n  Is gone through all the earth,\" and great and small\n  Upon those five wise virgins sweetly call\n  With reverent wish: Saint Lucy! Agatha!\n  Agnes! Cecilia! Anastasia!\n  And chanted litany chose names enfold\n  In reliquary more precious than mute gold.\n\n  With what a tender awe I heard that name--\n  A household name, familiar, dear, and kind.\n  Of gentlest euphony--such honor claim!\n  Thenceforth that name I speak with lifted mind,\n  More loved in friend, because revered in saint;\n  And daily as to heaven I make complaint\n  Of mortal ills, and sickness, sorrows, woes,\n  This one petition doth all others close:\n  Saint Lucy, virgin martyr, by thine eyes\n  Which thou didst give to God in sacrifice,\n  His mercy and his solace now implore\n  For darkened eyes and sightless, never more\n  To gaze on aught created: by that meed\n  Of choicest graces in that hour of need,\n  Sweetness of patience and a joyful mind,\n  And faithful, gentle hands to guide the blind!\n  But more than this, Saint Lucy; thou didst gain,\n  By loss of thy young eyes with loving pain.\n  The vision given to angels; then obtain\n  The lifting up of blinded orbs to where\n  God sitteth in his beauty, the All-fair;\n  Saint Lucy, virgin martyr, aid our prayer!\n\n------\n\n{174}\n\n\nTHE GODFREY FAMILY;\nOR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nIS MERE MATERIAL PROGRESS A REAL BENEFIT, OR A PROGRESS IN THE RIGHT\nDIRECTION?\n\nI have already stated that Eugene Godfrey was well introduced on his\nentrance at Cambridge. Scientific professors found pleasure in\nbringing forward the son of so eminent a patron of literature and\nscience. But they were disappointed at finding little response in\nEugene's mind to the boastful glory of scientific improvement. \"Cui\nBono?\" was ever in his heart, and sometimes on his lips, when any new\ninventions were proposed to him.\n\n\"Supposing we should be able to light our streets and our houses with\nthis wonderful combination of gases,\" he would say, \"will the light\nwithin be the greater? Supposing we travel without horses at the speed\nof thirty miles an hour, can we travel nearer to truth? Improvement!\nIs it an improvement to multiply bodily wants, or (beyond supplying\nmeans of actual existence) is it rational to spend so much time in\nrendering the body comfortable? Is multiplying luxury a good?\"\n\n\"It employs hands,\" would be the reply, \"and thus diffuses wealth.\"\n\n\"If that is the only object, riches could be easily scattered without\ncompelling those who own them to become effeminate triflers.\"\n\n\"But simply to give away wealth without exacting an equivalent, would\nencourage idleness,\" argued the professor.\n\n\"And so to benefit our neighbor's morals we yield our own,\" said\nEugene. \"Well, that is new philanthropy, and I am less inclined to\nassent to it than ever I was. To keep untrammelled, we must, methinks,\nreduce the number of our physical wants instead of increasing them.\nSurely there are other modes of benefiting mankind than those which\nenervate. The education of the hero is frugal, hardy, temperate almost\nto scantiness. Fancy Sesostris or Cyrus lolling at ease in a\nspring-patented carriage, propped up luxuriously with velvet cushions!\nor think of a hero dressed out in gewgaws! Our minds lose the heroic\nelement altogether in the picture.\"\n\n\"A good loss,\" replied the professor! \"methinks these warriors make a\ngreat show, but what good do they effect: They destroy the arts of\npeace and live on the excitement of vain glory. That excitement over,\nthey are as weak as other mortals. Hercules playing the distaff at\nQueen Omphale's court is a fitting type of a so-called hero's rest.\"\n\n\"Not of all,\" replied Eugene; \"conquerors have been lawgivers, and\ngood ones too. The passion of glory may not be a good in itself, but\nit is better than sensuality. You would not compare Cyrus with\nHeliogabalus.\"\n\n\"Not for himself, perhaps, not for his own private dignity; but for\nthe good he did in the world at large. I think the preference\nquestionable. Even allowing that the cruelty of Heliogabalus destroyed\nwhole multitudes, it had not the devastating effect on whole districts\nwhich war ever produces; conquest lays waste large fields, destroys\nproduce, and brings famine and played in its wake.\"\n\n{175}\n\n\"I am not arguing in favor of war for its own sake, I am only saying\nthat constant attention to mere bodily comfort must cause the race to\ndegenerate. He who would rise individually in the scale of existence\nmust repress bodily appetites, not encourage them; and this, if true\nof the individual, must be true of society also: consequently the\nintroduction of luxury on a system, most eventually prove itself to be\nan evil.\n\n\"Pshaw!\" said the professor, \"these theories are well enough in the\ncloset, but in action they are good for nothing. Why, you destroy\nincentive to mental activity, when you debar man from applying it to\nuseful purposes.\"\n\n\"Useful, meaning increase of luxury?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"Well,\" somewhat petulantly rejoined the professor, \"is not the\ndefinition of luxury a good? The rich may please themselves, but the\npoor need more comfort than they enjoy; among them diffusion of luxury\nmust be a good.\"\n\n\"Does that diffusion take place among the poor, as a matter of fact--\nat least among the masses? Is not the contrary rather the case? Are\nthey not rather the ones to _suffer_ from the first fruits of\nimprovement. Look at the Manchester riots for the good you do;--awhile\nago there was in that town a contented population, sufficiently\nprovided with food, clothing, shelter, fire, and other real\nnecessaries; suddenly one of your clever men invents a machine which\nmakes the rich people's dresses at half the cost, and throws one-third\nof the hands out of employ. What good have you done? There is in that\ncommunity as much food as before, as much clothing, as much of every\nnecessary of life! Yet two or three thousand families are suddenly\ndeprived of the means of subsistence, and driven by despair to break\nthe peace and disturb the public security, while you are boasting of\nthe good of physical science. Methinks moral science wants studying\ntoo.\"\n\n\"Oh, these things will right themselves, will find their own level;\nother employment will soon absorb the now displaced hands, and all\nwill be peace again.\"\n\n\"I doubt it: the selfish principle engenders the selfish practice.\nTeach the laboring class by example to cater only for their private\ngratification, whether that gratification be in vanity,\nself-aggrandizement, or luxury; teach them to place all their\nhappiness in physical good, and then show yourself reckless of their\nrequirements by an indiscreet introduction of machinery, and an\nEnglish edition of the Reign of Terror may ensue.\"\n\n\"But what can be done? You would not stop these new inventions, nor\nset a limit to improvement?\"\n\n\"I would seek a higher principle of action altogether; and before\nsetting up new insentient machinery, would provide that the highest\n_sentient_ machinery, _Man_, should receive due consideration. It is a\nmanifest injustice, when the interests of the producers of wealth are\nrashly sacrificed to increase the luxury of the consumers.\"\n\n\"And what is this new principle, most compassionate sir?'* asked the\nprofessor.\n\n\"I do not know, it is precisely that which troubles me. Men are not\nthe mere money-machines you would turn them to--of that I am well\nassured; but what they are and what their destiny is, I have yet to\nlearn.\"\n\nThe professor laughed, rose and took his leave.\n\nEugene remained plunged in a profound reverie, from which he was\naroused by the visit of a stranger, who announced himself as the M.\nBertolot introduced to our readers in a previous chapter.\n\nHe said that although personally a stranger, yet hearing of Eugene's\nresidence at Cambridge, he had taken the liberty of calling to inquire\nafter the welfare of his former friends.\n\nEugene welcomed him, and assured him that the countess was in good\nhealth and spirits.\n\n\"And her amiable daughter?\" inquired the old man.\n\n{176}\n\n\"Is also well, I hope and believe,\" said Eugene; \"but she leads so\nsecluded a life, even in our large family, that it is difficult for\nthose about her to speak with any degree of certainty concerning her.\"\n\n\"Indeed! She is probably scarcely recovered from the shock of her\nfather's terrible death.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not; but I do not think _that_ is the sole cause of her\nseclusion: she is essentially contemplative, and the things of this\nworld interest her but little. What her ideas are, I do not know, for\nshe seldom speaks of them, but I think they would be worth the\nknowing.\"\n\n\"Probably so,\" replied M. Bertolot \"She is a pure soul, beautiful and\ngood; of whom we may almost affirm that she scarcely knows what sin\nis.\"'\n\nEugene looked at the speaker in surprise. \"What sin is! What is sin!\"\nthought he. \"Is it aught beside the consequence of error? and how can\nwe escape error if we cannot light on truth?\" His puzzled look was\nperhaps his best reply.\n\n\"You do not credit me,\" said M. Bertolot; \"you think, and justly, that\nall men are sinners; yes, indeed, all, all are so, I spoke but by\ncomparison: it is rare to find so pure, so simple a soul as is that of\nMademosielle de Meglior; though not sinless, as none can be, she is a\nconsistent aspirant alter heavenly lore, ever keeping her heart fixed\non the only true source of light and life: at least she was so when I\nknew her.\"'\n\n\"She is tranquil and contemplative,\" said Eugene, \"and when she does\nspeak, often startles us with the originality of her sentiments; but\nwhen you spoke of her as not knowing sin, it was the expression that\nastonished me. People in polite life do not often speak of themselves,\nor of their friends, as sinners.\"\n\n\"No!\" said M. Bertolot; \"excuse me then, the expression came as\nnaturally to my lips as to my thoughts. I intended no offense.\"\n\n\"Nor did you give any: on the contrary, I should be glad to know from\nyou the principle of Euphrasie's mode of action, if without violating\nconfidence, you can tell me what it is. She is actuated by motives not\ncomprehended by those with whom she lives.\"\n\n\"I can give you no other explanation than that I suppose her actuated\nby the purest principles of religion. As a child she gave promise of\nthis: all her thoughts and ideas tended upward. Does she continue so?\"\n\n\"I never heard her speak of religion,\" replied Eugene; \"she sometimes\nspeaks very sublimely, though very laconically, of truth being the one\nthing to be cared for.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said M. Bertolot, \"is it thus she veils herself? But with her\ntruth, and the worship of the author of truth, must go together. I\nknow Euphrasie from childhood. I know how she struggled with her\nnaturally vehement spirit, until, even as a child, she obtained the\nmastery. I remember, too, the explanations she sought for most\nearnestly, of why our evil tendencies remain to molest us when we\nbecome members of Christ. All that the child learned _once_ she\npondered over, and oftentimes surprised her teachers with her\ncomments.\"\n\n\"I doubt it not: her remarks are ever original. I have often felt\nquite anxious to know the basis of her actions.\"\n\n\"Nay, have you not said already, that it was the love of truth? Her\nevery thought tends that way, and she early discovered how liable the\npractical recognition of metaphysical truth is to be impeded by human\npassion. Hence, from childhood upwards, she has been accustomed to\nwatch over herself, and to check the indulgence of any emotion that\nwould form a 'blind' between herself, and the object of her adoration.\nShe is young yet, but I venture to say she will pass by the age of\npassion unscathed.*\n\n\"Do you mean that she will love?\" asked Eugene.\n\n{177}\n\n\"Nay, that I cannot exactly affirm,\" replied M. Bertolot; \"but I think\nshe will never be governed by any passion--be it love, pride, fame,\nor ambition. I think she has laid the true foundation in obtaining the\nmastery over her feelings; and though she is naturally affectionate, I\nam not sure that she would be happy now, if bound by human ties. She\nhas accustomed herself to live an abstracted life; she would scarcely\nbe at home in domestic duties.\"\n\n\"Nay, I hope such is not the case!\" exclaimed Eugene, more warmly than\nhe intended, for his latent feelings toward Euphrasie ever and anon\nbetrayed themselves; and while he scarcely confessed it to himself,\ninterest in her style of thought colored the course of his own ideas.\n\nM. Bertolot dexterously turned the conversation by reverting to a\nformer subject. \"It were well for mankind,\" said he, \"did they\nconsider how much passion and prejudice warp the mind, even in the\nconsideration of abstract truths. Few, very few, keep their own\nintellects open for the reception of any such foreign ideas as would\ncontravene their previous conceptions. Fewer still, give their\nneighbors credit for such power to look at facts impartially. This is\nan attestation that passion reigns rather than justice. Methinks the\nold system of Pythagoras, subjecting youth to moral training as a\nnecessary preliminary for bringing the intellectual faculties into\nharmonious play, were not a bad precedent for this unruly age.\"\n\n\"It would scarcely go down now,\" urged Eugene.\n\n\"Indeed no!\"' said M. Bertolot. \"The master says it would seem but a\nridiculous phrase in this all-disputing age. All faculties, whether of\nmind or body or soul, seem now confounded. Positiveness usurps the\nplace of reason, and the mere child is allowed to question, instead of\nbeing compelled at once to obey. If the world goes on with this\nprinciple in action twenty years longer, we shall have little men and\nwomen in plenty, but no children left, and then woe to the generation\nthat succeeds: a generation untrained and undisciplined by wholesome\nrestraint, with intellects prematurely developed without the adjunct\nof self-government, which only moral training can impart. What a world\nit will make! Methinks its inevitable tendency is to undue animal\npreponderance. It is frightful to think of!\"\n\n\"I was just making the same remark to Professor K----,\" said Eugene;\n\"but though I see the evil, I cannot discern the remedy.\"\n\n\"It is indeed difficult to compass the remedy,\" said M. Bertolot, \"the\ndeparture has been so wide. Men have ceased to distinguish between the\nresult of mere human intelligence and that of a loftier lore, and they\nnow use the intellect as the slave of the only good recognizable in\ntheir system, _i. e._ of bodily ease or pleasure. Practically men\nignore the soul and its high destiny. Hence the disorder of the times.\nAnimalism is essentially selfish, and animalism is the tendency of\nmodern times--refined, veiled, adorned, with much of intellectual\nallurement I admit, but nevertheless animalism thorough and entire.\"\n\n\"I have thought of this before,\" said Eugene, \"but my ideas are as yet\nvague and undefined. I want data to go upon some firm ground on which\nto plant my feet. The guesses of philosophers content me not.\"\n\n\"Nor should they, my young friend, since, as you say, they are but\nguesses, without a sure foundation. But have you heard of nothing\nbeyond philosophy? Has it never occurred to you that the creative\nintelligence has revealed himself to the creature of his formation,\nand that through that revelation we are informed of that which it\ninterests us to know--of our own soul, of the object of our creation,\nand of the final destiny of man?\"\n\n\"I have heard of religion certainly,\" said Eugene, \"but I cannot say I\never studied it or practised it.\"\n\n{178}\n\n\"No? Then no wonder you are dissatisfied. Your mind is evidently\nseeking for truth. Nothing but the great truth can satisfy it. Study\ndispassionately the evidences of the truth of the great Mosaic\nhistory. Contemplate the grand position of our first father, Adam,\nreceiving instruction from God himself concerning the mighty mysteries\nof creation, not only of matter and of material forms, but of bright\nintelligences created to glorify and adorn the court of heaven, and\nwho fell from their sublime position. Study man first, fresh in\nperfection from the hand of God, living as the _friend of God_,\ncommuning with his Maker in the garden of Eden. Appointed by him to\nrule o'er all inferior nature, the entitled Lord of the Creation, the\nmaster of animal existences, and superior in his own person to much of\nmaterial influence. Think what it must have been to walk with God, and\nhave divine knowledge infused into his soul, as also all such material\nscience as would befit the founder of a mighty race to transmit to his\noffspring, over whom he was to reign as prince, father, priest, and\nteacher; and then consider what it must have been to find suddenly\nthat source of knowledge dried up, the door of communication closed,\npower weakened, intuitions dimmed, and labor imposed as the price\nalike of happiness, knowledge, and of that supernatural communication\nwhich had been man's best and highest privilege: the solution of these\nproblems will give you the key to many difficulties which perplex\nyou.\"\n\n\"There are modern theories which agree not with these premises,\" said\nEugene. \"These trace man from the savage upward.\"\n\n\"Yes,' said M. Bertolot, \"_the mutum et turpe pecus_ [Footnote 36] of\nHorace has found, if not admirers, yet professed believers in this\nage.\n\n  [Footnote 36: Dumb and filthy herd.]\n\nA theory contrary to analogy, to evidence alike of history and\ntradition, has been assumed, and wondrously has found asserters too.\nAll mere animals are observed to be born complete--their instincts,\ntheir organization serve but the individual; and though accident may\ntrain an individual to feats beyond his fellows, yet there is no\nappearance of new organs being formed to be transmitted to its race.\nNow, these modern progressionists, who go back to the time\n\n  'When wild in woods the Noble Savage ran,'\n\ndeprive man of his soul, assimilate him to the brutes to make him\nperform what brute nature never did perform, namely, _create_ faculty.\nMen have lives to laugh at the doctrine of the transmigration of\nsouls, but methinks the doctrine of the progression to bodily beauty\nfrom monkeys without tails; of barbarians to civilized man without\naid, is to the full as absurd; to say nothing of that comprehensive\npower of contemplation which enabled Newton to demonstrate the order\nof  the universe, it would be very difficult to understand how\nabstract ideas could be latent in the soul of a monkey waiting\ndevelopment. Besides, by the theory of progression, during the time of\nwhich we have record, say six thousand years, men should be steadily\non the _improve_--both as to arts, science, moral government, legal\ngovernment, _self_-government, and bodily development; but we do not\nfind it so. The ruins of Babylon, of Thebes, and of other great cities\nbuilt soon after the flood, attest architectural skill among the\nancients such as is hardly aimed at no. Callisthenes found\nastronomical tables reaching as far back as within a few years of the\ndeluge, in the Temple of Belus, when he accompanied Alexander the\nGreat on his expedition to the East. And many arts have been lost\naltogether that were well known to the ancients. The half-barbarian\nCopt erecting his hut amid the fallen pillars and statuary of ancient\nThebes, the Mameluke riding recklessly and savagely amid the pyramids,\nthat still remain to puzzle the assertor of progression even with the\nmere mechanical difficulties of the machinery used for {179} raising\nsuch immense stones to such a height and in such a plain, so distant\nfrom any known quarries. These are hut poor indications of the race\nadvancing, though individual nations, worked on by a regenerative\ninfluence, may appear to make, nay do make, great improvements in all\nrespects.\"\n\n\"Do you, then, think that man's tendency is to degenerate?\" asked\nEugene.\n\n\"Not necessarily, by any means,\" replied M. Bertolot; \"but in\nproportion as he departs from the centre of unity, from the truths\nonce imprinted on the soul of Adam, thence to be transmitted for human\nguidance, it will, I think, be found so.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Eugene, \"is Adam's religion yours? Surely he was not a\nChristian.\"\n\n\"If not in name and with the same outward rites, yet in reality he\nmust have been,\" replied the mentor. \"There is but one truth, and the\ndifference between his creed and ours was that he looked for a\nRedeemer to come. We believe in him as having come.\"\n\n\"But was Adam's religion that of the Jews, then?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"In creed and in spirit, yes. In form and observance it differed,\nbecause the Jews had typical forms specially given to them, alike to\ncommemorate their deliverance from Egypt, and to typify their delivery\nthrough Christ from sin. They were living amid idolatrous nations, and\nthe safeguard of a special ceremonial was needful to them.\"\n\n\"And save in the fulfilment of their expectation, is the Jewish creed\nChristian?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"As far as it goes it is; the Christian revelation is a fuller\ndevelopment of the old tradition, a clearer exposition of God; it\ndestroys nothing of the past revelation, it fulfils and expands. The\nJews were the preservers of the great tradition, transmitted through\nthe patriarchs to Noah, and by him, through his sons, to the race it\nlarge. The tradition became corrupted by the majority; yet it is found\nin some form or other mixed up in all mythologies; and what deserves\nremark is, that the further back we trace mythology the purer it\nbecomes. The early records of all nations tell us of purity,\ndiscipline, and sacrifice to secure purity of morals, and teach of\njustice after death, of good and evil spirits, and of the interference\nof the deity to check man in his career of evil. Men seem at first not\nso much to have denied the true God, as to have associated other gods\nwith him, and to have changed their worship from seeking such\nspiritual union as would render them 'sons of God,' to adoration of\nthe creator and upholder of physical power, physical grandeur, and\nphysical beauty. Atheism, and the lowering of man's nature to that of\na mere mortal animal, is an invention of modern times, and has for the\nmost part only been held by men satiated, as it were, by a spurious\ncivilization.\"\n\n\"I am but little versed in the Bible,\" said Eugene, \"but I have heard\nlearned men assert that all the education, so to speak, of the Jewish\nnation was of a worldly character; and that though there are passages\nof Scripture containing allusions to the immortality of the soul, yet\nthat doctrine was nowhere definitely asserted, but that, on the\ncontrary, all the rewards and punishments promised, or threatened,\nwere of a temporal nature.\"\n\n\"And yet no one disputes that the Jews did, and do believe the soul to\nbe immortal, as also that they believed, and still believe, in the\ntraditions concerning the fallen angels, the fall of man, the promised\nredemption, and many others. These doctrines, promulgated to all the\nworld, were kept intact by Abraham and his descendants; and it is a\nvery general belief that they were renewed in their purity in the soul\nof Moses, during that long communion vouchsafed him on Mount Sinai.\nThe material law for exterior conduct he wrote down; but the spiritual\nthemes which formed the staple of the expositions given by the rulers\nand doctors of the synagogue {180} and which were only figured by the\nmaterial types, were probably deemed by the holy lawgiver too sacred\nto dilate upon in writing. If, after that forty days' sublimation, his\nspirit was so triumphant that he was fain to veil the glory of his\nface, we must needs suppose that not the mere written law, or setting\nforth the ritual of their worship, occupied his whole attention, but\nthat his spirit expanded beneath the graces vouchsafed to him, and\nthat he was, in a sense, made partaker of those spiritual truths which\nlie concealed from more materialized minds.\"\n\n\"These facts deserve attention, at any rate,\" said Eugene; \"can you\nrefer me to authorities within my reach?\"\n\n\"Indeed, I know not what your resources are, and my own books I have\nlost. My memory, too, serves me but treacherously on controversial\nsubjects; but I think if you will turn to Grotius de Verit. Christ,\nyou will find him quoting Philo Judaeus in proof of the similarity of\nthe Christian doctrine with the Jewish.\"\n\nEugene handed the book to his friend, who read the passage, of which\nthe following is the translation:\n\n  \"We have still to answer two accusations with which the doctrines\n  and worship of Christians are attacked by the Jews. The first is,\n  that they say we worship many gods. But this is nothing more than a\n  declaration thrown in hatred at a foreign faith. For what more is\n  asserted by the Christians, than by Philo Judaeus, who frequently\n  represents three in God, and who calls the reason, or word of God,\n  the name of God, the framer of the world, neither uncreate, as is\n  the Father of all, nor so born as are men (whom both Philo and\n  Moses, the son of Nehemanni, calls the angel, the deputy for ruling\n  this world); or what more than the cabalists assert, who\n  distinguished in God three lights, and indeed by somewhat the same\n  names as the Christians do, namely, of the Father, of the Son or\n  Word, and of the Holy Spirit. And I may also assume that which is\n  confessed by all the Jews, that that spirit which moved the\n  prophets, is not created, and yet is distinct from him who sent,\"\n  etc., etc.\n\n\"But,\" said the old man, starting up and closing the book, \"I am\nforgetting myself; I came not here to deliver a lecture on theology,\nbut to inquire after my former friends. Excuse an old man's garrulity.\nAdieu!\"\n\n\"Not yet,\" said Eugene; \"your conversation interests me much; do not\ngo yet.\"\n\n\"Yes, for to-night I leave you; if you permit me, however, I will\nreturn on another day. Meantime, I would suggest to you one important\nreflection. When Almighty God had created all things, and pronounced\nthem good; when he had formed man from the slime of the Earth, and\nrendered him the most perfect of animals, man was not yet quite\ncomplete; and the completion, what was it? No angel had command to\nfulfil that wondrous office, nor was it by word that that mysterious\npower was called into being: but God breathed, and man became a living\nsoul. The soul of man is, then, the in-breathing of the divinity\n--immortal in its essence, God-like in its affinities. Quench not its\ntrembling impulses, when it bids you look upward in love and\nconfidence; but pray--ever pray--fervently, confidently,\nperseveringly.\" This he added with a half-smile, which revealed to\nEugene who had been his former monitor. He then abruptly quitted the\nroom.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nMODERN PAGANISM\n\nThe Duke of Durimond and his fair bride prolonged their tour among the\nlakes and mountains of the \"land o' cakes\" until autumn  begun to show\nthe fallen leaf. Hester was not a little disappointed at this--she was\nimpatiently expecting a summons to {181} meet her sister at the dacal\nmansion, and she thought the period unnecessarily delayed.\n\nAt length the wished-for invitation came, and father, mother, sisters,\nbrother, aunt, and Euphrasie were called upon to welcome the young\nduchess to one of the costliest and most elaborately finished palaces\nin England. Hester shouted in glee as the carriage entered the\nmile-long avenue of stately trees that formed the approach to the\nducal dwelling. The bevy of liveried servants that awaited their\napproach at the hall-door, the quiet, respectful bearing of the\ngentlemen servants out of livery who waited within to escort them to\nthe suite of rooms prepared for their reception--all this was\ncharming! delightful! only a look from her parents presented the merry\ngirl from dancing round the house in ecstasy. The entrance-hall itself\nwas sufficient to send her into raptures. The beautiful marble of the\nfloor, the large fires burning on each side, the triple row of\nbalconies, raised one above another, on the three sides within the\nhall, betokening the communication of the upper stories with the rest\nof the house by some unseen means, and displaying the full height of\nthe edifice, crowned as it was by a beautifully carved cupola, into\nwhich sufficient skylight was artificially admitted to display to\nadvantage the figures of the rosy Aurora accompanied by her nymphs,\nscattering flowers on her way as she opened the gates of morning,\nwhich subject was skilfully portrayed on the ceiling. They passed\nthrough this, the outer hall, to another, which contained the\nmagnificent staircase leading to the apartments opening on the\nbalconies described. To Hester's joy the entrance to their suite of\nrooms opened on the first of these, and she could look up to the\npainted ceiling and down to the marble floor, and gaze, unrebuked, on\nthe colossal figures of bronze which appeared to uphold the balconies.\n\nHow happy Adelaide must be, mistress of so gorgeous a palace! And\nAdelaide was there at the door of the apartments to greet her mother\nand her mother's friends. What was there in her manner to damp at once\nthe ardor of Hester's enthusiasm? Grace, kindness, and dignity were\nthere! and yet Hester was not satisfied; a chill came o'er her\nunawares as she returned her sister's kiss. She mastered herself,\nhowever, sufficiently to express her admiration of the splendid hall.\n\n\"Oh, that is nothing,\" said the young duchess, with a faint smile.\n\"His grace will introduce you to his hall of sculpture and to the\npicture gallery by and by, and then you will be really pleased. I\nbelieve royalty itself cannot boost such master-pieces as Durimond\nCastle.\"\n\n\"So I have heard,\" said Mrs. Godfrey; \"but where is the duke, my\ndear?\"\n\n\"He was unexpectedly occupied when you arrived, mamma, but doubtless\nhe will be here to welcome you immediately.\"\n\nThere was a constraint and melancholy about Adelaide's manner that\nstruck the whole party, and their pleasure was more than a little\ndamped as they entered the magnificent apartments prepared for them.\n\n\"Here,\" said the hostess, \"you can be as private as in your own house\nwhen you wish it;  and when you desire society you will generally find\nsome one either in the library, or in the conservatory or\ndrawing-room.\"\n\n\"Have you many guests?\" asked the Countess de Meglior.\n\n\"Your friend, the Comte de Villeneuve, came with us from town; he is\nnot here to-day, though I think the duke expects him to-morrow. He is\nabsent on some business; there is a strange gentleman closeted with\nthe duke just now, for whom apartments are ordered; he is a foreigner,\nI think; the duke seems to have business with him. He will be our only\nvisitor today.\"\n\n{182}\n\nJust then the bell rang to warn the guests it was the dressing hour.\nValets and ladies' maids were in attendance, and though only to join a\nfamily party, state-dresses were in requisition.\n\nAdelaide retired to make her preparations, and the visitors, amid the\nluxurious surroundings, felt oppressed with a sadness for which they\ncould scarcely account, and which they cared not to express, even to\none another.\n\nThe duke met them in the drawing-room before dinner, and his gay\nmanner in some degree dispelled the gloom that had crept over the\nparty. He inquired kindly after Eugene.\n\n\"Eugene, from some cause or other,\" said Mrs. Godfrey, \"keeps away\nfrom home altogether. He spent his long vacation at the lakes, and has\nagain returned to Cambridge. He has taken a studious fit, I suppose,\nand must be allowed to gratify if .\"\n\n\"And does he not, then, intend to honor us with his company?\" inquired\nthe duke.\n\n\"Oh, he will run down for a day or two ere long, I dare say. He must\nsee Adelaide, of course; but when, he does not exactly say.\"\n\nAdelaide did not appear displeased to hear this. She turned to her\nhusband and asked what he had done with his visitor.\n\n\"He would not stay, he had an appointment to keep, so we must make up\nfor all deficiencies ourselves.\"\n\nThe dinner passed away stiffly enough, and as the season was too late\nfor a walk afterward, the gentlemen, following the then national\ncustom, passed a considerable time over the bottle, discussing the\npolitics of the day. It was late in the evening ere they joined the\nladies. They found them in a large conservatory, which was illuminated\nin honor of Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey's arrival; and in this flowery\nretreat sundry self-acting musical instruments were hidden, which,\nfrom time to time, sent forth, as it were unbidden, melodious sounds\nand  tuneful harmonies, which, vibrating amid the flowering shrubs\nthat formed an artificial spring within the glass enclosure,\ncontrasted pleasingly with the \"fall of the leaf\" that made all nature\ndesolate without.\n\n\"Art conquers nature here,\" said Mr. Godfrey, as he entered the\nenchanted scene. \"We might fancy ourselves in a fairy palace now. What\nsays my Hester to this?\"\n\n\"Oh! this is beautiful, indeed! Music, moonlight, love, and flowers\nare it 'A glorious combination,'\" said Hester, pointing to the moon,\nwhich shone brightly through the windows; but her voice had lost its\nusual animation as she made the quotation, for a feeling passed over\nher heart, as if one ingredient, and that precisely the most important\none, was wanting; she could not be satisfied that \"love\" presided in\nthis abode of beauty and of grace.\n\nThe next morning the state rooms of the house were inspected. The duke\nwas the great patron of the fine arts, and taste shone forth in every\npart of the stately edifice that was exposed to view.\n\nThe picture gallery and the hall of sculpture were celebrated far and\nwide, particularly the latter. Nor were the figures promiscuously\narranged that decorated this scene of art; on the contrary, much care\nhad been expended to form one harmonious whole. On the dome which\nformed the ceiling was painted ancient Saturn devouring his offspring\nas they rose into being, and beneath this centre-piece were painted\nthe war of the Titans against Satan on the one side, and the war of\nthe giants against Jupiter on the other. Thus far the ceiling. In the\nmidst of the marble floor stood the mighty Jupiter, armed with his\nthunderbolts, majestic in strength and grand in intellectual\nsensualism. Beside him, grouped symmetrically and appropriately, were\nthe legion of subordinate divinities--Venus, attended by the graces;\nApollo, radiant in beauty; Hercules strangling the serpents while he\nwas yet in the cradle; the Muses in various attitudes, with\nappropriate symbols of office. Scarcely a god, goddess, or demigod\n{183} could be named who was not here represented. Types of\nbeauty--sensual, intellectual, and physical; types of grandeur and of\ntenor; types of mystery, beneath the veiled figure of the Egyptian\ndeity, Isis; types of knowledge and of artistic skill were there. All\nthat man bows before and worships when the sense of the supernatural\nis shut, and he learns of _self_ to deify his own passions, was here,\nother delineated on the walls or chiselled out in the sculptural\nforms. It was ft Pantheon dedicated to all the gods of human sense,\nrefined by beauty and grace, and polished by artistic merit of the\nhighest order. Unbounded and unfeigned was the applause elicited from\nthe party: hardly could they satisfied themselves with gazing on these\nperfect forms: even the lack of drapery seemed scarcely a drawback.\nEuphrasie, indeed, retired, but she was so strange habitually that her\nabsence was hardly commented upon; and but for the smile that went\nround the circle as she left the hall, might have been deemed\nunobserved.\n\n\"The true gods of the earth are these yet.\" said Mr. Godfrey, when the\ndoor had closed behind the young French girl, \"and the race has sadly\ndegenerated since their worship was abandoned.\"\n\nThe young duchess and her sisters looked up in mute wonder at the\nspeaker, but the duke cried, \"Hear, hear!\" and the elder ladies tried\nto look wise and responsive.\n\nMr. Godfrey continued: \"That is god to a man which his mind worships\nand reveres, and which to the extent of his power he strives to\nimitate. Julian, the Roman emperor, understood this well. He felt\n(what time has proved true) that the human frame must degenerate when\nits proportionate and due development ceases to be the primary object\nof the legislator. He saw that when, instead of these glorious\nphysical powers, there is substituted a pale, emaciated figure nailed\nto a cross for the glorification of an ideal good, that all nature's\nteachings must become confused, and a fake romance lead to decay the\npowers that heretofore were so beautiful in their proportions.\"\n\n\"Surely, papa, you do not believe in paganism,\" said Hester,\nwonderingly.\n\n\"Yes and no, Hester. In the fables of the personal divinity of\nJupiter, Venus, and Minerva--No! In paganism as the expression of a\ngrand idea, well suited to man's capabilities, and to his nature--Yes!\nYou must not confound the hidden meaning of the myth with the outward\nexpression. The uninstructed multitude will always look to the\noutward, and believe the fables as facts, whatever religion they\nprofess, and often times they penetrate no further; but the learned\nlook through the myth to the meaning, and the meaning of the pagan\nmyth is,--Cultivate physical strength, in union with intellectual\npower, worship beauty, study and contrast nature. Destroy infirmity:\nit is the most humane way, and the most just way. Do not perpetuate\ndisease. Let all ill-constituted children die. Let the\nconquered--_i.e._, the weaker--serve; it belongs to the strong to\nrule. To develop the physical frame duly, Lycurgus caused even the\nyoung women to wrestle publicly, without drapery of any kind. Our more\nfastidious tastes cramp the form of our women, and distort the figure;\nand, worse than this, our perverted theology distorts their intellect,\nand makes it afraid even to look at the human form. Again, I say,\nJulian was right. The Christianity he forsook has caused not only the\ndegeneration of human power, but has substituted false ideas of good.\nThe real has given place to the ideal, and a sickly, romantic,\nsentimentalized race has taken the place of the hardy heroes of\nantiquity.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Godfrey bowed profoundly to the deities before him.\n\n{184}\n\nThe duke laughed and clapped his hands. \"Well said, Mr. Godfrey, well\nsaid. I hardly knew till now, how great a benefactor I was to the\nhuman race when I collected these statues. Hitherto I have thrown open\nmy house but once a week for the public benefit. Henceforth I will\ndirect my steward to allow instructions oftener in this temple of the\ntrue gods of the earth. By the by, I believe there is a very good\nchance of restoring this gone-by worship, if, as you say, it consists\nin the exaltation of physical power. Science, in its diffusion, is\nfixing men's minds on material agencies, very much to the exclusion of\nsuperstitious ideality. We have only to throw in a vein of the love of\nbeauty, and much will be effected toward bringing back men's minds to\nthe natural worship, here so beautifully symbolized.\"\n\n\"I believe so,\" said Mr. Godfrey; \"but, meantime, how much evil has\nbeen effected by letting in upon the race so many delicate\nconstitutions! How shall we restore the hardy races that peopled the\nearth, when these mighty types of glory ruled the populations?\"\n\n\"Indeed, it is difficult to say. Men have accustomed themselves to a\nfalse estimate of mere vitality, as if life without enjoyment were\nworth the having. We shall, I fear, find it difficult to persuade\nEnglish mothers to destroy their diseased and crippled children for\nthe good of the public, or to train their daughters in the gymnasium.\"\n\n\"Would you seriously wish it, my lord duke?\" asked his wife.\n\n\"I hardly know. We are all trammelled more or less with the feelings\nour mothers instilled into us. I think Lycurgus a great man, and\nperfectly reasonable. Had I been born a Spartan, I think I should have\nthanked the gods for it, but now--\"\n\n\"Now,\" interrupted Mrs. Godfrey, \"you are more nearly a Sybarite. I\nknow of no one whom a crumpled rose-leaf disturbs more easily than\nyourself.\"\n\n\"Nay, Mrs. Godfrey, the _argumentum ad hominem_ is hardly fair; but,\nafter all, I suppose we must admit that character is geographical and\nchronological, besides being modified by individual circumstance. I\nthink freely, but I am scarcely free to change my character; so in\nlegislating I must legislate on public grounds for others. It does not\nfollow that I can keep the law I deem it fitting to make.\n\n\"But if you cannot keep it, how can others?\" demanded Annie.\n\n\"Well asked, my fair sister--asked not only by you, but by others\nalso, and therefore is it that we must practically legislate not as we\nthink best, abstractedly, but as nearly best as can be carried out.\nSo, as the people are not yet ripe for ancient Spartan laws, we must\nbe content yet a while to diffuse the principle that physical\ndevelopment, physical beauty, and physical power are the legitimate\nobjects of human worship. When we have accustomed the people to adopt\nthese views, the rest may chance to follow. Meantime, I see De\nVilleneuve coming up the avenue: excuse me for an instant;\" and\nsomewhat to the surprise of the party, the duke bolted through the\nopen door that led on to the grounds to meet his friend, who\ndismounted when he saw him coming. In deep conference they slowly\napproached the house. There was a cloud on the duke's brow, but he\nshook it off as he entered and gayly introduced his friend.\n\n\"I am afraid De Villeneuve hardly admires these divinities, Mrs.\nGodfrey; let us adjourn to the drawing-room.\"\n\n\"Nay, defend yourself, M. de Villeneuve; you will not plead guilty to\nnot loving art?\" said the lady addressed.\n\n\"No, indeed, dear madam, his grace is only avenging himself for my\ncriticisms. I suggested to him the other day that he might get up\nanother temple of modern art as a supplement to this, and he felt\npiqued, I suppose; yet I have found him many times standing rapt\nbefore a Madonna.\"\n\n{185}\n\n\"The gentlemen decided this morning that these were the true gods of\nthe earth, and that Madonnas and Crucifixions were false, unreal\ntypes, and to be discouraged.\"\n\n\"Not possible!\"\n\n\"Nay, it is true, they were voting a return to paganism.\"\n\n\"But you, ladies,\" said M. de Villeneuve, \"you, ladies, were not of\nthat mind, surely?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Hester, mischievously, \"papa was very eloquent In\nlauding ancient institutions.\"\n\n\"But,\" said the comte, turning very earnestly to her, \"he did not tell\nyou how woman was treated in the olden time, before Mary's _fiat_\nrepaired the fault of Eve. Women, intelligent, beautiful women, owe\neverything to that divine Mother; and if they cast off their religion\nit is because the misery is hid from them which the sex was subject to\nformerly.\"\n\n\"There is no necessity just now of making it more clear,\" said Mr.\nGodfrey drily.\n\n\"No,\" said the comte; \"and yet when I see the tendency of the age, I\noften feel that it would be safer did our ladies know the truth. Eve's\nfault should at least bring knowledge when knowledge is necessary to\ntruth. Woman could not help but be fervently religious, did she know\nfrom what an abyss of degradation Christianity has raised her.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey turned impatiently to the window. \"It is splendid weather\nfor riding,\" said he; \"suppose we order the horses.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nMARRIAGE OR NO MARRIAGE.\n\n\nBut why was Adelaide so sad? Why was the young duchess apparently most\nconstrained when with her husband? Why, on the contrary, was he, as\nusual, gay, cheerful, and animated? These were questions for a\nmother's heart to ask, and yet, uneasy as she was, Mrs. Godfrey asked\nthem not. She dared not seek the confidence of her daughter, lest\naught should be betrayed which it were better she should not know. She\nknew that the confidence of a married woman is sacred even from a\nmother, in all that appertains to her husband; and what other secrets\ncould Adelaide have?\n\nSeveral days passed, and no clue to the enigma was discovered. Parties\nof pleasure were formed, the grounds were traversed, the library\nransacked--literary, scientific, nay political excitement created for\nthe amusement and entertainment of the guests; but no familiar,\nconfidential chit-chat gave occasion to the disclosure of the secret\nwhich it was evident was weighing on Adelaide's mind.\n\nOne morning, however, Mr. Godfrey shut himself up in the library, in\norder to search through some volumes for a passage he desired, and his\ndaughter entered, turning the key in the door as she did so. Mr.\nGodfrey looked up. Adelaide was pale and trembling. He took her hand\nand led her to a sofa. In a few moments she partly recovered; yet it\nwas in a faltering voice that she asked:\n\n\"Father, is a marriage with a Roman Catholic valid?\"\n\n\"Valid? Yes, I suppose so; why not, my dear?\"\n\nAdelaide became still more pale, but did not answer.\n\nMr. Godfrey was alarmed. \"How does this concern you, my child?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"Why--why--the duke is then married to another lady,\" faltered she.\n\n\"Impossible!\" said the father. \"Impossible! he would not--dare not do\nsuch a deed. You have been imposed upon, Adelaide. Tell me the story,\nand the authority for it.\"\n\n\"Did you hear of a woman fainting, almost under the carriage-wheels,\non the morning of my marriage, father?\"\n\n\"I did; what of it, my child!\"\n\n{186}\n\n\"That woman believes herself to be his wife! She followed us, and\nconfronted the duke in Scotland in a narrow glen. She watched day and\nnight to speak to him; her watching was noticed, pointed out to me,\nand one day as he was returning home I saw her start up from under a\nhedge and stand before him. He evidently sought to avoid her, but she\nwould not be avoided; she held him by the skirts of his coat till he\nconsented to speak with her. Unperceived by both I stole near them; I\nheard her claim him as her husband; I listened in vain for his denial;\nI heard him urge her to go home; I heard him say that he would satisfy\nher another time--that it should be all right if she would only\nquietly depart; and I heard, too, her indignant refusal to depart\nuntil he had told her his true name, and where he was to be found. 'To\nme,' she said, 'you have called yourself Colonel Ellwood, and my boy\nhas borne that name!'\"\n\n\"'Let him bear it still,' replied the duke.\n\n\"'But is it the right one? is it yours!' she shrieked.\n\n\"'I am the Duke of Durimond,' answered he. She fell fainting at his\nfeet. Unthinkingly, I pressed forward to succor her, thus revealing\nthat I had overheard the conversation. The duke started, and said,\n'This is no scene for your grace; if you will send an attendant from\nthe house yonder to wait on this poor stranger, it will be kind of\nyou.' I did as requested, but the agitation of my feelings caused an\nillness which detained us a long time in Scotland. I did not like to\ninform you of my illness then. The duke would have been kind, but I\nliked not to see him near me. Once or twice he tried to explain to me\nthat the whole was a mistake, but I asked him not to mention it. When\nwe came to London he again tried explanation, but I told him all\nexplanation must be to you. He endeavored in vain to shake my\nresolution, and at length brought me here and sent for you. A lawyer\nwas with him in London several times, and a Catholic priest was\ncloseted with him the day he arrived. I suspect this unhappy business\nwas the cause of their visits, but I have asked nothing. We have held\nlittle communication with each other since that unfortunate\nrecognition in Scotland.\"\n\n\"My poor child!\" said the father \"and was this your honeymoon?\"\n\nAdelaide laid her head on her father's shoulder, and wept.\n\n\"But why do you think the woman is a Roman Catholic, Adelaid?\"\n\n\"He told me so one day, and therefore, he says, the marriage is not\nvalid.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is so, Adelaide.\"\n\n\"But if it is so, she believes herself his wife, and she is pure,\ngood, innocent; it is written in her face.\"\n\n\"My poor child?\" again ejaculated the father.\n\nHow long they sat sorrowing silence they heeded not. Each felt that\nwhichever hypothesis were true, married or not married, there was\nbitterness enough. At length the sound of voices in the hall warned\nAdelaide to seek her own apartment. Mr. Godfrey went immediately to\nthe duke.\n\n\"My daughter has been with me this morning, your grace,\" said he, in\nsolemn, deliberate tones.\n\n\"Ah yes! Well--Mr. Godfrey--well--your daughter is not quite well, I\nfear.\"\n\n\"She is seriously unhappy, I am sorry to inform you, my lord duke.\"\n\n\"Unhappy!--ah!--well, well; she has taken a youthful in discretion of\nmine somewhat too sorely to heart; but you, Mr. Godfrey, know that\nthose little affairs are common enough to men of the world.\"\n\n\"My daughter speaks of a previous marriage, your grace.\"\n\n\"Pshaw! some few words she heard have been made to signify too much.\nAdelaide is my wife, my duchess. Let her be satisfied on that point.\"\n\n\"It is just on that point she is not satisfied--it is just on that\npoint that I now require to be satisfied.\"\n\n{187}\n\n\"How can I satisfy you save by denying any other marriage?\"\n\n\"Has no ceremony ever passed between your grace and another woman who\nclaims to be your wife?\"\n\n\"No legal ceremony, upon my honor as a nobleman.\"\n\n\"No legal ceremony; some kind of ceremony has taken place, then?\" said\nMr. Godfrey.\n\n\"If not a _legal_ one, then none which concerns you. Be content, Mr.\nGodfrey, daughter is indisputably a duchess.\"\n\n\"I am not content, my lord duke; I must see this other claimant to the\nducal coronet,\" said Mr. Godfrey, rising.\n\n\"By heaven, you shall not!\" answered the duke, rising as suddenly;\n\"you shall not--indeed you shall not. No, my poor Ellen, no: injured\nyou have been, but at least I will save you from insult.\"\n\n\"Methinks your grace's words are strange ones to the father of your\nride,\" said Mr. Godfrey. \"Is the peace of your mistress to be\npreferred to that of your wife?\"\n\n\"Let us understand each other, Mr. Godfrey,\" said the duke; \"and to do\nthat, I must caution you not to say one word in disrespect of the\nperson you falsely term my mistress. Listen: Fifteen years ago I met a\nbeing, lovely, tender, innocent; before one personating a Romish\npriest I called her wife; she knew not, until now, the title was not\nlegal; for fifteen years I have, as a simple gentleman, sought her\nsociety when weary of ambition and of the selfishness of the world;\nfor fifteen years have I, at such intervals as I could steal away from\ngrandeur and false honors, found repose and happiness in the society\nof that gentle, that unworldly being. Children have been born to me\nand died, all save one, a noble boy--one whom I would gladly train to\ndeeds of glory, were it that--O Ellen, Ellen!\"\n\n\"And with such feelings as these, my lord, you dared to lead my\ndaughter to the altar?\" indignantly demanded Mr. Godfrey.\n\n\"Yes, and why not?\" replied the duke. \"Your daughter suffered no\ninjury. You sought for her not _love_, but a coronet, and that she has\nnow. Let her enjoy it. I acted not the hypocrite. I promised what I\ngave--power, rank, grandeur, and respect; these she has: what cause\nis there for complaint?\"\n\n\"But why, if a peerless beauty were already yours, why seek another\nbride, my lord? Why not have made the lady of your love your duchess?\"\n\n\"Because--because--I knew not her value at first. At first it was her\nbeauty that attracted me; then her virtue kept me true to her, and I\nloved her unworldliness, her want of ambition. To have made her a\nduchess would have spoiled my dream of being loved for myself alone.\nBesides, Ellen is a Catholic, a sincere one, and never would she\nconsent that a child of hers should be brought up in the paganism of\nthese times.\"\n\n\"But why, I must yet inquire, why, with these feelings, did your grace\nmarry at all?\"\n\n\"Why? did I not want a duchess in my halls? a pagan heir to my\nPantheon, sir? To whom were these gorgeous collections of heathen\nidols, these entailed estates, these titles, honors, to descend?\nEllen's son could not inherit all, even were he legitimate. His\nCatholic feeling would turn aside in disgust from much, and English\nlaw would exclude him from office or dignity in the nation. Had I\nlived anywhere but in England, perchance my child had risen to compete\nwith the highest.\"\n\n\"He and his mother still hold, evidently, the highest place in your\naffections. And is my daughter for ever to play second part in your\nheart, and this incomparable miracle of goodness the first?\"\n\n\"Your daughter, sir, is to reign supreme, the imperial queen of the\nParnassian deities. Juno-like, she treads her path o'er high Olympus;\nall bow to her, and Jupiter himself shall treat her with reverence,\nsave when she {188} intrudes upon his private moments. She has\nbargained for wealth, and power, and pomp, and influence; she has\nthem: let her be content. Love was out of the 'bargain;' it is useless\nnow to contend for it, as if it were her due. But for my Ellen, you\nmisjudge her, if you think that, with the knowledge she now has, she\nwould ever admit me to her presence again. I do not even know how I\ncan induce her to accept a maintenance from me--from me, who would\nhave died to save her, yet who have caused her such bitter pangs! Oh!\nI could stab myself from sheer remorse!\"\n\nAnd the dark shade that passed over the features, now convulsed with\nmental agony, showed that the words were not ones of mere expression.\n\nMr. Godfrey paused, yet was his anger not subdued; he had not deemed\nthat the duke had so much of human feeling in his composition. Worldly\nand courtly as he seemed, who could suspect go strong an undercurrent\nof deep and passionate emotion?\n\nThat this should be there, and not felt for his wife! Mr. Godfrey did\nfeel this an injury; though, as the duke said, love had not been in\nthe bargain.\n\nThe long pause was at length broken by Mr. Godfrey's saying: \"Your\ngrace must excuse me, but, for my daughter's sake, I must insist on\nobtaining evidence that this marriage, which you admit _did_ take\nplace, was not legal. If I may not approach the lady myself, who can\nprocure me the evidence I demand?'\"\n\n\"I know not--unless--stay; I would willingly make one more attempt to\nsecure Ellen's acceptance of a provision for her child. Hitherto she\nhas rejected all mediation: not only the lawyer, but De Villeneuve,\nand a bishop of her own church, have solicited her in vain to listen\nto such an idea; a lady--a Catholic might be more successful. You have\nin your family one seemingly as pure and good as Ellen's self--one\nholding the same holy faith; if she will consent to undertake the\nmission, I will confide to her the secret of Ellen's residence. De\nVilleneuve will escort her, but I doubt if she will gain admittance;\nnone have yet succeeded who went from me.\"\n\n\"You mean Euphrasie, I presume?\"\n\n\"I do; if you can trust to her report, I shall gladly make her my\nambassadress to treat respecting the future provision to be made for\nmother and child.\"\n\n\"I will see her on the subject.\"\n\n\"Tis well; good morning, Mr. Godfrey.\"\n\nHow little do we know of the inward feelings even of those with whom\nwe fancy ourselves intimate! Here was the cold, heartless man of\npleasure, so-called by the world, so thought of by his father-in-law,\na prey, when left to himself, to the most violent emotions of grief\nfor the loss of Ellen. Had it been possible at that moment to redeem\nher affections by the sacrifice of earthly grandeur, there is but\nlittle doubt that the sacrifice would have been made, for the loss of\nthat sweet solace had never been contemplated as a necessary\naccomplishment to this marriage. For fifteen years he had kept his\nincognito in her society as Colonel Ellwood, and as Colonel Ellwood he\nmeant to visit her still, and to indemnify himself in her sweet\nsociety for the heartlessness and cheerlessness of the ducal mansion.\n\nThis dream was at an end; he's incognito had been discovered, and at\nonce all intercourse was over. The gay and courtly duke felt as if all\ninterest in life had suddenly vanished from the earth. His outward\ndemeanor appeared, indeed, unchanged, at least to superficial\nobservers, but those who looked beneath the surface could detect a\nlatent disdain for all things; and if the same pursuits still seemed\nto engage his attention, it was from habit, or from want of\noccupation, not from any relish for the pursuit itself. {189} Little\ndid the world suspect that his gay and polished manner covered a\nbroken heart, and that the munificent owner of countless rangers, the\nhaughty scion of a long line of ancestors, was pining away beneath the\nblight which had destroyed is happiness, and was eventually to destroy\nhis life. But we must not anticipate, rather let us return to our\ntheme.\n\nEuphrasie heard with surprise and pain of the position of her young\nfriend Adelaide, but was most unwilling to undertake the negotiation\nproposed; it was only at M. de Villeneuve's reiterated assurance that\nit was a great work of charity which she demanded of her, that she at\nlength consented.\n\nOn their arrival at the village, some hours' journey distant from\nLondon, and further yet from the duke's residence, M. de Villeneuve\nrequested Euphrasie to proceed from the hotel alone to Ellswood\ncottage, as his presence would be suspicious, and probably prevent her\ngaining admittance. A dark-haired, bright-eyed boy was playing in the\ngarden before the cottage; he came to the gate on seeing a stranger\napproach, and as he held the gate in his hand, he said, before\nEuphrasie addressed him:\n\n\"Mamma is very ill, no one can see her today.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry to hear that. Has she been ill long?\"\n\n\"Yes, ever since she took a long, long journey, and came back so\ntired. She went to find papa, and did not find him,\" and the child's\nvoice dropped to a whisper: \"I think papa is dead, but I must not tell\nher so.\"\n\n\"Why do you think so, my dear?\"\n\n\"Because he would never stay away so long if he were alive; he never\ndid before: and when he did stay away he used to leave mamma lots of\nmoney; now she has no money at all, and she is going away from here.\"\n\n\"Where is she going to?\"\n\n\"I do not know; but she says she must work, and that I must work now\nfor my living; so I know she must be very poor.\"\n\n\"I want to see your mamma. They say she is very kind. Tell her I am a\nstranger--a French girl; that I seek kindness from her.\"\n\n\"Are you poor, too?\" asked the little boy.\n\n\"Yes, very poor, indeed,\" replied Euphrasie.\n\n\"Then I will ask mamma if you may come in; mamma loves the poor.\"\n\nWhen the boy returned he was accompanied by an elderly woman, bearing\nthe appearance of an upper servant. She addressed Euphrasie\nrespectfully: \"Mrs. Ellwood can see no one to-day, miss; can you send\nin your business by me?\"\n\n\"Not very well, my business is personal; shall I be able to see her\ntomorrow?\"\n\n\"It is impossible to say, but you can call and see; to-morrow you may\nbe able to find some one who will see you in her stead; she sees no\none herself, but she expects a friend to-night who manages her\nbusiness for her.\"\n\nWith this answer she was obliged to be content: she returned to the\nhotel where M. de Villeneuve awaited her. \"This is a bad business,\" he\nsaid; \"I have been here twice before with no better result, she will\nnot see strangers.\"\n\n\"You have not seen her, then?\"\n\n\"No! I have only heard of her, she is almost adored here for her deeds\nof kindness and charity. I never knew of a case which excited my\ninterest so much; it was on her account, not on the duke's, that I\nassented to pay this place so many visits. God only can console her!\"\n\n* * * * * *\n\nThere was a sound of carriages in the night, a very unusual thing in\nthat secluded village; and in the morning early, again there was the\nsound of wheels. M. de Villeneuve strolled to the end of the street;\nhe shook his head on his return. \"We are altogether too late,\" he\nsaid; \"the people {190} say that she is gone; and many are weeping,\nfor she was dearly loved.\"\n\n\"Shall we not go to the house?\" asked Euphrasie.\n\n\"There is no harm in making the inquiry, but she is not there.\"\n\nIt was even so: Mrs. Ellwood had departed, fearing that if she\nremained there she should be constantly subject to intrusion. In the\nparlor into which they were shown, Euphrasie found one whom she was\nlittle prepared to see: it was M. Bertolot. A general grasping of\nhands and affectionate recognition took place; and then the old priest\ninquired their business. \"The bishop sent me here,\" he said, \"because\nhe could not come himself, and because the poor lady entreated the\nutmost secrecy; but what brought you here?\"\n\nM. de Villeneuve took up the word: \"We came from the duke; his grace\nthought our young friend here might find admittance, though we were\nall refused.\"\n\n\"His grace need not dream of any such thing; the wrong he has done is\nnot such as embassies or money can rectify. The lady is a\ntrue-hearted, noble woman, a sincere Catholic; the message that she\nhas left for him is simply that 'she forgives him, and will pray for\nhis conversion; but if ever he loved her, she entreats that he will\nnever more pursue her or send to her.'\"\n\n\"But how is she to be supported?\"\n\n\"She trusts in God, who is a husband to the widow, and a father to the\nfatherless. The duke's money she will not touch; it is no use to press\nthe matter, she has a woman's instincts, and that is often better than\na man's reasoning.\"\n\n\"You are severe, father, but this is a case to make you so; may we not\nknow where she is gone to?\"\n\n\"No! you may not even know you saw me here; say only you saw her\nagent, who gave you her message, and would not tell you her residence.\nNever let the duke or the Godfrey family know that the bishop sent me\nhere.\"\n\n\"You may depend on us, father. But is this all that we are to say to\nthe duchess? You know the question has been raised respecting the\nvalidity of the marriage.\"\n\n\"The bishop examined that himself; he would have been glad to prove it\na true one, but the scamp who married them was a disguised young\nspendthrift, who did not know how to keep out of a debtor s jail in\nany other way than by taking that wicked fee; if Mr. Godfrey is uneasy\non that point, he can apply to the bishop, there is his address.\"\n\nWhen M. de Villeneuve and Euphrasie returned to Durimond Castle with\nthe result of this mission, they found Adelaide far less placable than\nthe more deeply injured Ellen had expressed herself by her message.\nShe assented indeed to do the honors of the castle, to _reign_\nsupreme, but she insisted on a virtual separation as the price of her\ncontinuing to wear the title of the Duchess of Durimond.\n\nThe duke was in no humor to contend with her; perhaps even he was as\nwell pleased to have it so. He was careful to surround her with all\nimaginable tokens of deference and respect, and told Mr. Godfrey he\nwould see what time would do to soften his haughty Juno. Soon after he\naccepted the office of ambassador to a foreign court, and thus left\nhis wife at liberty to queen it o'er her vassals at her pleasure.\n\nMeantime we lay before our readers the sad history which occasioned\nall this commotion.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nELLEN'S HISTORY.\n\nEllen D'Aubrey was the daughter of an Irish officer, who her mother\n(Ellen Carpenter) had married against the wishes of her family. Our\nheroine was their only child. {191} Soon after her birth the mother,\nMrs. D'Aubrey, fell into delicate health, and years of pain and\nsuffering ensued, after which she died, leaving Ellen, then ten years\nold, to condole her husband for her loss. This, however, was not so\neasy, for Captain D'Aubrey had truly loved his refined and gentle\nwife, and the illness she had borne with so much sweetness and\npatience had the more endeared her to him; besides which, during that\nsickness he had learned many important lessons. Up to that time his\nwife, though amiable and affectionate, had thought but little on\nserious subjects, and he, though nominally a Catholic, had neglected\nhis religion. But when sorrow came, and the wife and mother became\naware that though she might linger on a while, she could not regain\nhealth, and must leave behind her those so dear to her, then an\nanxiety for future reunion took possession of her. She began to\nquestion her husband of religion, and he, recalling for her solace the\nlessons of his youth, became himself impressed with their importance.\nCatholic truth and Catholic consolation were poured into the soul of\nthe departing wife, and having procured her every necessary aid, the\ncaptain imparted himself a great consolation by promising to watch\nover the education of their darling child, and endeavor to bring her\nup in the faithful performance of her duties as a Catholic Christian,\nwithout endangering her faith by permitting her to frequent schools or\nsociety hostile to her religion.\n\nThe noble-hearted captain had scarcely closed the eyes of the being he\nheld so dear, than he began to consider how he might best fulfil his\npromise. He sold his commission, and living on a small annuity which\nhe possessed, applied himself to develop in his child the powers that\nlay enfolded in her soul; but above all, he sought to cherish and to\nstrengthen religious principle. Well did the little Ellen repay his\ncare. At that time, in England, there were few exterior aids to\nreligion. Catholic chapels were few and far apart. One priest attended\nmany missions, and these but stealthily; but so much the more\nsedulously did the captain endeavor to infuse the spirit of religion\ninto the soul of his child, and to animate her with patience,\nmeekness, humility, and universal charity. Loving and beloved, she\ngrew up beneath her father's eye like a beautiful flower,\nreciprocating his tenderness, and increasing daily in beauty and\naccomplishments. Suddenly a dark cloud lowered above that happy home.\nCaptain D'Aubrey was seized with a fever, and in three days expired,\nleaving Ellen, at the age of sixteen, an orphan, almost penniless,\ncast upon the world's cold charity.\n\nStrangers made out her connexions, for Ellen was stupefied by the\nblow. Strangers wrote to Mrs. Carpenter, her maternal grandmother, and\nbefore Ellen well knew what she was about she was travelling south\nwith an old lady, who endeavored in vain to rouse her from her sorrow.\n\nWhen the captain's affairs were arranged, but little was found\nremaining. His annuity ceased at his death. It had just sufficed for\ntheir maintenance; and as the sale of the furniture amounted to very\nlittle, the poor girl was utterly dependent.\n\nSuch was the account given by Mrs. Carpenter to Mrs. Barford, her\nmarried daughter, with whom, being herself a widow, she then resided.\nMrs. Barford had married a man whose character was the very reverse of\nthat of Ellen's father. He was a thorough business-like, money-making\ninstrument, having no higher idea than to be continually extending his\nbusiness, no higher ambition than to be mayor of the city in which he\nresided. Already he was a great man in his own estimation, and he\nintended that his family should become of importance also. This couple\nreceived Ellen but coldly, though she hardly knew or felt it, for she\nwas as yet absorbed in grief. Mrs. Carpenter intended to be kind, and\ninsisted on Ellen's grief being respected. {192} A week or two passed,\nthen it was proposed one Sunday to Ellen to go with the family to\nchurch. She excused herself. Another week passed--and the same\nproposal was repeated. On this she was closely questioned as to the\nreason why; and when Mr. Barford came at length to understand that\nEllen was a Catholic, his anger knew no bounds. A Catholic in his own\nhouse! _He_ feed popery! _He_ foster rebellion! _He_ countenance\npowder-plots! The thing was impossible! the girl must leave the\nhouse--she would corrupt the children, contaminate the servants,\ncompromise his respectability, pervert the neighborhood; in short,\nbreed every kind of disorder and endanger his position. Go she must.\nIn vain his wife pleaded that the poor girl had nowhere to go to; she\nwas obliged to summon Mrs. Carpenter to her aid. As the old lady had\nplenty of money, Mr. Barford held her habitually in respect,\nespecially as she could will it as she pleased; therefore, when she\ninsisted that where she was her grand-daughter should find a home, the\ngreat man yielded, and among themselves they arranged a plan which was\nto counteract the evil influence they dreaded. Mrs. Carpenter\nundertook to watch Ellen closely, and by degrees to win her from her\npapistry: and as there was no papist church in the locality, the\nneighbors need not even know what her religion was.\n\nAs for powder-plots, the good old lady argued that a girl of sixteen,\nwithout friends, money, or resources, could not effect much against\nthe government, so she was not uneasy on that score. Silenced, but not\nconvinced, Mr. Barford, who dared not disoblige his wife's mother,\nsaid no more on the subject to her, but he determined to keep a sharp\nlookout, and nip in the bud any incipient conspiracy. But under these\ninfluences, the poor girl's happiness was sadly compromised. Her\ngrandmother undertook to enlighten her as to the character of these\npapists, to show her what a terrible set these unfortunate, benighted\nidolaters are, and so to bring her round to the Protestant\nestablishment. Most horrible tales of conspiracies, plots, martyrdoms,\ninquisitorial victimizing, and every species of villanous scheming for\nthe overthrow of pure religion, were recounted to her. These failing\nto make impression, the sin of idolatry was brought home to herself,\nand on Fridays the crime of not eating meat was by no means accounted\na small one. A regular series of petty persecutions were commenced,\nthe children of the family were taught to distrust her; she was not\nallowed to make acquaintances in the neighborhood, nor to stir out,\nsave at her grandmother's side.\n\nThe old lady meant well in the part she took in this; she was not\naware of the greater portion of the annoyance Ellen underwent, and she\nthought time only was wanted to enable her to throw off the prejudices\nof her education. She really liked Ellen for her refinement and\ngentleness, and kept her as much as she could about her. She made her\nread to her, and wait upon her; and though the books were not to\nEllen's taste, yet this was by far the most tolerable portion of her\nexistence. But even of this small alleviation, Mrs. Barford grew\njealous; she was greatly afraid that her mother would leave too great\na portion of her wealth to the poor orphan girl, and her harshness\nincreased in proportion as Mrs. Carpenter's partiality manifested\nitself. She did not hesitate to impute the most unworthy motives to\nEllen for paying such kind and respectful attentions to her\ngrandmother, for Ellen's conduct contrasted too painfully with that of\nthe unruly children of the household; and when by her reproaches Mrs.\nBarford drew tears from the poor girl's eyes, she would bid her \"go\nand warm herself into her grandmother's favor, by her Jesuitical\ncaresses and her crocodile tears.\" {193} Poor girl! it was no wonder\nthat she became pale and thin and miserable; but instead of being\ninduced to give up her religion, she clung to it the more, the more\nshe stood in need of consolation. And thus a year, a long and dreary\nyear, had passed away. At length a partial respite came. Mrs.\nCarpenter was taken sick; Ellen waited on her most assiduously; but\nalthough she could scarcely be spared as a nurse, on account of the\ncomfort her presence seemed to afford the sick, yet Mrs. Barford's\njealousy, and her husband's ill-treatment, considerably increased.\nMeasures were often spoken of between this amiable pair, and plans\ndevised to effect an estrangement between Ellen and her grandmother.\nThe old lady partially recover, and then Mrs. Barford grew eloquent on\nthe wonderful effects of a change of air. By dint of manoeuvering, she\nat length made the poor sick woman consent to dispense with Ellen's\nattendance at the watering-place to which they were bound. Mrs.\nBarford went herself to take care of her mother, and her children\naccompanied her.\n\n* * * * * * Ellen was now virtually alone, for Mr. Barford was engaged\nin his business, and not wish to be troubled with her company, even at\nhis meals. What a relief! Ellen heard the carriage drive from the door\nwith a feeling of release from bitter thraldom. How long it might last\nshe knew not, but certainly for some weeks. She read her own books\n--her father's books--so long concealed at the bottom of her chest.\nShe opened the piano, and sang the hymns of the church. She took out\nher sketch-book, and reviewed the seems she had visited with her\nfather.\n\nAt once her spirits rose, her eyes sparkled, her animation returned,\nand at the close of the day she retired to rest, for the first time in\nthat house, with a light and joyous spirit. The next morning she was\nup with the lark. She opened her window to inhale the balmy air, and a\ngush of joy came over her as she felt that she was secure from\nannoyance at least for a time. A hasty breakfast was soon despatched,\nand the fragrant, breeze driving in at the window, attracted her\nattention to the flowery meadows. Her spirits were too keen to permit\nher to sit still, and as the bright sunshine poured in upon her, she\nasked herself why she should not enjoy it out of doors; she had been\nimprisoned so long, and now there was no one to rebuke or find fault\nwith what she did. She could not withstand the temptation. \"I will go\nand sketch the ruins of the abbey,\" she said, \"and meditate on the\ntimes the good old monks were there.\" Sketch-book in hand she sallied\nforth. The streets of the city were soon traversed, and the avenues\nleading to the ruins more slowly paced. The morning was one of most\nglorious beauty. The birds sang in the new-leafing groves, the busy\nbees hummed, and the dew-drops clinging to the tips of the\nfresh-springing grass, presented a most dazzling appearance as, waving\nin the sunshine, they reflected hues of every color, and freshened\nwith new life the whole creation. Ellen's spirits were at their\nheight; yet with somewhat of a solemn step she approached the hallowed\nsolitudes. None was there save herself--at least she perceived none.\nLong she wandered within the precincts trodden by holy feet of old,\nand at length sat down on a fallen tree to begin her sketch.\n\nThe ruin had formerly been surrounded by a moat; even now one side of\nthis remained, and communicated with the river. By the side of this,\nour heroine took her seat on the fallen tree. How long she sat she\nknew not. It was a great delight to her once more to handle the pencil\nso long laid aside. She worked as if inspired, and the main features\nwere at length described with taste and accuracy. In her eagerness she\nhad untied her bonnet, (which was a close one, covering her face,\nafter the fashion of those days,) and pushed it slightly back, {194}\nthus displaying her animated features, unconscious the while that a\nstranger was gazing at her, and that for upward of an hour he had been\ntracing her features in his gratified imagination.\n\nAt length she rose to depart, but as she was putting up her sketch,\nher bonnet fell from her head, and would have rolled into the river\nhad not the stranger caught it, as it reached the brink, and\ngracefully restored it to her. He was older than herself and wore an\nofficer's uniform. Could there be any harm in thanking him, and in\nunfolding, at his request, the sketch which had occasioned the\naccident? Ellen thought not of harm. She was unversed in the world's\nways, and had experienced more of its annoyances than its dangers.\nInsensibly a conversation was entered into. It was prolonged until the\nshadows proclaimed that the sun was verging to the west. The stranger\nwas evidently pleased and surprised at Ellen's keen sense of natural\nand artistic beauty, and at the simple yet poetic manner in which she\nclothed her ideas. The themes dilated on touched exactly his favorite\nhobby, and it was evidently a gratification to him to find one fresh\nin feeling, endowed with genius and beauty, who could appreciate his\nfeelings and sympathize with his artistic tastes.\n\nReluctantly he parted with his companion, and on the morrow he seemed\nintuitively to know where he should find her, to renew the enjoyment\nof the previous day. Another day came, and another, until at length it\nbecame a matter of course that the two should meet. And still it was\nonly poetry, or music, or painting, that occupied them. Why, then, did\nEllen half surmise that the meeting was wrong? One day she did keep\naway, and thought she would try to do so always, but the hours hung\nheavily on her hands, and her resolution failed; so the walks\ncontinued.\n\nAt length the period for her aunt's return arrived, and not only must\nshe expect to be virtually imprisoned as before, but the dread of what\nher aunt would say when she heard (as surely from some kind, gossiping\nneighbor she would hear) of her daily interviews with a strange\ngentleman, broke upon her. Why had she not thought of this before? Why\nhad she yielded to the temptation? All too late those questions now,\nand those only who know what it is to live amid insult and neglect can\nappreciate her feelings or estimate the temptations to which she was\nexposed.\n\nThe stranger, who called himself Colonel Ellwood, had travelled much;\nhe spoke to her of Italy, of Spain, of France; he had brought her a\nrosary which the Pope had blessed, and had described to her in glowing\nterms many of the ceremonies which he has witnessed. Why should she\ndistrust him? With tears in her eyes she told him that in two days her\naunt was expected home, and that these interviews must cease.\n\"Indeed,\" she added, \"I am afraid my aunt will half-kill me when she\nfinds they have ever taken place.\"\n\n\"Then why not forestall her return by your own departure?\"\n\n\"And to what quarter of the world should I go?' asked Ellen.\n\n\"If, sweet lady, you would trust yourself with me,\" said Colonel\nEllwood.\n\nEllen started and shrank back, but the colonel followed her, saying:\n\"Nay, do me not the injustice to suppose that I would wrong you; the\nimpression you have made upon me is for life; your happiness, your\nhonor, are as dear to me as my own soul. It is marriage I offer you--a\n_bona fide_ marriage, though a private one. My circumstances at this\nmoment are peculiar. But fly with me, and a Catholic priest shall\nbless our union; I swear it on my honor.\"\n\nEllen hesitated, but her very hesitation encouraged hope. The day\npassed. Another came. Again Colonel Ellwood urged flight. Again the\nfear beset her lest her aunt should hear of these clandestine\nmeetings. Love, too, for the stranger, who, although {195} unknown,\nwas evidently refined, cultivated, and well versed in all human\nlearning, grew rapidly since he had declared his love. To lose him was\nto lose everything; for who save he had shown kindness to the poor,\nfriendless orphan girl? The time passed:--the day was at hand--a\nrestless day--sleepless night--haunted by the sound of carriage wheels\nbringing back her tyrant to her home. Ellen's resolution gave way: two\nhours before her aunt's arrival she quitted that dwelling of strife\nfor ever.\n\nColonel Ellwood appeared to keep his promise. One in the dress of a\nCatholic priest united them in marriage, and to Ellen's fancy that\nthere was someone of informality in the ceremony, came the ready reply\nthat it was necessitated by the anomalous position of a Catholic\npriest in England.   [Footnote 37]\n\n  [Footnote 37: This was before the Catholic emancipation bill had\n  passed.]\n\nShe knew little or nothing of the law, and for some time afterward she\nresided on the Continent with her husband. Here no doubt harassed her;\nlove for him excluded doubt, and that love at times nearly reached the\nheight of adoration. On the other hand, the happiness of geniality,\ncombined with the high mental culture which her husband loved to\npromote, added so intellectual, nay so ethereal an expression to her\nnaturally handsome features, that his love and reverence increased as\ntime wore on, and he dared not tell the being who thus fondly loved\nhim for himself alone, how foully he had deceived her. In his eyes she\nwas an angel of light; and far from offering impediments to her\nfulfilling her religious duties, he delighted in her constancy; though\nthere were times when a cloud came over him, and he felt as if he were\nbut he demon of darkness by her side, destined to become the destroyer\nof her happiness. At such moments, Ellen, who was in mute amazement at\nthe paroxysms which assailed him would strive by every endearing art\nto charm away his melancholy, and by so doing sometimes nearly drove\nhim to frenzy; and alarmed her for his sanity, without decreasing her\naffection. But these fitful moments passed away. Continental troubles\ndrove them back to England, and here Colonel Ellwood's difficulty in\nkeeping his incognito increased. Sometimes he took an abode for her in\nthe North of Scotland, sometimes in the mountains of Wales; his\nrestlessness and anxiety distressed and puzzled her, he was not the\nsame man in England he had seemed on the Continent. He was often\nabsent, too, for weeks, nay for months together; but this he accounted\nfor so plausibly on the score of army duties and the like, that Ellen\ntried to be satisfied, especially as he carried on a constant\ncorrespondence with her, and always sent her regular and plentiful\nremittances. But one circumstance puzzled her even in this--it was\nthat she had to address all her answers to him under cover to his\nlawyer. This person, who knew nothing of Ellen, believed it was a sort\nof affair common among the nobility, young and old, and performed the\nbusiness part of the transaction faithfully as regarded transmitting\nmoney and letters, while he gave himself no further trouble about the\nmatter.\n\nThe time of discovery arrived but too soon. Ellen's child had been\nill, and she had taken him to the seacoast to restore his health. It\nwas the first time that she had ever left the residence appointed for\nher by her husband without his sanction and permission, and it was the\nurgency of the case that prompted her to deviate from this settled\nplan. She thought to be gone only a few days, and his last letter had\nbidden her not to expect him for a month or two, as pressing business\nwas to be imperatively attended to; so there was little chance of his\nbeing displeased at the proceeding, indeed he had never been really\ndispleased with her. She went, then, and on the beach she was\nrecognized by a lady she did not remember, but {196} who chanced to\nhave a better memory than Ellen. The lady appeared to be somewhat of a\nmorose and malignant disposition, and entered into conversation\napparently to gratify some ill-natured feeling. Ellen was annoyed and\nwould have avoided her, but the other evidently had an object in view.\nAt last she blurted out:\n\n\"So the Duke of Durimond is to be married soon, I hear.\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" said Ellen, \"I have no acquaintance among the great.\"\n\n\"No acquaintance with the Duke of Durimond, madam? Why, surely I saw\nyou at----Hotel in Inverness-shire with him three years ago.\"\n\n\"In Inverness-shire I was with my husband, but I saw no duke there.\"\n\n\"Your husband, ma'am! the gentleman was called Colonel Ellwood, was he\nnot? Well, then, madam, the world believes Colonel Ellwood and the\nDuke of Durimond to be the same person. But, to be sure, you ought to\nknow best. I can only say I was told so, often, in Inverness-shire,\nand now the duke is gone to marry Miss Godfrey of Estcourt Hall; is\nthat a secret also to you?\"\n\nThe woman evidently gloated in the pain she inflicted, and stood\ngazing at the victim. Ellen replied not--she was thunderstruck. Then\nshe deemed it impossible. She turned back to the house, gave up the\nlodgings, and returned to her former home. There, making necessary\narrangements, she left her child in the care of trustworthy servants,\nand ordering a post-chaise, was driven, as fast as horses could carry\nher, to the house of the London lawyer, travelling night and day till\nshe reached her destination.\n\nThe lawyer, Mr. Reynolds, would not reply to her questions. He begged\nthe lady to go home, saying that Colonel Ellwood would soon be with\nher, and that he would be the best person to explain all mysteries.\nHe, Mr. Reynolds, really was not in a position to satisfy her.\n\nWhat an answer to an anxious heart! mystery upon mystery! Why, since\nthey came to England, did these long absences take place? Why did she\nnot know his address? Why--a long list of whys that sorely oppressed\nher heart. What was she to do now? Being thus far, she thought at\nleast she would go down to Estcourt Hall and try to catch a glimpse of\nthe Duke of Durimond; she would know then if the report that\nidentified him with her husband was based on truth.\n\nShe turned suddenly on the lawyer: \"Where is the Duke of Durimond at\nthis instant?\" Her manner, so unlike her usual calm demeanor, startled\nMr. Reynolds, and put him off his guard.\n\n\"I believe, madam, the duke is at the mansion of the Hon. Mr. Godfrey,\nat Estcourt.\"\n\n\"What is he doing there?\"\n\n\"The world reports him as about to be married.\"\n\nEllen turned in a resolute manner to the door--the lawyer followed\nher. \"Be persuaded, ma'am, go home in peace; all will be right in\ntime, believe me.\"\n\nEllen got into the post-chaise, and ordered the driver to proceed to\nSussex without delay. That night she was at Estcourt. The next day, as\nwe have seen, she approached the carriage, recognized the duke to be\nColonel Ellwood, followed him in his bridal tour, spoke with him, and\nthen returned, as best she might, to her now dreary home.\n\nThe duke sent to her--she received not his messages; he wrote--she\nreturned his letters unopened; he called on a Roman Catholic prelate\nto confess the transaction, and beg of him to take care that Ellen was\nsuitably provided for; but the bishop, after seeing Ellen and becoming\ninterested in the story, would not receive any money from the duke on\nEllen's account. He said she refused it, and he could but acquiesce in\nher decision. The duke was utterly perplexed.\n\n\nTO BE CONTINUED.\n\n--------\n\n{197}\n\n\nTranslated from La Correspondant\n\nTHE FOUNDERS OF FRENCH UNITY.  [Footnote 38]\n\nBY THE COUNT DE CHAMPAGNY.\n\n  [Footnote 38: Historical Studies. By the Count L. de Carn\u00e9.]\n\nOur readers are certainly not ignorant of the name or the book of M.\nde Carn\u00e9. The work which he published in 1848, on the eve of the\nrevolution of February, attracted the interest as well as the\nsuffrages of all serious times, and the mass of those who read may\nknow and appreciate it.\n\nThe idea of this book is well known. M. de Carn\u00e9 has been struck with\nwhat constitutes the peculiar genius of the French nation, its unity.\nHe has wished to ascertain and trace the origin of that unity; and has\nfound it summed up in a few proper names, and has condensed in the\nhistory of a small number of statesmen that of the nation.\n\nNothing could be more proper. We are the republican of any nation that\nGod has made, and we are so because the French nation is more strictly\none than any other, and more than any other needs a chief. Abandoned\nourselves, and obliged, willingly or unwillingly, to take each a\npersonal part in the common action, we are worth very little; but we\nare admirable when we are commanded. I do not know if Shakespeare is\nright when he calls France the Soldier of God, but what appears to me\ncertain is that we are much better soldiers than citizens. In France\nthe citizen is a stupid lout who, three-fourths of the time, lets\nhimself be led, and miserably led, either by a journal or a spouting\nchief of a club; he abdicates himself and consents to be led blindly\nby the passions of others. He cries \"Harrah for Revolution!\" when he\nthinks he is only crying \"Hurrah for Reform!\" and makes a revolution\nwithout intending it, and makes it to the profit of his enemies. The\nsoldier, on the contrary, finds in obedience the element of his\nspontaneity, of his intelligence, I had almost said, of his liberty.\nHe was but a peasant, very dull and lubberly when he was free; put\nupon him the coat of passive obedience, and he acquires abilities\nwhich seem to belong only to liberty. He is prompt, he is sagacious,\nhe is intelligent; faithful to his commander when his commander guides\nhim, full of activity and spontaneity, if by chance the commander\nfails him. Why is this? Why is the English citizen so intelligent in\ncommercial and political life, so hampered under the red coat? Why is\nthe French peasant so stupid when he is taken from his plough, so much\nat his ease when in uniform? To this I know no answer, unless it be,\nthat God has so made us. In France, the soldier is more himself when\nunder discipline than the citizen in his liberty. It is not, then,\nsurprising that the history of a people, I will not say so royalist,\nbut so monarchical in the etymological sense of the word, should be\nsummed up in the proper names of a few men.\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 Suger, St. Louis, Du Guesclin, Joan of Arc, Louis XI., Henry\nIV., Richelieu, Mazarin: such are the personages whom M. de Carn\u00e9 has\nselected, and who he shows have gradually effected the development of\nFrench unity. It is in the succession of these names that we can\nfollow with him that development.\n\n{198}\n\nHowever, it is not necessary to believe, and M. de Carn\u00e9 does not\npretend it, that these men made French unity. It has been made by\nitself. France was really one in fact before being made so by the\ngovernment and laws. From the tenth century, when all Gaul was\nparcelled out, when the large provinces all belonged to masters\nindependent in fact, save for the nominal law of vassalage, hardly\nacknowledged, this divided nation felt herself already one, felt\nherself already a nation. She has been one ever since, in reacting\nagainst the yoke of the Austrasian dynasty of the Carlovingians, she\ncommenced to reject from her midst the Germanic race, language, and\ninstitutions. She had her language--we find it distinctly in the oath\nof 843; she had her capital--that little mud city which began to pass\nthe arm of the Seine and to spread itself from the island over on the\nright bank, was already the centre of French life. She had her\ndynasty--that kinglet possessor of a narrow domain, which he disputed\nwith great feudatories more powerful than he, was already and for all\nthe king of France. She was already herself advancing to the time when\nthe grandson of Robert the Strong would make himself obeyed from the\nRhine to the Pyrenees, the _langue d' Oyl_ would become the common\ntongue of Christendom, and all the fiefs from Flanders to the\nMediterranean would hold from the great tower of the Louvre.\n\nThus it seems to me that one of the most important facts in our\nhistory, though little remarked, is the first armed manifestation of\nFrance under Louis the Fat. At the time the Emperor Henry V.\npenetrated into Champagne with a German army, the king, who, according\nto his own expression, had grown old at the siege of Montlh\u00e9ry, in a\nfew weeks found himself at the head of three hundred thousand men,\nunited as a thick cloud of grasshoppers, who cover the banks of the\nrivers, the mountains, and plains. A few weeks more, and the great\nvassals, the Count of Flanders, the Duke of Aquitaine, the Count of\nBrittany, brought him new reinforcements, and his army, raised to four\nhundred thousand men, was double that of the emperor, which was itself\nenormous for the middle ages. The political bond, however, which\nunited those different countries which are to-day called France, was\nvery feeble. These vassals, present at the camp of Louis the Fat,\nrendered him scarcely a ceremonial homage. What bond could unite so\nmany different populations for the defence of a territory which, at\nthat epoch, had scarcely a name, if it was not community of origin and\na common aversion to the Germanic domination? The French nation was\nthen one, even at that epoch, when the king was king of only five of\nour present departments at most. She made herself one by herself and\nher blood, before being made so by kings and laws.\n\nIn all we have been ourselves, and more ourselves than we think. We\nare neither Franks nor Visigoths; we are Gallo-Romans. We are Gauls\ncivilized by Rome, and baptized by the church. The influence of the\nFrank domination has been more superficial than was believed in the\nlast century; the name remains to us, but what else remains? In the\nlanguage, which is the great symbol of nationality, the Germanic\nelement, whether in words or in forms of speech, has evidently been\nonly secondary; and it has left no traces in the national character.\nIn institutions the Germanic element dominated for a time, for the\nsimple reason that it possessed the political power; but it was the\nlabor of the middle ages, and we can say their glory, to efface it.\n\nIn fact, the struggle against feudalism and feudal institutions was,\nto speak truly, a national struggle. There were traces of German\ndomination during four centuries which it was necessary to efface. The\nday when France demanded of the house of Robert the Strong a chief,\nking or not, but a chief to oppose to the Rhenish sovereignty of the\nCarlovingians, that day she commenced, without knowing it, the\nstruggle against the institutions which grew out of the Germanic {199}\nconquest. That struggle was continued under St. Louis, the epoch of\nthe great radiation of French power, when the Mediterranean was almost\nour domain; when we established colonies even on the coasts of Africa;\nwhen our missionaries penetrated even to Thibet; when the sons of\nGenghis Khan were in diplomatic relations with us, and when even in\nItaly they spoke by preference our language as \"the most delightful\"\nand the most generally understood of any in the world.\n\nIn this work the church came to our aid. The great struggle of the\npapacy was also against the pride of the Germanic supremacy. It was\nagainst the feudalism planted in the church, against feudatory bishops\nwho bore armor, and carried the falcon on their wrist, who held their\ndioceses as fiefs, and received their investiture from the German\nsuzerain, and against the kings their patrons, that St. Gregory VII.\nwielded the papal power. It was against the institutions of Germanic\nbarbarism, against the feudal aristocracy, against tests by fire and\nwater, against private wars and judicial combats, that the church, and\nespecially the papacy, never ceased to struggle. There was, then,\nduring a whole century a perfect accord between the kings of France\nand the pontiffs of Rome, between the independence of the commons and\nthe franchises of the religious orders, between the authority of the\nlegists and that of the councils.\n\nAnd for these institutions introduced by the Germanic conquests, and\nwhich we in accord with the church combated, what have we in accord\nwith the church substituted? The institutions proper to our race,\nproper to our traditions as a civilized people, proper to our manners\nas Christians. For feudalism the idea of direct power such as Rome had\ntaught, and such as Charlemagne comprehended and attempted to revive;\nin other words, for suzerainty sovereignty; for the jurisdiction of\nlords was substituted in spirituals that of ecclesiastical judges, in\ntemporals that of royal justices; consequently, for feudal law the\ncanon law of Christian, and the civil law of imperial Rome. For the\nright of private battle we substituted the possession of arms remitted\nto the sovereign alone, as in Rome and in all civilized countries. For\nduels and judicial trials by fire and water we substituted trials by\nwitness, according to the Roman law and the law of the church and of\nall civilized nations. In a word, we effaced the traces of Germanic\npaganism and barbarism, to become in our laws once more what we were\nby blood, Gallo-Romans; what we were by our faith, Christians; what we\nstill are by our reminiscences, civilized men. Such was the work of\nour race from Robert the Strong to St. Louis, of the popes from\nGregory VII. to Gregory IX., of our commons from the first communal\nrevolt to the enfranchisement of the serfs under Louis le Hutin, of\nthe church from the day when she proclaimed the truce of God, and\nconstituted to sustain it a sort of universal _Landwehr_, to that in\nwhich she canonized, in the person of St. Louis, the type, not of the\nfeudal chief, but of the Christian king. Only from this union of all\nforces in reference to a single end, essentially national, legitimate,\nand Christian, there was one unhappy exception, that of the nobility,\nthe heir, whether by blood or position, of the Germanic traditions,\ninvestitures, and institutions, and who became a sort of common enemy.\nThey were found, in spite of their patriotism, standing apart from the\nnation, and unpopular in spite of the many ties which bound them to\nthe people. The church, royalty, even the legists had their place in\nthe popular affection, but the nobility had none. They were suspected\nby the government and abandoned by it to the suspicions of the people.\nHence they were so much the further removed from the political\ntendency of the nation as they were nearer to its political action,\nand all the less disposed to co-operate in the work of national\nelaboration as they were more open to the seductions of foreign {200}\npolitics. Hence they could make the war of the Annagnacs in the\nfourteenth century, the war of the Public Good in the fifteenth, the\nreligious wars of the sixteenth, and of the Fronde in the seventeenth;\nbut it was never theirs to exercise that popular, regular, pacific\naction, the action of patronage and defence, exercised by the\naristocracy of England. They had only the choice, on the one hand, of\na selfish, unpopular revolt against the king--a revolt resting on the\nenemies of France for its support, or on the other, of service to the\ncrown, a service which they gloriously and courageously rendered\nindeed, but which was a service of perfect obedience, in which there\nwas nothing to be gained for their order, in which indeed they could\nreap glory, but not power. Never has there been a real aristocracy in\nFrance--there has been only an obedient or an insubordinate feudal\nnobility.\n\nThus may be given in brief the sum of the first part of M. de Carn\u00e9 s\nbook; and this first part foretells what is to follow. The position of\nroyalty, the nobles, and the commons respectively, was during four\ncenturies developed only on bases furnished by the middle ages. The\ndevelopment effected in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries M. de\nCarn\u00e9 has personified in Suger, abbot of St. Denis, and St. Louis--an\nable and intelligent choice. Suger and St. Louis were two rare\nstatesmen in an epoch when statesmanship hardly existed. Suger, formed\nby the rigid and wise discipline of the church, a full-grown man in\nthe midst of the childish caprices and inconsequences of his age, a\nreal statesman, although the minister of a king who was no statesman\nat all, was certainly one of the greatest and most intelligent agents\nin the national work, of which those even who were its instruments\nrarely had the slightest conception. St. Louis rose still further\nabove his age. He pertained not more to the middle ages by his faith\nthan by his statesmanship he pertains to our own times. No king ever\nlabored harder to evolve from its feudal envelope the civil and\npolitical life of France; no king ever studied more diligently to\nplace royalty on the footing of modern sovereignties, and to fashion\nit, as M. de Carn\u00e9 well observes, after the Biblical royalty, rather\nthan after feudal suzerainty.\n\nM. de Carn\u00e9 is very right, then, in seeking in these two rare men a\nserious and matured political plan; but he would have found it\ndifficult to discover traces of such a plan in others, and perhaps\neven the habits of his own mind render him less fitted to judge other\nheroes of the middle ages. In the very pages he has written, I see,\nindeed, Suger; I see, indeed St. Louis; but I do not see enough of the\nmiddle age itself, of that age of youth with its contradictions and\nit's inconsistencies; and M. de Carn\u00e9 it seems to me to be too wise,\ntoo sensible, too logical, and too much of a modern statesman, to\npaint it in its true light.\n\nI express here, I confess, a personal impression, not a judgment, and\nperhaps a profounder study of the monuments of the middle ages would\ngive me a different impression. But I own that when I seek the the\nmiddle ages in modern writings, I receive an impression quite\ndifferent from that which I receive when I attempt to study them in\ntheir own monuments. With the moderns, not only with M. de Carn\u00e9, but\nwith writers who are antiquaries rather than statesman, I find\npresented as characteristic of the middle ages profound political use,\nor at least a certain power of foresight and calculation in those who\ngovern; but if I open the smallest chronicle, I discover nothing of\nthe sort. These kings and these statesmen become only warriors, rude\ncaptains, capable of any devotion--capable also of any violence and\neven of any falsehood, rather than of any wise or consistent policy\nseriously and steadily pursued. Whether it is merely the result of the\noldness of the language, and the simplicity, so often apparent, which\na still unformed idiom gives to thought, I {201} must say this age has\non me the effect of an age of infancy.\n\nIt's tongue stammers, and its diction resembles the _patois_ of our\nprovinces and the songs of our nurses. In art it had, not without a\nsimplicity sometimes admirable, that awkwardness and that stiffness\nwhich mark the first toddling walk of children. Its public life was\nmingled with puerile ceremonies, with a fantastic symbolism, sometimes\neven indecent. Its faith asked for no reason, as asks the mature man;\nbut felt, saw, understood as does the adolescent; it carried into it\nsometimes a puerile superstition which impaired it, sometimes an\nadmirable simplicity which excludes the wisdom of the doctors, though\nnot the devotedness of martyrs. It instituted the Feast of Fools and\nof Asses. Yet it made the Crusades. It embraced Christian morality\nwithout hesitation and without an objection; it embraced it, forgot to\npractise it; while professing good, it practised evil with the\nfacility of contradiction surpassing even the ordinary powers of human\nnature; it was a good Catholic, but scrupled not to pillage the\nchurches. Its submission it refused in principle to nobody--to the\npope, the king, or the suzerain; and yet never did the papacy receive\nmore frequent insults, never had royalty such trouble to make itself\nobeyed, never were quarrels between superior and inferior so frequent,\nas in the middle ages--those ages of submission and of\ninsubordination, in which the rules of the hierarchy were better\nestablished and less observed than in any other. This contradiction,\nthis inconsistency, this easy acceptance of the law while it is\nasserted only in theory, and this easy forgetfulness of it when it\ncomes to practice, this subordination of the mind, and this revolt of\nthe heart, is it not plainly that of boyhood? Boy seldom refuses to\naccept the moral truth that is taught him; he does not reject in\ntheory even the obedience which is exacted of him; but, at a given\nmoment, it costs him nothing to contradict that truth in practice, and\nto fail in that obedience; he denies never the law; he unceasingly\nbreaks it.\n\nIt is true, that when we rise to a certain general point of view,\nnothing appears better regulated than the mediaeval society.\nRegularity, far from being defective, was in excess. A manifold\nforesight multiplied the laws. The church and the state, feudality and\nthe commons, sovereignty and suzerainty, had each their codes,\ncomplicated and provident as those of a society in which right and\ninterest are complicated and run athwart each other. Decretals, bulls,\ndecisions of councils, feudal assizes, royal charters and commercial\ncharters, laws and regulations of all kinds, embarrass us by their\nnumber much more than they sadden us by their absence. And the\ndefinitive result of the whole is a grand and admirable effort of\nChristian wisdom to establish in this world the reign of justice and\npeace. No right is denied, no interest is sacrificed, no power is\nwithout its limit, no liberty without its defense. Relations of the\nking to the subject, of the suzerain to the vassal, of the master to\nthe serf, all are regulated there on the basis, so often forgotten, of\nreciprocal rights and duties. Never, perhaps, have the conciliation of\norder and liberty, hierarchy and the equality, the powers of the chief\nand the rights of the inferior, been conceived in so happy a manner.\n\nI said _conceived_, not effected; for if we come to the fact, the rule\nfails to be translated into reality, or, rather, is so often broken\nthat it may be said not even to exist; all relations become violent;\nmaster and serf, suzerain and vassal, king and subject, whose mutual\nrelations were so well settled in law, are in a continual struggle\nagainst one another. That magnificent edifice presented us in theory,\nwith the pope and the emperor at its summit, and in which the lowest\nserf holds his place, is in reality as unsubstantial as the fairy\ncastles seen in our dreams.\n\n{202}\n\nWhen I speak thus of the middle ages, I speak only of the lay society;\nI do not speak of the cloister and the church. They judge very\nimproperly the middle ages who identify society in them with the\nchurch. The church was then, as now, not of her age. She struggled\nagainst it, and was more or less sullied on the points on which she\ncame more directly in contact with the world--that is, in the secular\nclergy, and even the episcopacy, and more completely herself only when\nthe cloister, the distance of places, and the diversity of origin\nremoved her farthest from the feudal society--that is to say, in the\nreligious orders and the papacy. I regard as a veritable chimera that\ndream, sometimes entertained, of a Europe gentle and submissive,\nobedient to the least word of the papacy, and conducted peaceably by\nthe staff of St. Peter--in the ways of ignorance and barbarism, say\nunbelieving historians--in the ways of happiness and salvation, say\nCatholic writers. Both delight in this dream; the former because they\nwould ruin the church by throwing upon her the responsibility of the\ncrimes and vices of the middle ages; the latter because they would\nrestore those ages by identifying them with the church. But I ask them\nto tell me at what time, during what year, what day, or what hour only\nthis general submission existed? I ask them to tell me if there was a\nsingle day, a single minute which did not bring to the church her\ncombat, not merely against kings and feudal lords, but against\nnations, and not only on one point of Europe, but on a thousand?--if\nonce only this temporal jurisdiction of the papacy over the world was\nexercised otherwise than at the point of the sword--the sword of\nsteel, as well as the sword of speech?\n\nThis middle age, this docile child, this innocent lamb, which allows\nitself to be led gently and blindly by the shepherd's crook, I find\nnowhere; I see indeed a child, but a hard and rebellious child, who\nseldom bends, rarely except to threats, and who, however humbly he may\nand, finds it no fault to straighten himself immediately after. Alas!\nthe infancy of a people is not the infancy of men. The infant man has\nhis physical weakness, which permits him to be controlled, and in\nrestraining protects him. The infant people, for its misfortune, has\nall the passions and all the material forces of the full-grown man,\nand by the side of this formidable infant, the papacy to me appears\ndifferent in everything, different by its supernatural life, which\nlifts it above the human condition, by the maturity of its\nintelligence, which elevates it above this youthful world, by the\ntraditions of the Italian civilization which raises it above this\nworld, still sunk in barbarism. It is divine in the midst of men,\nadult in the midst of children, Italian in the midst of these Teutons,\nRoman in the midst of these barbarians, civilian in the midst of these\nsoldiers.\n\nAnd by this, it seems to me, is justified, even if not otherwise, the\npolitical part played by the papacy in the middle ages. When it is\ndemanded by what right it pretended to the temporal government of\nEurope, I answer unhesitatingly, by\n\n  \"The right that a spirit vast and firm in its designs\n  Has over the gross spirits of vulgar men;\"\n\nor, at least, the right which maturity has naturally over youth,\nscience over ignorance, reason over unreason. The mature man, whom\nchance has placed in the midst of indocile and imprudent children, has\nover them by his age and reason alone a part, at least, of the rights\nof a father and a teacher. Only, with the father or teacher physical\nforce supports this right, while to the papacy it was wanting, and\ncould be supplied only by the sanctity of its character, the authority\nof it's words, and the intrepidity of its government.\n\n{203}\n\nThis will be for ever its glory. The glory of the church is far less\nin having reigned than in having fought. That temporal dominion of the\nHoly See was never in the state of a peaceable, regular, acknowledged\nsovereignty. It was only a form of the unrelenting warfare which the\nchurch sustained against evil,--one of the phases of her never-ending\ncombat, one of the arms of her ceaseless struggle. The church has\nfought either without auxiliaries, or with auxiliaries always ready to\nabandon her; she herself wields not the sword of the flesh, and is\nnever sure that those who do handle it in her name will not turn it\nagainst her; sometimes saved by kings and menaced by the people,\nsometimes aided by the people and crushed by kings, she has fought her\nfight without having, in reality, any other human power than that of\nher dangers, the sufferings, the exile, the captivity, the\nhumiliations, the death of her pontiffs. She has never completely\ntriumphed, but she has never fainted. She has never completely teamed\nthe lion she combated, but she has been able to soften him. She has\nnever been a peaceful and happy mother in the midst of submissive\nchildren, a pacific queen in the midst of devoted subjects; she has\nbeen rather an unwearied combatant, according to his word who said, \"I\nam calm to bring the world not peace, but a sword.\"\n\nBut the moment must come when the child becomes a man. The struggle\nthen changes front. The man is not better than the child; properly\nspeaking, he is not wiser or more reasonable: he has simply more order\nin his life, and more logical sequence in his conduct. A sort of human\nrespect induces him to study to maintain greater harmony between his\nprinciples and his actions; when he has a good theory,  he tries\noftener than the child to have a good practice; and oftener when his\nconduct is bad, he concocts a bad theory to justify it. To use a\nwell-known word, he practices his good maxims or he _maxims_ his bad\npractices, as the grace of God in him and his conscience are stronger\nor weaker. This accord with himself, which is the characteristic, at\nleast the pretension, of the mature man, makes alike his greatness and\nhis littleness. The church, when society is matured, has to combat\ndoctrines rather than passions, ideas rather than vices. The middle\nages were, then, the infancy of Christian nations; should we say the\nsixteenth century--the age of passion, of effervescence, of revolt, of\nlapses--was the age of youth? Is the present age the age of maturity\nor of decrepitude? This, five hundred years hence, our descendants may\nbe able to determine.\n\nIt still remains to know whether the childhood of a people, like the\nchildhood of individuals, ought not to be regretted rather than\ndisdained, and whether it does not charm us more by the memory of its\njoys than it humiliates us by the memory of its weaknesses. If the\nchildhood of the individual is not capable of crimes, it is not any\nmore capable of great deeds; the childhood of a people, on the\ncontrary, although it may have its gentle and simple side, has also\nits heroic and sublime side. It was so with the child-people who\npassed the Red Sea, or fought under the walls of Troy. They are\nchild-men for whom the Pentateuch was written, and who inspired the\nIliad. They are child-men, our ancestors, who reconquered the tomb of\nChrist, who carried faith even to the depths of China, and who with\nJoan of Arc chased the English from France. They were not souls free\nfrom all blemish, nor hands never sullied; very often the brutality of\ntheir manners repels us, and we are borne, in seeing them, like the\ntender souls in those iron ages, to seek refuge in the shadow of the\ncloister, in order to find there, at least, peace, delicacy of heart,\ndignity of intelligence, and serenity of soul. But they were really of\nthose to whom much is forgiven, for they loved much. Among their\ncontradictions they had this grand and noble contradiction--that of\nhaving committed great faults, and yet preserving the love of God; of\nbeing soiled with vice, and yet not abandoned to it; of having removed\nfar from the Lord, {204} but having never despaired of his mercy; of\nbeing very hard and very cruel, and yet preserving a loving fibre in\ntheir hearts, and tears in their eyes. After all, if these men were\nchildren, they were the children of whom it is said, \"Of such is the\nkingdom of heaven.\" If the middle ages had vices, they had also faith:\nthe world in ripening has lost the faith, and retained the vices.\n\nHere is what, as it seems to me, may be said of the middle ages, after\nwhat M. de Carn\u00e9 has said, and by the side of what he has said. It may\nnot be without some advantage to place this very different view by the\nside of the political view, which he has so well developed. I repeat\nit, that considering only the two types of Suger and St. Louis, he\ncomprehends them, for they come within his sphere; he has, perhaps,\nnot so well comprehended the medium in which they lived, or perhaps he\npartially forgets it.\n\nWe must now follow France and Europe in that more manly, or senile,\nepoch of their life, which M. de Carn\u00e9 after having given us sketches\nof Du Guesclin and Joan of Arc, personifies in Louis XI., Henry IV.,\nCardinal Richelieu, and Mazarin. These are already times which touch\nvery closely our own. The work of Henry IV., of Richelieu, Mazarin,\nand Louis XIV., has crumbled almost under our own eyes, and in many\nrespects their spirit is still living in our midst. The proof is in\nthe fact that it is still the object of attack, Richelieu especially.\nLouis XIV. is discussed with all the vehemence of a contemporary\ncontroversy. This indeed is not the case with M. de Carn\u00e9. There is\nnot, perhaps, in his book an appreciation more calm, more dignified,\nmore grave than that of the policy of the great cardinal.\n\nHe has justified this policy. He shows with an evidence that seems to\nme incontestable, that, setting aside the severity of certain acts,\nsetting aside the last months of a premature old age, when weariness\nof power began to obscure his lofty intellect, Richelieu could have\ndone hardly otherwise than he did. The nobility, it must be said, a\nlittle in all times, and very much for a century, had yielded to a\ndeplorable spirit of faction. Whether it dreamed, like the Calvinistic\ngentlemen of the sixteenth century, of a resurrection of feudalism;\nwhether in its eyes, as in those of the Duke of Rohan, was zoning the\nplan of an aristocratic republic; or whether, as more frequently\nhappens, all its ambitions were individual, and that the alliances it\nformed were only the coalitions of dissatisfied pretensions, always is\nit certain that it was in an eminent degree incapable of a serious and\nwell-defined policy. It could not even be national, and for fourscore\nyears there was not a chief of the party who did not seek his support\nin England or in Spain, and who did not treat in the beginning of his\nrevolt with foreigners, as he counted at its close on treating with\nhis king. The commonalty, though more national, had not a whit more\ncase for the necessary conditions of regular political action. The\nparliament incontestably formed the head all the Third Estate: it was\nthe most dignified post, the highest placed, the gravest, and the most\ncapable of affairs; and yet the parliaments interfered in politics\nonly with the littlenesses and caprice of children, the conceit of\nyoungsters, or the timidity of old men; by turns submissive and\nrebellious, idolaters of absolute power, and rebels to every\ngovernment; rash and timid, rebelling and begging pardon.\n\nThe cardinal has been almost always reproached for having established\nroyalty without a basis; but this basis, where was he to find it? Was\nit ever in his power to create it? Could he found a political\naristocracy, respecting the laws, and protecting the people, where\nthere was only a turbulent, unpopular, and unstatesmanlike nobility?\nCould he erect on French soil a House of Commons, animated at once\nwith the spirit of legal obedience and of constitutional resistance,\n{205} at a time when it did not exist even in England, and where there\nwere only citizens ready to revolt, as was proved in the time of the\nLeague, and ready to submit, and even to worship power, as was proved\nunder Henry IV., but wholly incapable of resisting without rebelling?\nAt least, it will not be said that at all hazards, and without taking\nany account of these facts, the cardinal should have inaugurated in\nFrance something like the charter of 1814, or that of 1830, which\nwould be very much like reproaching Hannibal for not using gunpowder,\nand Christopher Columbus for not using steam!\n\nRichelieu felt that all force, that every principle of peace,\ngrandeur, and unity, was at the time in royalty. Royalty was in the\nsphere of things possible, or imaginary, the only regular, and even\nthe only popular power. Outside of it there were only resistances, or\nrather attacks, more or less inconsequent and factious. The liberties\nof the middle ages, such as they had then, could appear only as\nturbulent and irregular liberties, incompatible with that order and\nthat regularity which were a necessity for the genius of the cardinal\nand his age. Richelieu rendered absolute that power which alone could\nbe a protection, well the others would be only sources of danger. In\ndoing this he abolished no liberties, for there were then no liberties\nin the modern sense of the word. He had little else than privileges to\nsuppress, and absolute monarchy conferred more privileges then it\ndestroyed. We had only insubordinations to quell, and misdeeds to\npunish. That, in this struggle, his untempered severity amounted even\nto cruelty, sometimes odius, and almost always useless, M. de Carn\u00e9\ndoes not deny, and I concede it even to a greater extent, perhaps,\nthan he would approve; but what had been the triumph of the party, or\nrather of the contradictory parties? What monarchy--national,\nconstitutional, and legal--could have resulted from the victory of\nthose great lords, leagued together, and constantly intriguing against\nthe government ever since the death of Henry IV.; sometimes open\nrebels, sometimes submissive; ever uniting, or separating, allying\nthemselves at the the exigency of the moment; enemies to their friends\nof yesterday, faithful to-day with the factious of the morrow,\nProtestants with Catholics, Catholics with Huguenots, Frenchmen with\nSpain! What a magnificent bill of rights the Duchess de Chevereuse\nwould have drawn up for Louis XIII. to sign!\n\nRichelieu did the only thing which in his time was possible, and that\nis the justification of the political order which he founded. But his\nwork was not complete, and was not completed, I dare add, solely\nbecause it was sanguinary. The blood shed, as M. de Carn\u00e9 well says,\nwas not so abundant as is commonly believed; twenty-six men in all\nperished on the scaffold. How many politicians have the reputation of\ngreat benignity, who have put to death a much larger number! But on\nmore than one occasion Richelieu's proceedings were odious, his\ncruelty refined, his vengeance useless. It belonged to a man of quite\nanother nature to finish the work which he, with less violence, might\nhave accomplished. The cardinal, when he died, left feudal opposition\nhumbled, but living area The blood of Montmorency had implanted still\nmore hate than fear. All the uneasy and restless forces, which, with\nno purpose, or only that of personal satisfaction, agitated France for\nnearly a century, crushed by the hand of the cardinal, drew themselves\nup anew when he was no longer there, and made themselves immediately\nfelt and feared, under the reign of a child, the regency of a Spanish\nwoman, and the ministry of an Italian. The work, then, was not\ncomplete, and the last germ of that aristocratic faction had not been\nextinguished on the scaffold of Cinq-Mars.\n\n{206}\n\nM. de Carn\u00e9, who overrates Richelieu, greatly underrates Mazarin.\nCertainly, the man had less grandeur, and was more sullied; there were\ndefects in his genius, and undeniably dark shades in his character;\nhis morality was certainly of a low order, but his intellectual power\nwas something marvellous. I am astonished to see that foreigner, that\nadventurer, that man who was never popular, that minister with greedy\nand grasping instincts, triumphing over enemies which the great\ncardinal had not been able to subdue, surviving the spirit of faction\nthat had survived Richelieu,--to see him accomplish the work which\nRichelieu had not been able to accomplish by violence; and\naccomplishing it without having to reproach himself with erecting a\nsingle scaffold. This Italian, so furiously decried, who on\nre-entering Paris, after his victory, had not a word of anger to\nutter, nor a vengeance to inflict on any one; who re-established in\ntheir seats the magistrates of Parliament who had set a price on his\nhead; who, vilified to satiety by the men of letters, tranquilly, and\nwithout ostentation, restored to them their pensions; who granted to\nthe grandees of the kingdom--who were his enemies--nearly all they had\nasked, except their independence; this man, in all this, may indeed\nhave been more able than generous, but I much like that kind of\nability, and regard it as worth imitating. And what is curious, is\nthat, from that minister, so many times dishonored, from that peace in\nwhich the factious were so well treated, from that struggle in which\nroyalty was often so hard pressed, and in which it was so often forced\nto give way, royalty itself came forth stronger, more absolute, more\nvenerated, more adored, than it was left by the lofty struggle\nmaintained by Cardinal Richelieu, and in which his victories were\nratified by the hangman.\n\nIt is in this way that monarchy was established in France; and, be it\nsaid in passing, without recurring to the necessity and legitimacy of\nthis work, it has produced, in spite of its many imperfections and\nexcesses, the most normal epoch in our history since that of St.\nLouis. This epoch had only brief duration, and it is sometimes, said,\nthat what is called the ancient _r\u00e9gime_, was only a period of\ntransition. I grant it. In this passing world, what century is there\nthat is not a century of transition? When is it that the nations can\nstop, pitch their tents, and say, \"It is good to be here?\" I remember\nstill all in my youth, the defunct Saint-Simonian school, which,\nperhaps, is not so defunct as is supposed, divided the history of the\nworld into critical periods and _organic_ periods; but as for its\norganic periods, they could not tell where to find them. It is the\nsame with us all. I see, indeed, in history, times of passage, but not\nthe time of sojourn; and I know not any century in which it might not\nbe said with as much truth has in our own, \"We are in the moment of\ntransition.\" But if ever there was really an organic epoch, it was\nthat of which we speak. If any age could really pass for a normal age,\nnot indeed for the perfection of its virtue, but for the plenitude of\nits principle, it would certainly be the age of Louis XIV. That was\nessentially, in good and in evil, in greatness and littleness, in its\ngood deeds and in its evil deeds, in its legitimate honor and in its\nidolatrous apotheosis, the age of royalty.\n\nOn many sides, certainly, this age is open to attack: yet neither men\nnor human institutions are to be judged after an absolute type. The\ngreatest must miserably fail, if so judged. All judgments of human\nthings our relative. When we place a life, in age, a rule, any\ninstitution whatever, by the side of the ideal type which are\nimagination forms to itself, nothing is to be said; that life is\nstained, that period is wretched, that _r\u00e9gime_ is odious, that\ninstitution is detestable; but if we compare it with that which has\nbeen before, after, or contemporary with it, or even that which would\nhave been humanly possible to put in its place {207} Our judgment is\nmore indulgent, because less absolute. It is our glory, but also our\nerror, to bear in ourselves a certain passion for the beautiful and\nthe good, which can find no satisfaction in this world; to form to\nourselves in everything, an ideal type superior to all human power to\nrealize; to have in us the measure of heaven, which we very clear that\nLouis XIV. was only a poor knight, Bossuet only a common-place writer.\nHomer a street-singer, Raphael a dauber by the side of the king, the\norator, the poet, the painter, of which we dream in our imagination.\n\nThat _r\u00e9gime_, inaugurated by Richelieu, confirmed by Mazarin, and\nglorified by Louis XIV., had, doubtless, its baseness as every other,\nbut not more than others. It had its cruelties, and they were often\ninexcusable; it had a greater and more fundamental wrong still, that\nof pushing power to excess, and exaggerating its rights, as well as\ndeifying the person of the sovereign. Human powers have all a limit,\nhowever absolute they may claim to be; and whether collected in a\nsingle hand, or dispersed among many--whether they are vested in the\npeople, in an assembly, or in one man alone, the sphere of their\naction is no greater. Power has its limit in right, and this limit\ncannot be passed without guilt; it has its limit in fact, and against\nthat it cannot dash its head without breaking it.\n\nThis was its fault, and it was cruelly expiated. We say, however, that\nthe monarchy of Louis XIV. perished less by his fault than by that of\nhis successor. Louis XV. inherited a royalty in its plenitude,\nsurrounded by the profound respect of the nation. Louis XlV. had died\nunpopular, but he left the throne popular. The public calamities were\ncharged to the man, not to the monarchy. I know not in all history a\nking more beloved, more venerated, more adored as king and\nindependently of his personal qualities, than was Louis XV. A child at\nfirst, then a young man, without other personal merit than that of\nleaving Cardinal de Fleury to govern, Louis XV., during twenty years,\ngathered in peace the fruits of royalty. More humane than Louis XIV.;\nas selfish indeed, but selfish in another manner; not taking like him\nhis royalty in earnest, and instead of accepting it as a dignity\nalmost divine, regarding it as a private estate he had a right to\nenjoy without being under the slightest obligation to look after its\nmanagement, Louis XV. took pleasure in squandering the treasures of\npopular respect and affection which his predecessor had bequeathed\nhim. France persisted in respecting his royalty as long as she could.\nNeither the scandals of the Regency, less public than they have become\nfor posterity, nor the succession of court influences, not yet sunk to\nthe baseness of the later years, though beginning to approach it; nor\nthe indolence and the corruption of that prince who hardly ever opened\na letter on business, hardly ever spoke in council, and hardly ever\nwent to the army; nor that egotism of the man crudely paraded in the\nplace of the egotism of the king professed by Louis XIV. as a\nreligion--nothing of all this disgusted the country, so marvellously\nhad France been imbued with the love and worship of royalty by\nRichelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV.!\n\nThe corruption of ideas was slowly effected. The eighteenth century\ndid not begin in 1700 nor in 1715, it was only beginning in 1750. The\nfirst irreligious book which gave much scandal was that of Toussaint\nin 1748. Up to that time Voltaire had restricted himself to some timid\nallusions against priests mingled with many flatteries of the court;\nthe Pucelle was written but not published. Twenty-eight years after\nthe death of Louis XIV., at the time of the illness of Metz, was still\nseen a thing unique perhaps--a whole country, not only the nobility\nand the court, but the citizens, the people, all those who were most\ndisinterested in regard to royal favors, were seen {208} praying with\na tenderness truly filial that God would leave to them a king who had\nreigned for twenty-eight years without having done anything, and\nwresting from Providence, so to speak, by the force of supplications,\na life steeped in debauchery. This great and sincere testimonial of\nmonarchical enthusiasm, which remained so deeply rooted in the memory\nof our fathers, was given, I say not to the worst, but certainly to\nthe least meritorious of all our monarchs.\n\nIt is necessary, then, to render to our country this justice, that, if\nit came at length to despise power, it was because in spite of itself\nit was driven to it by power itself. It needed that this so solemn\nmark of filial devotion should be returned by continued indolence and\ncorruption. It needed more than thirty years of the cynical workings\nof this royalty to erase from the heart in which it was so deeply\nrooted, the taste and the worship of royalty. They who, in seeking the\nsemi-metaphysical, semi-political causes for the fall of the monarchy\nof Louis XIV., think they find the principle of its ruin in the manner\nof its constitution, may, in certain respects, be right, but they\nshould tell us how it could have been constituted differently.\nHowever, they seem to me to count for too little the abuses so\nflagrant and so prolonged, which were made of it.\n\nNeither am I among those who accuse the France of the old _r\u00e9gime_ of\nservility. Its love for royalty may have been excessive, but it was,\nat least, sincere; and if sincere it was not servile. We may be guilty\nof idolatry towards those we love, but we can be guilty of servility\nonly towards those we love not. Royalty, I admit, was regarded as a\ndemi-god, but they who really worship the false god do it in good\nfaith. Our fathers were, perhaps, fanatics, but they were not slaves.\nThe great English lords who, in the eighteenth century, traversed\nFrance in a post chaise, in order to attend the court at Versailles,\nand to pass several weeks in Parts, doubtless judged the country to be\ninhabited only by the cowardly slaves of an Asiatic despot;--they\nfound no House of Commons, no speaker nor usher with the black rod. In\nthe same way, Sterne, seeing at a play a man who annoyed his neighbors\nand whom the guard ordered to leave, was confounded by the arbitrary\nproceeding, and could not comprehend that the citizen did not maintain\nby his fists the right to disturb the performance. It was a country\njudged on the surface by the habits of mind of another country during\nAbout the same time, another Englishman,  [Footnote 39] who did not\njourney in a post-chaise, who went on foot from village to village,\nplaying the flute for the peasantry, holding disputations in the\nmonasteries, and thus paying his reckoning, judged France a little\ndifferently. He came very near, God forgive him, envying it, and\npreferring it to his own country! He met here not miserable slaves,\nbut happy men, satisfied with themselves, and satisfied with all the\nworld. The current money in this country, according to him, was not\nsilver; was not the material favors of the government; was not, or, at\nleast, was not only, pension and place; it was a vain money, no doubt,\nlike all human riches, but a money, at least, more delicate and more\nnoble. \"Society here finds its life in HONOR. Praise gained by merit,\nor obtained by an imaginary worth, is the money which passes current\nfrom hand to hand, and by a noble commerce passes from the court to\nthe camp and the cottage.\" France, which for the others was the\ncountry of servitude, was for him the country of honor.\n\n  [Footnote 39: We need hardly tell our readers the person referred to\n  here was an Irishman--Oliver Goldsmith. (Ed. C.W.)]\n\nIn reality it is hardly for us to be ashamed of the servitude of\nforefathers. It is true, more mature than they, we no longer either\nworship or respect authority; but we count it no fault to beg its\nfavors. We crowd around the altar, though we no longer believe in the\ngod. Every revolution has shown us the ante-chambers {209} invaded in\nturn by a cloud of conquerors, revolutionists, or conservatives,\nmonarchists or republicans, all men have profound conviction, of a\nwell-tried self-respect, a liberalism true as steel, and an\nindependence as firm as iron, but who nevertheless came to beg their\nbit from the budget Since we came into the world, four times, at\nleast, have we seeing this hideous quarry to which (we must render all\njustice to our equalitarians) all classes, high or low, rich or for,\nlettered or unlettered, have flocked with a harmony truly democratic.\nWe now no longer conceive of a public service which is not paid for, a\nstate function which is not an income, a position which has not its\nmoney value. Have we the right, in good faith, to be ashamed of the\ntimes when they said not _places_ but _charges_, because the public\nservice was considered not a position but duty? Have we the right to\nattack even that court and that finance of aforetime, stained, I\ngrant, with cupidity and adulation, but not otherwise than in all\ntimes, and are still the classes that approach power? Have we the\nright, above all, to attack the whole of that society much less greedy\nof the favors of power, much more independent of it than we are\nourselves,  that bourgeoisie who loved so much its king from whom it\nhad nothing to expect, except the suppression of a fourth of its\nrevenue? Those magistrates who gave their last penny for the right to\nrise at five o'clock in the morning, and pass the forenoon in the\naudience, well to-day the lowest deputy finds himself poorly paid by\ntwo thousand francs for rising at ten o'clock? That provincial\nnobility, poor, obscure, disdained, who had all the charges of\naristocracy without its benefits, and who esteemed themselves but too\nhappy when, after twenty years of service in order, where they left\ntheir patrimony at first, then an arm, a leg, their brothers and\ncousins, they obtained from the bounty of the king their discharge,\nand permission to retire to their homes with the cross of St. Louis,\nand the brevet of Brigadier-General; crippled, impoverished, but\nendeavoring, if possible, to \"preserve a fortune sufficient to enable\ntheir children to replace them\"? We, citizens and freemen, do we even\nfor much money, what those servile beings did for a little honor?\n\nI have passed here a little beyond the work of M. de Carn\u00e9, who stops\nwith Mazarin. He will pardon me, even thank me, for not permitting\nmyself to go farther still, and to broach the hackneyed subject of\n1789. I have elsewhere had occasion to set forth my views on that\nsubject, by the side of M. de Carn\u00e9's, happy to agree with him in many\nrespects, though more severe, perhaps, in my judgment of that\nrevolutionary movement than he is. The tendency of minds toward\nreforms might have been legitimate, but the way taken to effect them\nwas false, and in my eyes infected with evil from the first. In fact,\nthe groundwork of French unity, which M. de Carn\u00e9 represents for us\nwith so much love, what has been its use, if, after the labor of so\nmany centuries, it could be attained only by a national convulsion,\nthe most violent, perhaps, which has figured in history? Civil\nequality, unity of territory, reform in legislation, were they not\nalready sufficiently prepared by St. Louis, Charles VII., Louis XI.,\nRichelieu, and Louis XIV., and was it necessary that they should be\npurchased by the revolt of the _jeu de paume_, by the blood of\nVersailles, and by the crimes of the reign of Terror? Were our\ncountrymen not criminal, at that epoch, in repulsing a past in which\nthey might, on the contrary, have found a firmer support for the\nreforms needed?\n\nBe that as it may, I cannot but thank M. de Carn\u00e9, in the name of all\nthose who still read, for the work which he achieved in 1848, and for\nthe return which he has just made to his former studies. Whoever we\nmay be, and whatever may be the present, it is not necessary that it\nshould absorb us. As the spectacle of the present age serves to\nexplain past ages, so should a return to the past cool and calm in our\nminds {210} the agitation of the present. Of this freedom from\ncontemporaneous reflection, M. de Carn\u00e9 has given us a noble example.\nOn two or three points, at most, the statesman of our times is a\nlittle too perceptible. I much doubt, for instance, if in the\nsixteenth century, the Balafr\u00e9 could have founded in France a dynasty\nand a citizen royalty like that of Louis Philippe. Still it might have\nbeen had the Balafr\u00e9 been a cadet of the Capetian family, and if the\ndynasty of the Valois had been for forty years shaken by two\nrevolutions. What strikes me, on the contrary, in the history of the\nLeague, and what appears to me one of the greatest proofs of the\nspirit of nationality and of loyalty which then reigned in the\ncommonalty, is the repugnance which they always manifested to\naccepting a foreign dynasty, the timid and reluctant manner with which\nthe proposition was made, and the unpopularity with which it was\nreceived. At the time of the League, the nation wished two things\nwhich then seemed irreconcilable--Catholic royalty and French loyalty;\nit wished, so to speak, an impossibility, but it willed it with\ndecision and perseverance, and that impossibility it obtained.\n\nBut, save these slight traces of the man of the present, M. de Carn\u00e9\nhas been able, with rare facility, to identify himself with past ages;\nhe has known how to take from erudition what was necessary to\nenlighten his political point of view, without suffering it absorb\nhim. He has been perfectly able in surveying all these different\nsubjects to identify himself by turns with each of them. Without\nneglecting details and without losing himself in them, without\ndisdaining to speak to the imagination, and without suffering himself\nto be carried away by the fascinations of the picturesque, without\nabandoning himself to political theories, and without dispoiling\nhistory of them, he has in turn as fully known his Abbot Suger, his\nSt. Louis, is Du Guesclin, and each one of his heroes, as if he had\nnever studied else. He makes himself master of each one of these\nsubjects in brief time, but with a sagacity worth more than time, and\nwith a quick perception of the dominant idea which often escapes the\nsimple erudite. He has not me what is called a philosophical history,\na task become facile and commonplace, and he has not made what is\nstill more easy, purely contemporary politics _\u00e0 propos_ of the past;\nhe has not made a history, if by history we understand the detailed\nrecital of events; but he has known how to keep constantly at his\ndisposition the philosophical view which illuminates history, the\npolitical sense which helps to judge it, and the knowledge of facts\nwhich is its foundation. He has not made a history, but he has made a\nluminous summary, and given us a necessary complement of all the\ntheories of French history.\n\n\n----------\n\nMY TEARS.\n\n  Ah me! how many precious tears for naught I've wept;\n            And thus my soul did cheat.\n  Would I, like Magdalene, had treasured them, and kept\n            Their wealth for Jesus' feet.\n\n------\n\n{211}\n\nLEGEND OF COUNT JULIAN AND HIS FAMILY.\n\nBY WASHINGTON IRVING.\n\n\nMany and various are the accounts given in ancient chronicles of the\nfortunes of Count Julian and his family, and many are the traditions\non the subject extant among the populace of Spain, and perpetuated in\nthose countless ballads sung by peasants and muleteers, which spread a\nsingular charm over the whole of this romantic land.\n\nHe who has travelled in Spain in the true way in which the country\nought to be travelled--sojourning in its remote provinces, rambling\namong the rugged defiles and secluded valleys of its mountains, and\nmaking himself familiar with the people in their out-of-the-way\nhamlets and rarely visited neighborhoods--will remember many a group\nof travellers and muleteers, gathered of an evening around the door or\nthe spacious hearth of a mountain venta, wrapped in their brown\ncloaks, and listening with grave and profound attention to the long\nhistoric ballad of some rustic troubadour, either recited with the\ntrue _ore rotundo_ and modulated cadences of Spanish elocution, or\nchanted to the tinkling of a guitar. In this way he may have heard the\ndoleful end of Count Julian and his family recounted in traditionary\nrhymes, that have been handed down from generation to generation. The\nparticulars, however, of the following wild legend are chiefly\ngathered from the writings of the pseudo Moor Basis; how far they may\nbe safely taken as historic facts it is impossible now to ascertain;\nwe must content ourselves, therefore, with their answering to the\nexactions of poetic justice.\n\nAs yet everything had prospered with Count Julian. He had gratified\nhis vengeance; he had been successful in his treason, and had acquired\ncountless riches from the ruin of his country. But it is not outward\nsuccess that constitutes prosperity. The tree flourishes with fruit\nand foliage while blasted and withering at the heart. Wherever he\nwent, Count Julian read hatred in every eye. The Christians cursed him\nas the cause of all their woe; the Moslems despised and distrusted him\nas a traitor. Men whispered together as he approached, and then turned\naway in scorn; and mothers snatched away their children with horror if\nhe offered to caress them. He withered under the execration of his\nfellow-men, and last, and worst of all, he began to loathe himself. He\ntried in vain to persuade himself that he had but taken a justifiable\nvengeance; he felt that no personal wrong can justify the crime of\ntreason to one's country.\n\nFor a time he sought in luxurious indulgence to soothe or forget the\nmiseries of the mind. He assembled round him every pleasure and\ngratification that boundless wealth could purchase, but all in vain.\nHe had no relish for the dainties of his board; music had no charm\nwherewith to lull his soul, and remorse drove slumber from his pillow.\nHe sent to Ceuta for his wife Frandina, his daughter Florinda, and his\nyouthful son Alarbot; hoping in the bosom of his family to find that\nsympathy and kindness which he could no longer meet with in the world.\nTheir presence, however, brought him no alleviation. Florinda, the\ndaughter of his heart, for whose sake he had undertaken this {212}\nsignal vengeance, was sinking a victim to its effects. Wherever she\nwent, she found herself a byword of shame and reproach. The outrage\nshe had suffered was imputed to her as wantonness, and her calamity\nwas magnified into a crime. The Christians never mentioned her name\nwithout a curse, and the Moslems, the gainers by her misfortune, spake\nof her only by the appellation of Cava, the vilest epithet they could\napply to woman.\n\nBut the opprobrium of the world was nothing to the upbraiding of her\nown heart. She chained herself with all the miseries of these\ndisastrous wars--the deaths of so many gallant cavaliers, the conquest\nand perdition of her country. The anguish of her mind preyed upon the\nbeauty of her person. Her eye, once soft and tender in its expression,\nbecame wild and haggard; her cheek lost its bloom and became hollow\nand pallid, and at times there was desperation in her words. When her\nfather sought to embrace her she withdrew with shuddering from his\narms, for she thought of his treason and the ruin it had brought upon\nSpain. Her wretchedness increased after her return to her native\ncountry, until it rose to a degree of frenzy. One day when she was\nwalking with her parents in the garden of their palace, she entered a\ntower, and, having barred the door, ascended to the battlements. From\nthence she called to them in piercing accents, expressive of her\ninsupportable anguish and desperate determination. \"Let this city,\"\nsaid she, \"be henceforth called Malacca, in memorial of the most\nwretched of women, who therein put an end to her days.\" So saying, she\nthrew herself headlong from the tower, and was dashed to pieces. The\ncity, adds the ancient chronicler, received the name thus given it,\nthough afterward softened to Malaga, which it still retains in memory\nof the tragical end of Florinda.\n\nThe Countess Frandina abandoned this scene of woe, and returned to\nCeuta, accompanied by her infant son. She took with her the remains of\nher unfortunate daughter, and gave them honorable sepulture in a\nmausoleum of the chapel belonging to the citadel. Count Julian\ndeparted for Carthagena, where he remained plunged in horror at this\ndoleful event.\n\nAbout this time the cruel Suleiman, having destroyed the the family of\nMuza, had sent an Arab general, named Alahor, to succeed Abdalasis, as\nemir or governor of Spain. The new emir was of a cruel and suspicious\nnature, and commenced his sway with a stern severity that soon made\nthose under his command look back with regret to the easy rule of\nAbdalasis. He regarded with an eye of distrust the renegade Christians\nwho had aided in the conquest, and who bore arms in the service of the\nMoslems; but his deepest suspicions fell upon Count Julian. \"He has\nbeen a traitor to his own countryman,\" said he; \"how can we be sure\nthat he will not prove traitor to us?\"\n\nA sudden insurrection of the Christians who had taken refuge in the\nAsturian mountains, quickened his suspicions, and inspired him with\nfears of some dangerous conspiracy against his power. In the height of\nhis anxiety, he bethought him of an Arabian sage named Yuza, who had\naccompanied him from Africa. This son of science was withered in form,\nand looked as if he had outlived the usual term of mortal life. In the\ncourse of his studies and travels in the East, he had collected the\nknowledge and experience of ages; being skilled in astrology, and, it\nis said, in necromancy, and possessing the marvellous gift of prophecy\nor divination. To this expounder of mysteries Alahor applied to learn\nwhether any secret treason menaced his safety.\n\nThe astrologer listened with deep attention and overwhelming brow to\nall the surmises and suspicions of the emir, then shut himself up to\nconsult his books and commune with those supernatural intelligences\nsubservient {213} to his wisdom. At an appointed hour the emir sought\nhim in his cell. It was filled with the smoke of perfumes; squares and\ncircles and various diagrams were described upon the floor, and the\nastrologer was boring over a scroll of parchment, covered with\ncabalistic characters. He received Alahor with a gloomy and sinister\naspect; pretending to have discovered fearful portents in the heavens,\nand to have had strange dreams and mystic visions.\n\n\"O emir,\" said he, \"be on your guard! treason is around you and in\nyour path; your life is in peril. Beware of Count Julian and his\nfamily.\"\n\n\"Enough,\" said the emir. \"They show all die! Parents and children--all\nshall die!\"\n\nHe forthwith sent a summons to Count Julian to attend him in Cordova.\nThe messenger found him plunged in affliction for the recent death of\nhis daughter. The count excused himself, on account of this\nmisfortune, from obeying the commands of the emir in person, but sent\nseveral of his adherents. His hesitation, and the circumstance of his\nhaving sent his family across the straits to Africa, were construed by\nthe jealous mind of the emir into proofs of guilt. He no longer\ndoubted his being concerned in the recent insurrections, and that he\nhad sent his family away, preparatory to an attempt, by force of arms,\nto subvert the Moslem domination. In is fury he put to death Siseburto\nand Evan, the nephews of Bishop Oppas and sons of the former king,\nWitiza, suspecting them of taking part in the treason. Thus did they\nexpiate their treachery to their country in the fatal Battle of\nGuadalete.\n\nAlahor next hastened to Carthagena to seize upon Count Julian. So\nrapid were his movements that the count had barely time to escape with\nfifteen cavaliers, with whom he took refuge in the strong castle of\nMarcuello, among the mountains of Aragon. The emir, enraged to be\ndisappointed of his prey, embarked at Carthagena and crossed the\nstraits to Ceuta, to make captives of the Countess Frandina and her\nson.\n\nThe old chronicle from which we take this part of our legend, presents\na gloomy picture of the countess in the stern fortress to which she\nhad fled for refuge--a picture heightened by supernatural horrors.\nThese latter the sagacious reader will admit or reject according to\nthe measure of his faith and judgment; always remembering that in dark\nand eventful times, like those in question, involving the destinies of\nnations, the downfall of kingdoms, and the crimes of rulers and mighty\nmen, the hand of fate is sometimes strangely visible, and confounds\nthe wisdom of the worldly wise, by intimations and portents above the\nordinary course of things. With this proviso, we make no scruple to\nfollow the venerable chronicler in his narration.\n\nNow so it happened that the Countess Frandina was seated late at night\nin her chamber in the citadel of Ceuta, which stands on a lofty rock,\noverlooking the sea. She was revolving in gloomy thought the late\ndisasters of her family, when she heard a mournful noise like that of\nthe sea-breeze moaning about the castle walls. Raising her eyes, she\nbeheld her brother, the Bishop Oppas, at the entrance of the chamber.\nShe advanced to embrace him, but he forbade her with a motion of his\nhand, and she observed that he was ghastly pale, and that his eyes\nglared as with lambent flames.\n\n\"Touch me not, sister,\" said he, with a mournful voice, \"lest thou be\nconsumed by the fire which rages within me. Guard well thy son, for\nblood-hounds are upon his track. His innocence might have secured him\nthe protection of heaven, but our crimes have involved him in our\ncommon ruin.\" He ceased to speak and was no longer to be seen. His\ncoming and going were alike without noise, and the door of the chamber\nremained fast bolted.\n\n{214}\n\nOn the following morning a messenger arrived with tidings that the\nBishop Oppas had been made prisoner in battle by the insurgent\nChristians of the Asturias, and had died in fetters in a tower of the\nmountains. The same messenger brought word that the Emir Alahor had\nput to death several of the friends of Count Julian; had obliged him\nto fly for his life to a castle in Aragon, and was embarking with a\nformidable force for Ceuta.\n\nThe Countess Frandina, as has already been shown, was of courageous\nheart, and danger made her desperate. There were fifty Moorish solders\nin the garrison; she feared that they would prove treacherous, and\ntake part with their countrymen. Summoning her officers, therefore,\nshe informed them of their danger, and commanded them to put those\nMoors to death. The guards sallied forth to obey her orders.\nThirty-five of the Moors were in the great square, unsuspicious of any\ndanger, when they were severally singled out by their executioners,\nand, at a concerted signal, killed on the spot. The remaining fifteen\ntook refuge in a tower. They saw the armada of the emir at a distance,\nand hoped to be able to hold out until its arrival. The soldiers of\nthe countess saw it also, and made extraordinary efforts to destroy\nthese internal enemies before they should be attacked from without.\nThey made repeated attempts to storm the tower, but were as often\nrepulsed with severe loss. They then undermined it, supporting its\nfoundations by stanchions of wood. To these they set fire and withdrew\nto a distance, keeping up a constant shower of missiles to prevent the\nMoors from sallying forth to extinguish the flames. The stanchions\nwere rapidly consumed, and when they gave way the tower fell to the\nground. Some of the Moors were crushed among the ruins; others were\nflung to a distance and dashed among the rocks; those who survived\nwere instantly put to the sword.\n\nThe fleet of the emir arrived at Centa about the hour of Vespers. He\nlanded, but found the gates closed against him. The countess herself\nspoke to him from a tower, and set [illegible] at defiance. The emir\nimmediately laid siege to the city. He consulted the astrologer Yuxa,\nwho told him that for seven days his star would have the ascendant\nover that of the youth Alarbot, but after that time the youth would be\nsafe from his power, and would effect his ruin.\n\nAlahor immediately ordered the city to be assailed on every side, and\nat length carried it by storm. The countess took refuge with her\nforces in the citadel, and made desperate defense; but the walls were\nsapped and mined, and she saw that all resistance would soon be\nunavailing. Her only thoughts now were to conceal her child. \"Surely,\"\nsaid she, \"they will not think of seeking him among the dead.\" She led\nhim therefore into the dark and dismal chapel. \"Thou art not afraid to\nbe alone in this darkness, my child?\" said she.\n\n\"No, mother,\" replied the boy; \"darkness gives silence and sleep.\" She\nconducted him to the Florinda. \"Fearest thou the dead. my child?\" \"No,\nmother; the dead can do no harm, and what should I fear from my\nsister?\"\n\nThe countess opened the sepulcher. \"Listen, my son,\" said she. \"There\nare fierce and cruel people who have come hither to murder thee. Stay\nhere in company with thy sister, and be quiet as thou dost value thy\nlife!\" The boy, who was of a courageous nature, did as he was bidden,\nand remained there all that day, and all the night, and the next day\nuntil the third hour.\n\nIn the mean time the walls of the citadel were sapped, the troops of\nthe emir poured in at the breach, and a great part of the garrison was\nput to the sword. The countess was taken prisoner and brought before\nthe emir. She appeared in his presence with a haughty demeanor, as if\nshe had been a queen receiving homage; but when {215} he demanded her\nson, she faltered and turned pale, and replied, \"My son is with the\ndead.\"\n\n\"Countess,\" said the emir, \"I am not to be deceived; tell me where you\nhave concealed the boy, or tortures shall wring from you the secret.\"\n\n\"Emir,\" replied the countess, \"may the greatest torments be my\nportion, both here and hereafter, if what I speak be not the truth. My\ndarling child lies buried with the dead.\"\n\nThe emir was confounded by the solemnity of her words; but the\nwithered astrologer Yuza, who stood by his side regarding the countess\nfrom beneath his bushed eyebrows, perceived trouble in her countenance\nand equivocation in her words. \"Leave this matter to me,\" whispered he\nto Alahor; \"I will produce the child.\"\n\nHe ordered strict search to be made by the soldiery, and he obliged\nthe countess to be always present. When they came to the chapel, her\ncheek turned pale and her lip quivered. \"This,\" said the subtile\nastrologer, \"is the place of concealment!\"\n\nThe search throughout the chapel, however, was equally vain, and the\nsoldiers were about to depart, when Yuza remarked a slight gleam of\njoy in the eye of the countess. \"We are leaving our prey behind,\"\nthought he; \"the countess is exulting.\"\n\nHe now called to mind the words of her asseveration, that her child\nwas with the dead. Turning suddenly to the soldiers he ordered them to\nsearch the sepulchres, \"If you find him not,\" said he, \"drag forth the\nbones of that wanton Cava, that they may be burnt, and the ashes\nscattered to the winds.\"\n\nThe soldiers searched among the tombs and found that of Florinda\npartly open. Within lay the boy in the sound sleep of childhood, and\none of the soldiers took him gently in his arms to bear him to the\nemir.\n\nWhen the countess beheld that her child was discovered, she rushed\ninto the presence of Alahor, and forgetting all her pride, threw\nherself upon her knees before him.\n\n\"Mercy! mercy!\" cried she in piercing accents, \"mercy on my son--my\nonly child! O Emir! listen to a mother's prayer and my lips shall kiss\nthy feet. As thou art merciful to him so may the most high God have\nmercy upon thee, and heap blessings on thy head.\"\n\n\"Bear that frantic woman hence,\" said the emir, \"but guard her well.\"\n\nThe countess was dragged away by the soldiery, without regard to her\nstruggles and her cries, and confined in a dungeon of the citadel.\n\nThe child was now brought to the emir. He had been awakened by the\ntumult, but gazed fearlessly on the stern countenances of the\nsoldiers. Had the heart of the emir been capable of pity, it would\nhave been touched by the tender youth and innocent beauty of the\nchild; but his heart was as the nether millstone, and he was bent upon\nthe destruction of the whole family of Julian. Calling to him the\nastrologer, he gave the child into his charge with a secret command.\nThe withered son of the desert took the boy by the hand and led him up\nthe winding staircase of a tower. When they reached the summit, Yuza\nplaced him on the battlements.\n\n\"Cling not to me, my child,\" said he; \"there is no danger.\" \"Father, I\nfear not,\" said the undaunted boy; \"yet it is a wondrous height.\"\n\nThe child looked around with delighted eyes. The breeze blew his\ncurling locks from about his face, and his cheek glowed at the\nboundless prospect; for the tower was reared upon that lofty\npromontory on which Hercules founded one of his pillars. The surges of\nthe sea were heard far below, beating upon the rocks, the sea-gull\nscreamed and wheeled about the foundations of the tower, and the sails\nof lofty caraccas were as mere specks on the bosom of the deep.\n\n\"Dost thou know yonder land beyond the blue water?\" said Yuza.\n\n{216}\n\n\"It is Spain,\" replied the boy; \"it is the land of my father and my\nmother.\"\n\n\"Then stretch forth thy hands and bless it, my child,\" said the\nastrologer.\n\nThe boy let go his hold of the wall; and, as he stretched forth his\nhands, the aged son of Ishmael, exerting all the strength of his\nwithered limbs, suddenly pushed him over the battlements. He fell\nheadlong from the top of that tall tower, and not a bone in his tender\nframe but was crushed upon the rocks beneath.\n\nAlahor came to the foot of the winding stairs.\n\n\"Is the boy safe?\" cried he.\n\n\"He is safe,\" replied Yuza; \"come and behold the truth with thine own\neyes.\"\n\nThe emir ascended the tower and looked over the battlements, and\nbeheld the body of the child, a shapeless mass, on the rocks far\nbelow, and the sea-gulls hovering about it; and he gave orders that it\nshould be thrown into the sea, which was done.\n\nOn the following morning the countess was led forth from her dungeon\ninto the public square. She knew of the death of her child, and that\nher own death was at hand, but she neither wept nor supplicated. Her\nhair was dishevelled, her eyes were haggard with watching, and her\ncheek was as the monumental stone; but there were the remains of\ncommanding beauty in her countenance, and the majesty of her presence\nawed even the rabble into respect.\n\nA multitude of Christian prisoners were then brought forth, and Alahor\ncried out: \"Behold the wife of Count Julian! behold one of that\ntraitorous family which has brought ruin upon yourselves and upon your\ncountry!\" And he ordered that they should stone her to death. But the\nChristians drew back with horror from the deed, and said, \"In the hand\nof God is vengeance; let not her blood be upon our heads.\" Upon this\nthe emir swore with horrid imprecations that whoever of the captives\nrefused should himself be stoned to death. So the cruel order was\nexecuted, and the Countess Frandina perished by the hands of her\ncountrymen. Having thus accomplished his barbarous errand, the emir\nembarked for Spain, and ordered the citadel of Ceuta to be set on\nfire, and crossed the straits at night by the light of its towering\nflames.\n\nThe death of Count Julian, which took place not long after, closed the\ntragic story of his family. How he died remains involved in doubt.\nSome assert that the cruel Alahor pursued him to his retreat among the\nmountains, and, having taken him prisoner, beheaded him; others that\nthe Moors confined him in a dungeon, and put an end to his life with\nlingering torments; while others affirm that the tower of the castle\nof Marcuello, near Huesca, in Aragon, in which he took refuge, fell on\nhim and crushed him to pieces. All agree that his later end was\nmiserable in the extreme and his death violent. The curse of heaven,\nwhich had thus pursued him to the grave, was extended to the very\nplace which had given him shelter; for we are told that the castle is\nno longer inhabited on account all the strange and horrible noises\nthat are heard in it; and that visions of armed men are seen above it\nin the air: which are supposed to be the troubled spirits of the\napostate Christians who favored the cause of the traitor.\n\nIn after-times a stone sepulcher was shown, outside of the chapel of\nthe castle, as the tomb of Count Julian; but the traveller and the\npilgrim avoided it, or bestowed upon it a malediction; and the name of\nJulian has remained a byword and a scorn in the land for the warning\nof all generations. Such ever be the lot of him who betrays his\ncountry!\n\nHere end the legends of the conquest of Spain.\n\n------\n\n{217}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nRECENT EUROPEAN EVENTS.\n\n\nWhen it is said that the church is independent of time and its events,\nand can subsist and operate under all forms of government, and in all\nstages of civilization, it is not meant that she is indifferent to the\nrevolution of states and empires, or cares not how the state is\nconstituted, or the government administered. Subsisting and operating\nsociety, though not holding from it, she cannot be indifferent to its\nconstitution, either for her sake or its own. It may be constituted\nmore for less in accordance with eternal justice, or absolute and\nunchanging right, and therefore more or less favorable to her catholic\nmission, which is to introduce and sustain the reign of truth and\nright in the state and the administration as well as in the individual\nreason and will.\n\nFar less does the independence of the church, or her non-dependence on\nthe political order and its variations, imply that politics, as is but\ntoo often assumed, are independent of the moral law of God, and\ntherefore that statesman, civil magistrates, and rulers are under no\nobligation to consult in their acts what is right, just, or\nconformable to the law of the Lord, but only what seems to them\nexpedient, or for their own interest. All sound politics are based on\nprinciples derived from theology, the great catholic or universal and\ninvariable principles which govern man's relation to his Maker and to\nhis neighbor, and of which, while the state is indeed in the temporal\norder the administrator, the church is the divinely instituted\nguardian and teacher. No Christian, no man who believes in God, can\nassert political independence of the divine or spiritual order, for\nthat would be simply political atheism; and if men sometimes do assert\nit without meaning to deny the existence and authority of God in the\nspiritual order, it is because men can be and sometimes are illogical,\nand inconsistent with themselves. Kings, kaisers, magistrates, are as\nmuch bound to obey God, to be just, to do right, as are private\nindividuals, and in their official no less than in their private acts.\n\nThe first question to be asked in relation to any political measure\nis. Is it morally right? The second, Are the means chosen for carrying\nit out just? If not, it must not be adopted. But, and this is\nimportant, it is the prerogative of God to overrule the evil men do,\nand to make it result in good. \"Ye meant it for evil, but God meant it\nfor good.\" Hence when things are done and cannot be recalled, though\nnot before, we may lawfully accept them, and labor to turn them to the\nbest possible account, without acquitting or approving them, or the\nmotives and conduct of the men who have been in the hands of\nProvidence the instruments of doing them. Hence there are two points\nof view from which political events may be considered: the moral--the\nmotives and conduct of those who have brought them about; and the\npolitical--or the bearing of the events themselves, regarded as facts\naccomplished and irrevocable, on the future welfare of society.\n\nIf we judge the recent territorial changes in Italy and Germany from\nthe moral point of view, we cannot acquit them. The means by which the\nunity of Italy has been effected under the house of Savoy, and those\nby which {218} that of Germany has been placed in the way of being\neffected under the house of Hohenzollern, it seems to me are wholly\nindefensible. The war of France and Sardinia against Austria in 1859,\nthe annexation to Sardinia of the Duchies, and the AEmilian provinces\nsubject to the Holy See, the absorption by force of arms of the\nkingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the still more recent war of Italy\nand Prussia against the same power, resulting in the mutilation and\nhumiliation of the Austrian empire, and possibly in depriving the pope\nthe remainder of his domain, are, I must hold in every sense\nunjustifiable. They have been done in violation of international law,\npublic right, and are an outrage upon every man's innate sense of\njustice, excusable only on that most detestable of all maxims--the end\nsanctifies the means.\n\nBut regarded from the political point of view, as facts accomplished\nand irrevocable, perhaps they are not indefensible, nay, not unlikely\nunder divine Providence to prove of lasting benefit to European\nsociety. I cannot defend the _coup d'\u00e9tat_ of Napoleon, December 2,\n1851, but I believe that the elevation of Louis Napoleon to the French\nthrone has turned out for the benefit of France and of Europe. I\ncondemned the means adopted to effect both Italian and German unity,\nbut I am not prepared to say that each, in view of the undeniable\ntendency of modern politics, was not in itself desirable and demanded\nby the solid and permanent interests of European society. Taken as\nfacts accomplished, as points of departure for the future, they may\nhave, perhaps already have had, an important bearing in putting an end\nto the uneasiness under which all European society has labored since\nthe treaties of Vienna in 1815, and the socialistic and revolutionary\nmovements which have, ever since the attempted reconstruction of\nEurope after the fall of Napoleon, kept it in continual turmoil, and\nrendered all government except by sheer force impracticable.\n\nThe tendency of European society for four or five centuries has been,\non the one hand, toward civil and political equality, and on the\nother, toward Roman imperialism. European society has revolted against\nmediaeval feudalism, alike against the feudal aristocracy and the\nfeudal monarchy, and sought to revive the political system of imperial\nRome, to place all citizens on the footing of an equality before the\nlaw, with exclusive privileges for none, and to base monarchy on the\nsovereign will of the nation. It would be incorrect to say, as many\nboth at home and abroad have said, that European society has been or\nis tending to pure and simple democracy, for such has not been, and is\nnot by any means the fact; but it has been and is tending to the\nabolition of all political distinctions and privileges founded on\nbirth or property, and to render all persons without reference to\ncaste or class eligible to all the offices of state, and to make all\noffices charges or trusts, instead of private property or estates.\nUnder feudalism all the great offices of the state and many of the\ncharges at court were hereditary, and could be claimed, held, and\nexercised as rights, unless forfeited by treason or misprision of\ntreason against the liege lord. It was so in France down to the\nrevolution of 1789, and is still so in England in relation to several\ncharges at court, and to the House of Peers. The feudal crown is an\nestate, and transmissible in principle, and usually in fact, as any\nother estate.\n\nSince the fifteenth century this feudal system has been attacked,\nthroughout the greater part of Europe, with more or less success. It\nreceived heavy blows from Louis XI. in France, Ferdinand and Isabella\nin Spain, Henry VII. in England, and Maximilian I. in Germany. The\ntendency in this direction was resisted by the Protestant princes in\nGermany, leagued against the emperor, the Huguenot nobles and the\nFronde in France, and by the whig nobility in England, because while\nit {219} strengthened the people as against the crown, it equally\nstrengthened the crown against the nobility. The British reformers\nto-day, under the lead of John Bright, are following out this European\ntendency, and if successful, will abolish the House of Peers,\nestablish civil and political equality, but at the same time will\nincrease the power of the crown, and establish Roman imperialism,\nwhich the Stuarts failed to do, because they sought to retain and\nstrengthen the feudal monarchy while they crushed the feudal\naristocracy.\n\nBut for the king or emperor to represent the nation and govern by its\nsovereign authority, it is necessary that the nation should become a\nstate, or body politic, which it was not under feudalism. Europe under\nfeudalism was divided among independent and subordinate chiefs, but\nnot into sovereign independent nations. There were estates but no\nstates, and the same proprietor might hold, and often did hold,\nestates in different nations, and in nations even remote from one\nanother, and neither power nor obedience depended on national\nboundaries or national territory. There was loyalty to the chief, but\nnone to the nation, or to the king or emperor as representing the\nnational majesty or sovereignty. Hence the tendency to Roman\nimperialism became also a tendency to nationality. Both king and\npeople conspired together to bring into national unity, and under the\nimperial authority of the crown, all the fiefs, whoever the suzerain\nor liege lord, and all the small principalities that by territorial\nposition, tradition, language, the common origin, or institutions of\nthe inhabitants, belonged really to one and the same nation.\n\nThe first of the continental powers to effect this national unity was\nFrance, consisting of the former Gallic provinces of the Roman empire,\nexcept a portion of the Gallia Germana now held by Belgium, Holland,\nand the Germanic governments on the left bank of the Rhine. The\nnatural boundaries of France are those of the ancient Keltica of the\nGreeks, extending from the Alps to the Atlantic ocean, and from the\nMediterranean sea to the English channel and the Rhine. France has not\nyet recovered and united the whole of her national territory, and\nprobably will never be perfectly contented till she has done it. But\nafter centuries of struggle, from Philip Augustus to Louis XIV., she\neffected internally national unity which gave her immense advantages\nover Italy and Germany, which remained divided, and which at times has\ngiven her even the hegemony of Europe.\n\nThe defeat of the first Napoleon, the restoration of the Bourbons, and\nthe treaties of Vienna in 1815, arrested, and were designed to arrest,\nthis tendency of modern European society under all its aspects, and\nhence satisfied nobody. They prevented the free development and play\nof the tendency to national unity and independence, re-established\naristocracy, and restrained the tendency to equality, and reasserted\nmonarchy as an estate held by the grace of God and inviolable and\nindefeasible, instead of the representative monarchy, which holds from\nthe nation, and is responsible to it. Those treaties grouped people\ntogether without any regard to their territorial relations, natural\naffinities, traditions, or interests, without the slightest reference\nto the welfare of the different populations, and with sole reference\nto the interests of sovereigns, and the need felt of restricting or\nguarding against the power of France. A blinder, a less philosophical,\nor a more ignorant set of statesmen than those who framed these\ntreaties, it is difficult to conceive. The poor men took no note of\nthe changes which had been produced during four or five hundred years\nof social elaboration, and supposed that they were still in full\nmediaeval feudalism, when people and territory could be transferred\nfrom one suzerain or one liege lord to another, without offending any\npolitical principle or any sentiment of {220} nationality. Of all\nlegislators in the world, reactionists suddenly victorious, and not\nyet wholly recovered from their fright, are the worst, for they act\nfrom passion, not reason or judgment.\n\nFrom the moment these treaties were published a social and political\nagitation began in nearly all the states of Europe. Conspiracies were\neverywhere, and the revolutionary spirit threatened every state and\nempire, and no government could stand save as upheld by armed force.\nBold attempts at revolution were early made in Naples and Spain, which\nwere defeated only by foreign intervention. Hardly a state was strong\nenough in the affections of its people to maintain order without the\nrepressive weight of the Holy Alliance, invented by Madame Krudener,\nand effected by the Emperor Alexander and Prince Metternich. Austria\ndominated in the Italian peninsula, France in the Spanish, and Russia\nin Poland and Germany; Great Britain used all her power and influence\nto prevent the emancipation of the Christian populations of the East,\nand to uphold the tottering empire of the Turks. The Holy Father was\nat once protected and oppressed by the allied powers, especially by\nAustria; the people everywhere became alienated from both church and\nstate, and serious-minded men, not easily alarmed, trembled with fear\nthat European society might be on the eve of a return to barbarism and\noriental despotism.\n\nMatters grew worse and worse till there came the explosions of 1830,\ndriving out of France the elder branch of the Bourbons, detaching\nBelgium from Holland, and causing the final extinction of the old and\nonce powerful kingdom of Poland, followed by revolutions more or less\nsuccessful in Spain and Portugal. Force soon triumphed for the moment,\nbut still Europe, to use the figure so hackneyed at the time, was a\nsmouldering volcano, till the fearful eruptions of 1848 struck\nwell-nigh aghast the whole civilized world, and conservatives thought\nthat the day for social order and regular authority had passed away,\nnever to return. Anarchy seemed fixed in France, the imperial family\nin Austria fled to Innspruck, and the Hungarians in revolt, forming a\nleague with the rebellions citizens of Vienna and the Italian\nrevolution, brought the empire almost to its last gasp; the king of\nPrussia was imprisoned in his palace by the mob, and nearly every\npetty German prince was obliged to compromise with the revolutionists.\nAll Italy was in commotion; the Holy Father was forced to seek refuge\nat Gaeta, and the infamous Mazzinian republic, with the filibuster\nGaribaldi as its general and hero, was installed in the Eternal City.\nSuch had been the result of the repressive policy of the Holy\nAlliance, when Louis Napoleon was elected president of the French\nrepublic.\n\nIt is true, in 1849 the revolution was suppressed, and power\nreinstated in its rights in Rome, Naples, Tuscany, the Austrian\ndominions, Prussia, and the several German states; but everybody felt\nthat it was only for a moment, for none of the causes of uneasiness or\ndissatisfaction were removed. The whole of Europe was covered over\nwith secret societies, working in the dark, beyond the reach of the\nmost powerful and sharp-sighted governments, and there was danger\nevery day of a new outbreak, perhaps still more violent, and equally\nimpotent to settle European society on a solid and permanent\nfoundation, because the revolution was, save on its destructive side,\nas little in accord with its tendencies and aspirations as the Holy\nAlliance itself.\n\nThe cause of all this uneasiness, of this universal agitation, was not\nin the tyranny, despotism, or opposition of the governments, or in\ntheir disregard of the welfare of the people more hostility to them;\nfor never in the whole history of Europe were the governments of\nFrance, Italy, Germany, and {221} Austria less despotic, less\narbitrary, less respectful of the rights of person and property, less\noppressive, indeed more intelligent, or more disposed to consult the\nwelfare of the people--the French, Prussian, and Austrian systems of\nuniversal popular education proves it--than during the period from\n1815 to 1848; and never in so brief a period has so much been done for\nthe relief and elevation of the poorer and more numerous classes. The\nonly acts of government that were or could be complained of were acts\nof repression, preventative or punitive, rendered necessary by the\nchronic conspiracy, and perfectly justifiable, if the government would\nprotect itself, or preserve its own existence, and which, in fact,\nwere not more arbitrary or oppressive than the acts performed in this\ncountry during the late rebellion, by both the general government and\nthe confederate government, or than those practiced for centuries by\nthe British government in Ireland. Nor was it owing entirely or\nchiefly to the native perversity of the human heart, to the impatience\nof restraint and subordination of the people, who were said to demand\nunbounded license, and determined to submit to no regular authority.\nIndividuals may love licence and hate authority, but the people love\norder, and are naturally disposed to obedience, and are usually far\nmore ready to submit to even grievous wrongs then to make an effort to\nright them.\n\nThe cause in France was not that the Bourbons of either branch were\nbad or unwise rulers, but that they retained too many feudal\ntraditions, claimant the throne as a personal estate, and, moreover,\nwere forced upon the nation by foreign bayonets, not restored by the\nfree, independent will of the nation itself. Their government, however\nable, enlightened, and even advantageous to France, was not national;\nand while submitting to it, the new France that had grown up since\n1789 could not feel herself an independent nation. It is probable that\nthere is less freedom for Frenchmen in thought and speech under the\npresent r\u00e9gime than there was under the Restoration or even the King\nof the Barricades and his parliament; but it is national, accepted by\nthe free will of the nation, and, moreover, obliterates all traces of\nthe old feudal distinctions and privileges of caste or class, and\nestablishes, under the emperor, democratic equality. Individuals may\nbe disaffected, some regretting lost privileges and distinctions, and\nothers wishing the democracy without the emperor; but upon the whole\nthe great body of the people are contented with it, and any attempt at\na new revolution would prove a miserable failure. The secret societies\nmay still exist, but they are not sustained by popular sympathy, and\nare now comparatively powerless. The socialistic theories and\nmovements, Saint Simonism, Fourierism, Cabetism, and the like, fall\ninto disrepute, not because suppressed by the police, but because\nthere is no longer that general dissatisfaction with the social order\nthat exists which originated them, and because the empire is in\nharmony with the tendencies of modern European society.\n\nIn Italy the cause was neither hatred of authority nor hostility to\nthe church or her supreme pontiff, but the craving of the people, or\nthe influential and controlling part of them, for national unity and\nindependence. In feudal times, when France was parcelled out among\nfeudatories, many of whom were more powerful than the king, their\nnominal suzerain; when Spain was held in great part by the Moors, and\nthe rest of her territory was divided into three or four mutually\nindependent kingdoms; when England was subject to the great vassals of\nthe crown, rather than to the crown itself; when Germany was divided\ninto some three hundred principalities and free cities, loosely united\nonly under an elective emperor, with little effective power, and often\na cause of division rather than a bond of union between them; {222}\nand when the pope, the most Italian of all the Italian sovereigns, was\nsuzerain of a large part of Italy, and of nearly all Europe, except\nFrance, Germany, and the Eastern empire, the division of the peninsula\ninto some half a dozen or more mutually independent republics,\nprincipalities, or kingdoms, did not deprive Italy of the rank of a\ngreat power in Europe, or prevent her from exercising often even a\ncontrolling influence in European politics, and therefore was not felt\nto be an evil. But when France, Spain, Austria, and Great Britain\nbecame great centralized states, and when in Switzerland, Holland, the\nBritish Isles, Scandinavia, and North Germany the rise of\nProtestantism had weakened the political influence of the pope, these\ndivisions reduced Italy, which had been the foster-mother of modern\ncivilization, and the leader of the modern nations in the arts of war\nand peace, in commerce and industry, in national and international\nlaw, in literature, science, architecture, music, painting, and\nsculpture, to a mere geographical expression, or to complete political\nnullity, and could not but offend the just pride of the nation. The\ntreaties of 1815 had, besides, given over the fairest portion of the\nterritory of the peninsula to Austria, and enabled her, by her weight\nas a great power, to dominate over the rest. The grand duke of Tuscany\nwas an Austrian archduke, the king of the Two Sicilies, and even the\npope as temporal prince, were little less, in fact, than vassals of\nthe house of Hapsburg-Lorraine.\n\nItaly felt that she was not herself, and that she could be herself and\nbelong to herself, own herself, as our slaves used to say before they\nwere emancipated, only by expelling Austria and her agents from\nItalian territory, and uniting the whole peninsula in a single state,\nunitarian or federative, under a single supreme national government.\nFor this Italian patriotism everywhere sighed, agitated, conspired,\nrebelled, struggled, was arrested, shot, hung, imprisoned, exiled, and\nfilled the world with its complaints, the story of its wrongs and\nsufferings. It was not that Italy was badly governed, but that she was\nnot governed by herself, was governed by foreigners, or at least by\ngovernors who would not, or could not, secure her national unity and\nindependence, without which she could not become the great European\npower that she aspired to be, and felt herself capable of being. The\nFenians do not agitate and arm against England so much because her\ngovernment in Ireland is now--whenever it may have been formerly--\ntyrannical and oppressive, as because it is not national, is not\nIrish, and offends the Irish sense of nationality, far stronger now\nthan in the time of Strongbow or that of the confederate chieftains.\nThrough the armed intervention of Napoleon III. in 1859, and the\nrecent alliance with Prussia against Austria, Italy has no got what\nshe agitated for, national unity and independence, though at the\nexpense of great injustice to the dispossessed sovereigns, and is free\nto become a great European power, if she has it in her, and her\nchronic conspiracy is ended. She has obtained all that she was\nconspiring for, and is satisfied: she has gained possession of\nherself, and is free herself to be all that she is capable of being.\n\nThe Germans, also, were uneasy, discontented, and conspiring for the\nsame reason. The Bund was a mockery, formed in the interest of the\nsovereigns, without regard to the people or the national sentiment,\nand in practice has tended far more to divide and weaken, than to\nunite and strength the German nation, both on the side of France and\non that of Russia. Germany, in consequence of the changes effected in\nother nations, was, like Italy, reduced to a geographical expression.\nAustria in the south was a great power, Prussia counted for something\nin the north, but Germany was a political nullity. The Germans aspired\nto national unity, and attempted {223} to obtain it in 1848 by the\nreconstruction, with many wise modifications, of the old Germanic\nempire, suppressed by Napoleon I. in 1806, but were defeated by the\nmutual jealousies of Prussia and Austria, the withdrawal of the\nAustrian delegates from the Diet, and the refusal of the King of\nPrussia to accept the imperial crown offered him by the Diet, after\nthe withdrawal of Austria. What failed to be legally and peaceably\neffected 1848 and 1849, has been virtually effected by Prussia in this\nyear of grace, 1866, after a fortnight's sharp and fierce war, not\nbecause of her greatly overrated needle-gun, but because Prussia is\nmore thoroughly German than Austria, and better represents the\nnational sentiment.\n\nThe success of Prussia must be regards, I think, not only as breaking\nup the old confederation, and expelling Austria from Germany, but as\nreally defecting German unity, or the union of all Germany in a single\nstate. The states north of the Main, not as yet formally annexed to\nPrussia, and those so of that line, as yet free to form a southern\nconfederation, will soon, perhaps, with the seven or eight millions of\nGermans still under Austrian rule, in all likelihood be absorbed by\nher, and formed into a single military state with her, and transform\nher from Prussia into Germany. It is most likely only a question of\ntime, as it is only a logical sequence of what has already been\neffected. Austria ceases to be a German power, and must seek\nindemnification by developing, as Hungary rather than as Austria,\neastward, and gradually absorbing Roumania, Herzegovina, Bosnia,\nServia, and Bulgaria, and placing herself as an impassable barrier to\nthe advance of Russia southward in Europe. This she may do, if wise\nenough to give up Germany, and to avail herself of the vast resources\nshe still possesses; for in this she would probably be aided by Great\nBritain, France, and Italy--all deeply interested in preventing Russia\nfrom planting herself in Constantinople, and gaining the empire of the\nworld. Turkey must fall, must die, and European equilibrium requires a\nnew and powerful Eastern state, if the whole of Europe is not to\nbecome Cossack.\n\nThe independence and unity of Italy, and the union of Germany in a\nsingle state, had become political necessities, and both must be\neffected as the means of putting an end to what European writers call\n\"the Revolution,\" and giving internal peace to European society. No\ndoubt they have not been thus far effected without great violence to\nvested rights; but necessity knows no law, or is itself law, and\nnations never have been and never can be arrested in their purposes by\nvested rights, however sacred religion and morality teach us to hold\nthem. National and popular passions can be controlled by no\nconsiderations of right or wrong. They sweep onward and away whatever\nwould stay their progress. If the possessors of vested rights opposed\nto national union, independence, or development, consent to part with\nthem at a just ransom, the nation is ready to indemnify them\nliberally; but if they will not consent, it will take them all the\nsame, and without scruple.\n\nI say not that this is right; I pretend not to justify it; I only\nstate what all experience proves that nations do and will continue to\ndo in spite of religion and morality. Ahab was willing to pay a round\nprice for Naboth's vineyard, but when Naboth refused to sell it at any\nprice, Ahab took it for nothing. But these political changes, regarded\nas accomplished and irrevocable facts, and setting aside the means\nadopted to effect them, and the vested rights violated in obtaining\nthem, are not morally wrong, and are in no sense threatening to the\nfuture peace and progress of European society, but seem to be the only\npracticable means that were left of preventing it from lapsing into\ncertain barbarism. They seem to me to have been needed to render the\n{224} European governments henceforth able to sustain themselves by\nthe affections and good sense of the people, without being obliged to\nkeep themselves armed to the teeth against them. International wars\nwill, no doubt, continue as long as the world stands, but wars of the\npeople against authority, or of subjects against their rulers, may now\ncease for a long time to come, at least in the greater part of Europe.\nThe feudal system is everywhere either swept away, or so weakened as\nto be no longer able to make a serious struggle for existence; and\nsave Ireland, Poland, and the Christian populations of the East, the\nEuropean nations are formed, and are in possession of their national\nunity and independence. The people have reached what for ages they\nhave been tending to, and are in possession of what, in substance,\nthey have so long been agitating for. The new political order is\nfairly inaugurated, and the people have obtained their legitimate\nsatisfaction. Whether they will be wiser or better, happier or more\nreally prosperous, under the new order than they were under the old,\nwe must leave to time to prove. Old men, like the writer of this, who\nhave lived too long and seen too much to regard every change as a\nprogress, may be permitted to retain their doubts. But changes which\nin themselves are not for the better, are relatively so when rendered\nnecessary by other and previous changes.\n\nThe English and American press very generally assert that the Emperor\nof the French is much vexed at the turn things have taken in Germany,\nthat he is disappointed in his expectations, and defeated in his\nEuropean policy. I do not think so. The French policy since the time\nof Francis I. has been, indeed, to prevent the concentration and\ngrowth of any great power on the frontiers of France; as the papal\npolicy ever since the popes were temporal sovereigns, according to\nTosti in his Life and Times of Boniface VIII., has been to prevent the\nestablishment of any great power in the immediate neighborhood of\nRome. That this French policy and this papal are defeated by the turn\nthings have taken is no doubt true, but what evidence is there that\nthis is a defeat of Napoleon's policy, or is anything else than that\nhe both expected and intended? When he entered on his Italian campaign\nagainst Austria in 1859, he showed clearly that he did not intend to\nsustain the Papal policy, for his purpose was the unity no less than\nthe independence of Italy. He showed, also, no less clearly, that\nwhile he retained traditional French policy of humbling the house of\nHapsburg, he did not intend in other respects to sustain that policy;\nfor he must have foreseen, as the writer of this, in another place,\ntold him at the time, that the unity of Italy would involve as its\nlogical and necessary sequence the the unity of Germany. We can\nsuppose him disappointed only by supposing he entertained a policy\nwhich he appears to have deliberately made up his mind to abandon, or\nnot to adopt.\n\nAfter the Italian campaign, and perhaps before, the unity of Germany\nwas a foregone conclusion, and if effected it must be either under\nAustria or under Prussia. Napoleon had only to choose which it should\nbe. And it was manifestly for the interest of France that it should be\nunder Prussia, an almost exclusively German power, rather than under\nAustria, whose non-Germanic population was three times greater than\nher Germanic population. If the unity of Germany had been effected\nunder Austria with her non-Germanic provinces, Germany would have\nconstituted in central Europe a power of nearly seventy millions of\npeople, absolutely incompatible with the European equilibrium; but if\neffected under Prussia, it would constitute a state of only about\nforty millions, not a power so large as to be dangerous to France or\nto the peace of Europe. France has nothing to fear from a Prussian\nGermany, for she is amply able to cope with her, and the first war\nbetween the two powers would restore to France her natural {225}\nboundaries, by giving her all the territory on the left bank of the\nRhine, and thus make her commensurate with the ancient Keltica.\n\nFrance is too strong in her unity, compactness, and extent, as well as\nin the high spirit and military genius of her people, to think of\nprecautions against Germany. The power for her to guard against is\nRussia, embracing a rapidly increasing population of upward of seventy\nmillions, and possessing one-seventh of the territory of the globe.\nShe has no other power to fear, since Austria is separated from\nGermany. Prussia, capable of becoming a great maritime power, and\nembracing all Germany, not only rescues the smaller German states from\nRussian influence and intrigue, but becomes an efficient ally of\nFrance, in the west, against Russia, and far more efficient and\ntrustworthy an ally than Great Britain, because a continental power,\nand more exposed to danger from the common enemy. While Prussia\nbecomes a powerful ally in the west, Austria, by being detached from\nGermany, and too weak to stand without alliances, becomes a French\nally in the east; and the more ready to be so, because the majority of\nher future population is and must be of the Slavic race.\n\nNapoleon's policy, it seems to me, has been first, to drive Austria\nout of Italy and detach her from Germany, for the security of France;\nand then to organize pan-Germanism against pan-Slavism in the West,\nand an Austrian, or rather, Slavic or Hungarian Empire, embracing the\nMagyars and Roumans, against pan-Slavism in the East. With these two\ngreat powers, having as against Russia a common interest with France,\nthe Emperor of the French, the ally and protector of the Latin\nnations, will be able to settle the terrible Eastern question without\nsuffering Russia to receive an undue accession of territory or power,\nand also without the scandal of sustaining, in order to please Great\nBritain and save her Indian possessions, the rotten empire of the\nTurks, and preventing the Christian nations it holds, through the aid\nof the western Christian powers, in subjection, from working out their\nfreedom and independence, rising to national dignity and influence.\n\nSuch, briefly stated, has been, I think, substantially the policy of\nNapoleon, since he became Emperor of the French; and the recent events\nin Italy and Germany so strikingly accord with it, that one cannot\nhelp believing that they have been dictated by it. It seems designed\nto give measurable satisfaction to the principal nationalities of\nEurope, as it secures undisputed preponderance to no one, and\nhumiliates no one over much. It may, therefore, be said to be a policy\nof peace. It is a policy, if carried out in all its parts, that would\nenable France, Prussia, Italy, Austria, to isolate Russia, and at need\nGreat Britain, from Europe; but it robs neither of any of its\nterritory or inherent strength, and is hostile to neither, unless one\nor the other would encroach on the rights of others.\n\nWill this policy be carried out and consolidated I know not. It is\nsubstantially in accordance with the tendencies of modern European\nsociety; the most difficult parts of it have already been effected,\nand we have seen no movement on the part of either Russia or Great\nBritain to assist Austria to prevent it. Napoleon had succeeded in\nisolating Austria from Europe, and almost from Germany, before he\ncommenced his Italian campaign in 1859. Should Napoleon die suddenly,\nshould Russia or Great Britain interpose to prevent Austria from\nexpanding eastward before she has recovered from her losses in being\nexpelled from Italy and Germany, and should France, Germany, and Italy\nrefuse to act as her allies, or should she herself look to the\nrecovery of what she has lost, rather than to the development of what\nshe retains or has in prospect, the policy might fail; but these are\nall improbable contingencies, except the first; yet even Napoleon's\ndeath would not seriously {226} affect the unity and independence of\nItaly, or the unity of Germany, as much as the South Germans dislike\nthe Prussians. This age worships strength and success.\n\nThe most doubtful part of this Napoleonic policy is the part assigned\nto Austria in the future; and the part the most offensive to the\nCatholic heart, is that which strips the Holy Father of his temporal\ndominions, annexes them to the kingdom of Italy, and leaves him to the\ntender mercy of his despoilers. The Holy Father, sustained by the\ngeneral voice of the episcopacy, has said the maintenance of the\ntemporal sovereignty is _necessary_ to the interests of religion; but\nhe said this when there was still hope that it might be retained, and\nhe, of course, did not mean that it is _absolutely_ necessary at all\ntimes and under all circumstances; because that would have made the\nprincipal depend on the accessory, and the spiritual on the temporal.\nMoreover, religion had existed and flourished several centuries before\nthe popes were temporal sovereigns, and what has been may be again.\nCircumstances have changed since the Holy Father said this, and it is\nnot certain that, as it is not a Catholic dogma, he would insist on it\nnow.\n\nOf course the change is to be deeply deplored, especially for those\nwho have effected it; but is there any possibility, humanly speaking,\nof re-establishing the Holy Father in his temporal rights? I confess I\ncan see none. It is a great loss, but perhaps some arrangement may be\nentered into with the new Italian power, which, after all, will enable\nthe Holy Father still to reside at Rome, and exercise independently\nhis functions as the spiritual chief of Christendom. Italy has more\nneed of the pope then the pope has of Italy, and Victor Emmanuel, at\nworst, cannot be worse than were the Pagan and Arian Caesars. No\nCatholic can ever despair of the church. At present the temporal, to\nall human ken, seems to have triumphed over the spiritual, and\npolitics to have carried it over religion. Yet the triumph cannot be\nlasting, and in some way the victory won will prove to have been a\ndefeat. God will never forsake his church, his beloved, his bride, his\nbeautiful one, and the Lord will not suffer Peter to sink when he\nwalks upon the waters. Peter's bark may be violently tossed on the\nwaves, but the very independence of the church prevents us from\nfearing that it will be submerged. In what way the future of the\npapacy will be provided for, it is not for us to determine or to\nsuggest. We cheerfully confide in the wisdom of the Holy Father,\nassisted as he will be by the Holy Ghost.\n\n--------\n\n{227}\n\n\nFrom The Sixpenny Magazine.\n\nTHE SUMMER DAYS ARE GONE.\n\n  The flowers that made the summer air\n    So fragrant with their rich perfume,\n  Alas! are gone, their leaves so fair\n    Lie faded in their autumn tomb.\n\n  The branches now are almost bare,\n    Where summer song-birds made their homes;\n  Where trees are green, where flowers are fair,\n    Once more the happy birds have flown.\n\n  To distant lands o'er sunny seas\n    The songsters bright have taken wing.\n  To warble on that warmer breeze\n    The notes they sang to us in spring.\n\n  Her autumn robe of red and brown\n    Once more the gliding year puts on,\n  And yonder sun looks colder down\n    Since the bright summer days are gone.\n\n  The stars, the glory of the night,\n    Look on us still with silvery eye--\n  Shine on us still as clear and bright.\n    But not from out the summer sky.\n\n  The chilly breezes of the north\n    Tell us it is no longer spring,\n  And winter's hand is reaching forth\n    To wither every verdant thing.\n\n  So even like the birds the flowers.\n    When dearest things of life have flown.\n  Then in the heart's deserted bowers\n    The naked branches stand alone.\n\n  Oh, then, alas! no breath of spring\n    Can breathe the living verdure on.\n  No sun will shine, no birds will sing--\n    For ever is the summer gone.\n\n  But when the heart beats high and warm.\n    And kindred hearts its throbbing share.\n  It heeds not winter's clouds nor storm,\n    But summer tarries always there.\n\n--------\n\n{228}\n\nFrom The Lamp.\n\nUNCONVICTED; OR, OLD THORNELEY'S HEIRS.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE BEGINNING OF THE END.\n\n\nThe tidings that Old Thorneley's missing will was found fell like a\nthunderbolt upon Wilmot and his lawyers, Smith and Walker; and their\ngenuine astonishment was a matter of equal surprise to me. In my own\nmind I had felt convinced that Lister Wilmot had had a hand in the\nsuppression of that will; and if I hardly dared in my heart to believe\nhim guilty of, although suspecting him at least of complicity in, the\ndeath of his uncle, I never doubted but that he knew of the existence\nof this last testament, and knowing it, had destroyed it. In my own\nmind I had, during many hours of solitary reflection, of the most\nscrutinizing study of every fact and circumstance connected with all\nthese past events, arrived at a conclusion that some unknown link\nunited Maria Haag and Lister Wilmot together, and that the double\nmystery of the murder and the lost will lay buried secret in their\nhearts. But there was no mistaking the undisguised and overwhelming\namazement with which he received the communication of Merrivale and\nmyself. We made it in person to him before Smith and Walker; and I can\nonly say that his manner of receiving it exonerated him at once in my\neyes from suspicion of his having had anything to do with the theft or\nconcealment of that will.\n\nOf course on either side legal proceedings were commenced: Merrivale\non the part of Hugh Atherton undertaking to prove the genuineness of\nthe recovered document; Smith and Walker for Lister Wilmot endeavoring\nto repudiate it. In less than a week they were all \"hard at it.\"\nMeanwhile, the will, as stolen property found by the police, was\nlodged with them; meanwhile, Inspector Keene had once more\ndisappeared, and this time we all knew that the purport of his absence\nwas the apprehension of Mrs. Haag; meanwhile, the heir to all this\nmine of disputed wealth played with his childish toys, laughed his\ncrazy laugh, and jabbered his idiot nonsense, without the ray of\nintelligence crossing his for witless brain; meanwhile, Hugh Atherton\nroamed far over the broad treacherous ocean--an exile and a wanderer,\nthe victim of a cruel and shameless plot--ignorant of the brave\nloving heart that was following him so near, all of the tender eyes,\nthe faithful hand, that would bid him welcome on that foreign shore.\n\nUnwilling as I was to leave London just then, where my presence was at\nany moment necessary, the affairs of one of my best and oldest clients\nsummoned me to Liverpool for a couple of days, and I took a\nreturn-ticket thither from the Saturday to the Monday after that last\nmemorable visit from Inspector Keene. Who shall ever dare to doubt the\nspecial Providence ordering and overruling every event, every\ncircumstance of our lives, however trivial and unimportant they may\nseen at the moment of their occurrence? That journey of mine, which\noutwardly had not the smallest bearing or reference to the story I am\ntelling, was in reality the beginning of the end.\n\nTravelling by an early training, I arrived in Liverpool about three\no'clock. After engaging a bed at a hotel near the station, and\nrefreshing my inner man, I set off immediately on the business {229}\nwhich had brought me thither. This lay asked some of the great\nshipping offices in Tower Buildings, close to the docks. Coming out of\none, I noticed a man following me. Suddenly my arm was touched, and\nlooking round I saw Inspector Keene.\n\n\"God bless me! Who'd have thought of seeing you here?\"\n\n\"And who'd have thought of seeing you, sir? I don't suppose you ever\nexpected it would be so, Mr. Kavanagh, but you and I have hunted the\nfox together, and now you and I will be in at the death.\"\n\n\"You mean to say you have traced the housekeeper?\"\n\n\"That's just precisely what I do mean, sir.\"\n\n\"Where is she?\"\n\n\"Not a stone's throw from here.\"\n\n\"And you have her in charge?\"\n\n\"Not yet, sir, not yet. I have but just obtained a warrant for her\napprehension from the sitting magistrate, and I am on my way now to\nannounce the agreeable tidings to her.\"\n\n\"Had you trouble in tracking her?\"\n\n\"An awful deal, sir. She was all but gone; her passage taken to\nAmerica, and the vessel is to sail to-night. The news of my finding\nthe will must have reached led her in Lincolnshire, for I've followed\nher across the country here; and then I lost sight of her, and only\nfound her trail this morning. But she's safe now; the house is watched\non all sides. Strange enough, sir,\" said the inspector, lowering his\nvoice, \"there's been another after her too.\"\n\n\"Another man?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I've caught sight of him from time to time, dodging and\nwatching and following her as cute and as silently as any of _us_; and\nif his name isn't Bradley, well, mine isn't Keene, and I'm not one of\nher majesty's detective officers.\"\n\n\"Shall I go with you, Keene?\"\n\n\"Do, sir; it may be like a satisfaction to you to see the end of it.\"\n\nWe turned into a by-street, narrow, ill-paved, and dark, where the\nhouses were high and overhanging, and fashioned like those in little\nobscure foreign towns, that nearly meet overhead. Before the door of\none a policeman stood, apparently engaged only in his ordinary duty of\nlooking up and down the street; but from a glance of intelligence that\npassed between them I knew he was on special service--the special\nservice being to watch that identical house. The door opened by a\nsimple latch, and the inspector's hand was on it, when the policeman\nstepped back, and whispered to him. Keene paused for a moment, and\nthen turned to me. \"_He_ is in there;\" and I knew he meant the man who\nwas likewise following Mrs. Haag--the man Bradley.\n\n\"Follow us,\" said the detective to the officer on duty; and opening\nthe door, we passed down a narrow dark passage and proceeded up the\nstairs, quietly, stealthily. We had gained the first landing, and\nInspector Keene's foot was on the stair to ascend the second flight,\nwhen a loud, piercing cry broke upon the stillness--the cry of agony.\nIn a moment we had cleared the stairs and stood before a door on the\nleft. Keene turned the handle. _It was fastened from inside_.\n\nHe shook it with a strength I had not thought he possessed, and\ndemanded admission. There was no answer. Again it rattled on its\nhinges, and I thought it would be too weak to resist my strength.\n\"Give way, Keene!\" I cried; \"I can break it in;\" and retreating to the\nfurther end of the landing, I ran and brought my whole weight to bear\nagainst it. Useless! _Another weight_ was strengthening it on the\ninside. And then a shriek yet more piercing, more agonized than before\nrang through the house, and footsteps were heard from below and above\nof people hurrying to the spot. We once more strained at the door. O\nGod! would it never give way? I turned to the policeman. \"You ought to\nbe powerful; let us both run together.\" I felt a giant's strength\nwithin me; and as our feet crashed against the wood it bunt open,\n{230} and we were precipitated into the room, almost falling over the\nbody of Mrs. Haag, prostrate on the ground, weltering in a great pool\nof blood. A large clasp-knife lay beside her, red up to the very hilt;\nand by the window, with his arms folded, stood a man of large, heavy\nbuild, with dark gipsy features and lowering brow--a man who in the\nprime of youth might have been of comely form and handsome\ncountenance, but who now, with the wear of more than fifty years'\nfamiliarity with crime and evil, bore more indelibly printed in his\nface the felon and the convict than ever the mark branded, but hidden,\nupon his shoulder could betray. With one glance at the miserable woman\nlying on the floor, the inspector sprang toward the man, who stood\nmotionless, and staring at the body of his victim, and laying his hand\non his arm he said, \"Robert Bradley, I arrest you for this attempt to\nmurder your wife, and for unlawful escape from penal servitude.\" No\nexpression crossed the man's face--only the same dull, stony gaze.\n\n\"Do you hear?\" said Keene, giving him a little shake; \"and say nothing\nto criminate yourself now.\" There was no answer. \"Policemen, do your\nduty:\" and two advanced from the crowd now gathered in the room and on\nthe stairs. They slipped the handcuffs on his unresisting hands, and\nthen proceeded to lead him away. Meanwhile I had knelt down beside the\nunfortunate woman, and was feeling her heart and pulse. She still\nlived. \"Send for a surgeon instantly,\" I cried; and a dozen of the\nlookers-on instantly scampered off to do my bidding. Then, with one\ncry of anguish, the prisoner burst from his captors and flung himself\ndown beside the woman he had murdered. He raised his manacled hands,\nand tried to draw her head toward him and pillow it on his breast.\n\n\"O Molly, Molly, I've killed thee; I've killed thee!\" There was a\nfaint moan. \"She's my wife, gentlemen; before God, she's my wife. I\nwanted her to come away with me and let us hide together, for we've\nboth done bad enough; but she wouldn't--she bade me begone: she spoke\nso harshly, she looked so cruelly with her cold eyes--and I was mad,\nmad--and I struck her. Molly, Molly!\"\n\nWith difficulty he was torn away, dragged out of the room and borne\noff by the police; then we lifted the almost lifeless body of his wife\nand laid her on the bed. How far she had been injured I knew not as\nyet; but something within seemed to tell me she had received her\ndeath-wound. I said as much to Inspector Keene when the room was\ncleared a little from the crowd, and he, I, and one or to women, who\nsaid they lived in the house, only remained. In less then a quarter of\nan hour two surgeons were on the spot, and we left them with the woman\nto make the necessary examination.\n\n\"This is indeed being 'in at the death,'\" I said to the inspector as\nwe stood outside.\n\n\"Yes, sir; yes. And I have been a consummate fool not to have foreseen\nwhat would happen.\" I saw he was looking unusually pale and agitated.\n\n\"How could you help it?\" I asked.\n\n\"I ought to have given orders not to have allowed _him_ to go into the\nhouse. I made over-sure of all being right.\"\n\n\"Depend upon it, Keene,\" I replied, \"neither you nor any one else\ncould have warded off what was _to be_. Another and a mightier hand\nthan any human one has been in this. We may not question God's\nprovidence.\"\n\nThe inspector was silent. He could not get over it.\n\n\"If the worst comes to the worst,\" I said, \"we must be ready to have\nher confession taken down. Surely she will speak at the last.\"\n\n\"Not if I judge her rightly, sir; she will make no sign now.\"\n\n\"Nay, I trust she will. If what we guess at is true, it is too\nterrible to think she will die with that upon her soul.\"\n\n{231}\n\n\"She is a Catholic, sir, I believe; she'll tell her priest, but what\nuse is that to us?\"\n\n\"If she does _that_, there will be no fear.\"\n\nKeene shook his head despairingly. \"I never made such a mull in my\nlife before.\"\n\nJust then one of the surgeons came out. We both eagerly turned to him\nwith the same question: \"Will she die?\"\n\n\"Who can tell? While there is life there is hope. The wounds are very\ndangerous ones. There is little chance for her; still there _is_ a\nchance. I am going now for instruments and dressings to my house close\nby. She ought to be in the hospital, but we dare not remove her. The\nsole hope is in staunching the bleeding; it has stopped for the\nmoment, but the least motion will cause it to break out afresh. Who\nknows anything of her? who is responsible in the matter? We have heard\nno particulars as yet.\"\n\nKeene explained in a few words all that was necessary.\n\n\"Can you tell me where to find the nearest Catholic priest?\" I asked\nhim as he went away.\n\n\"In the next street to this there is a small chapel. I know the priest\nattached, and excellent man, though he is a papist. Pardon me; perhaps\nyou are the Catholic?\"\n\nFor the hot blood had rushed to my brow involuntarily, not for the\nman's words, but at the grave thoughts which passed through my\nmind--the hope,  the fear of what those ministrations I was going to\nseek would do for the wretched woman lying in that room.\n\n\"I am a Catholic,\" I said briefly; \"but say anything you like, I don't\nmind. I'll come out with you, and you'll show me the way to find this\npriest.\"\n\nI found and brought him--Father Maurice. He was a man who had grown\nold and grey in the care of souls, who had stood by many a death-bed,\nhad been called to witness the penitence of many a dying sinner; never\nhad his services been more needed than now. On our road I briefly\nrelated to him the circumstances, and all I knew of the poor creature\nto whose side he was hastening.\n\nWhen we arrived, they told us she had been conscious for a few\nmoments, but was now again insensible; that during that lucid interval\nshe had murmured a name which sounded like Wilmot. \"Send for Mr.\nWilmot,\" the doctor had understood her to say. Keene and I looked at\neach other.\n\n\"Telegraph for him,\" I said.\n\n\"Would he come, sir, do you think?\"\n\n\"Telegraph in Mrs. Haag's name. Simply say, 'Danger; come\nimmediately.' That may bring him. He will get it in time to catch the\nnight-mail.\"\n\nKeene departed.\n\nThe room opposite the one where the injured woman lay was vacant, and\nI took possession of it, knowing that the inspector would station\nhimself on the spot. Presently the two surgeons came in, and conferred\ntogether for some minutes in low tones. Then they turned to me and to\nthe priest, who waited there likewise.\n\n\"We have probed and dressed the wounds, but she lies perfectly\nunconscious at present; two nursing sisters from the hospital have\nbeen sent for to take charge of her, and it will be necessary for one\nof us to remain here during the night. There is just a hope and no\nmore. What we have most to fear is internal haemorrhage. She may\nprobably linger out the night, or even a day or two, in the event of\nno favorable change taking place. But her state is most critical.\"\n\n\"I shall go home and make arrangements for remaining here during the\nevening and night, if it is necessary,\" said Father Maurice in his\nquiet, determined way.\n\nI expressed my thanks.\n\n\"There is no need,\" he said; \"if all is well in the end, I shall have\nmy reward.\"\n\n{232}\n\nWhen Inspector Keene returned he told me he had dated the telegram\nfrom my hotel, and that it would be best for me to return there by and\nby, and await the arrival of the night train. It was then between six\nand seven o'clock.\n\nHow that long evening passed I know not. There we sat, we three\nmen--Inspector Keene, Father Maurice, and I--saying very little to one\nanother, and the prevailing silence only broken by the low whispering\nsounds of the priest as he said his office, and the hushed footsteps\nof the surgeon, who remained coming in and out from time to time.\n\nOh! would she ever wake from that terrible unconsciousness? would no\npower of mind, no strength of body, no grace of soul ever be given her\nto unlock all the dark secrets of her heart, to clear the innocent and\nproclaim the guilty? Must she go down to her grave without one act of\nsorrow, unshrived, uncleansed, without a moment in which to make\nreparation for the terrible past, for all that world of shame and\nsuffering that had fallen so crushingly upon guiltless heads?\n\nIt was just upon ten o'clock, and I was preparing to leave for my\nhotel, when Mr. Lovell, the surgeon, came in and beckoned to Father\nMaurice. They left the room together, and soon the surgeon and the two\nnurses came in. The former stooped down and whispered to me, \"She\nasked to have a priest sent for, and I told her one was here. It\nseemed a relief to her. She has not been conscious more than five\nminutes.\"\n\nThe inspector looked across at me with an inquiring glance. I think he\nhad grown suspicious of me, and feared I was conniving at some\nconcealment about her confession.\n\n\"As soon as my _prisoner_\" (laying a stress on the word ) \"comes to\nher senses, sir, I ought to be told. There's something to be got out\nof her before she gives us the slip, and I'll have no interference in\nthe matter.\" The inspector spoke roughly. I took him aside.\n\n\"Keene, if you ever want to get at the bottom of what lies on that\nwretched woman's soul, believe me we have taken the best means to\nattain that object in allowing her to see Father Maurice.\"\n\n\"But _he_ won't tell what she's said, bless you; I've seen them\nimprisoned for it. Not a word, Mr. Kavanagh, not a syllable, sir,\nshall _we_ here?\"\n\n\"Very likely not from him. But _he_ will make _her_ tell.\"\n\nThe inspector stared at me with a cynical smile on his lips.\n\nI continued: \"Do you think _I_ have no interest in wishing to probe\nthat woman's soul, in longing--ay, with a longing you cannot\nunderstand--to know who committed that black crime which has robbed me\nof my dearest friend? Man, what is there at stake with you in\ncomparison with _him_ who has been driven from his fatherland and his\nhome? What is _your_ little professional vanity to compare with what\n_he_ has lost--name, fame, position--everything most dear to him save\none?\"\n\n\"God bless you, sir, and you're right!\" said the little man, wringing\nmy hand; \"and you'll please to excuse me. For hang me but I think I'm\njealous of those priests. They seem to ferret out in one talk what it\ncosts us detectives days and nights to hunt for, and puts us on our\nwits' ends. And one ain't a bit the wiser for it after all; they _do_\nkeep it snug, to be sure. I'd give much to know their dodge.\"\n\n\"Ah, inspector, it's a 'dodge' neither you nor I possess. But leave\nthis in God's hands. If there is anything that ought to be made known\npublicly, it _will_ be known.\"\n\nIn a quarter of an hour Mr. Lovell went into the sick-room, and soon\nafter Father Maurice came back to us. It was curious to see the\nsuspicious glance which Keene cast upon him.\n\n\"I have warned her of her state,\" said the priest. \"She seems to wish\nto make a statement to some proper person; Mr. Lovell advises that she\nshould be allowed some rest now. Of course you will judge of what is\nbest to be done, having the poor woman under your charge;\" and he\nlooked across at the inspector.\n\n{233}\n\nKeene colored up and shuffled his feet. \"Of course it's as you and the\nother gentlemen think proper, sir,\" he said; then plucking up his\ncourage, \"There's a deal she's got to tell which _ought_ to be known\nin _proper_ quarters, though I know that gents in your profession\nain't fond of letting on what they hear. But I'm responsible in this\ninstance to government, sir; and I hope you'll remember it.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said the priest coolly, but with an amused smile; \"and it\nis in the presence of lawful authority, or proper witnesses, that she\nmust make her statement, or, as you would call it, confession.\"\n\nInspector Keene was shut up. \"Never heard tell of such a thing in all\nmy life,\" I heard him mutter to himself; \"this one can't be a Roman.\"\n\nI waited for another report from the surgeon before leaving; and when\nhe came in he said she had rallied a good deal, and that he thought no\nfurther change for worse would take place during the night; so I left,\ndesiring that I should be sent for if anything did occur. The mail was\ndue at half-past three in the morning, and there was all the\nprobability of Wilmot travelling by it if the telegram had reached him\nin time. I determined to sit up and meet the train at the station.\n\nAt a little after three I was on the platform, pacing up and down in\nthe chilly air of the early morning; the stars shone through the\nglazed roofing, and the moonlight mingled cold and pale with the\nflaring gas. Save a drowsy official here and there, I was alone--alone\nwaiting for mine enemy. And yet but little of enmity stirred my heart\nin that still hour--only pity, deep unutterable pity. I had never\nliked Lister Wilmot much, even in old times; and of late--well, what\nneed to think of it, though his sins had been great? But somehow the\nremembrance of past days stole over me--days when he and Hugh and I\nhad been young; of pleasant hours passed together in social\nintercourse, of merry-meetings, and all the joyousness of young men's\nlives. Yes, even with the thought of Hugh Atherton before me, I felt\nsoftened toward the wretched man for whom I waited then. Shame,\ndisgrace, and ignominy were awaiting him, and I was to lead him to it.\nAfter all he was a fellow-man, though he had disgraced his manhood. At\nlast, with a whistle and a shriek, the train rushed into the station.\nI ran my eye along the line of first-class carriages, and presently\nsaw a slight figure with fair hair alight on the platform. In a moment\nI stood before Lister Wilmot, and I never can forget the unearthly\ncolor which overspread his face as his eye fell on me. Had he been\narmed, my life had not been worth much in that moment.\n\n\"_You_ here!\" he hissed between his teeth.\n\n\"Yes, Mr. Wilmot; I am here to meet you.\"\n\n\"Then you sent that telegram, curse you!\"\n\n\"No, not I, but Inspector Keene. Some one is dying, and has need of\nyou.\" Perhaps my solemn face revealed something to him of the truth,\nfor a change passed over his countenance.\n\n\n\n\"Who is it?\" he asked with white, quivering lips.\n\n\"Mrs. Haag.\"\n\nHe threw up his arms wildly above his head. \"Dying! O my God!\" Then,\nturning to me, \"How was it?\" he asked.\n\nI hesitated for a moment in pity. \"She met with an accident,\" I said\nat last, not daring to tell him more at once.\n\n\"Where is she?\"\n\nIt never seemed to occur to him that it was strange I should be there;\nthe one piece of news I had imparted had stunned him with its shock.\n\n{234}\n\n\"I will take you to her,\" I answered, and putting my arm in his, led\nhim off to a cab in waiting. He never spoke all the while we drove to\nthe house in Cross street, where the housekeeper lay, and when we got\ndown suffered me to lead him up-stairs like a child. Inspector Keene\nmet us at the door.\n\n\"I'm thankful you've come, sir; Mr. Lovell sent off a message to the\nhotel half an hour ago. The priest is with her.\"\n\n\"How is she?\" uttered Wilmot in hollow tones.\n\nKeene answered: \"There's been a change; I don't know more. She has\nasked again for you,\" turning to Wilmot.\n\nMr. Lovell came in.\n\n\"Is this the gentleman, Mr. Wilmot?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" I  replied.\n\n\"Then whatever she wants to say had better be said now.\"\n\nInspector Keene touched me on the arm.\n\n\"You must take it down in writing, sir; here's pen, ink, and paper.\nYou, Mr. Lovell, and I must sign it.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. I will\"\n\nAnd we entered the room.\n\nThe housekeeper's face was turned from us when we came in. One hand\nlay outside on the coverlet--that white, well-formed hand, that looked\nmore like a lady's than a servant's.\n\nAt the foot of the bed stood Father Maurice, and a nurse was bending\nover the prostrate form and wiping the moisture from the brow. She\nmust have heard us enter, for she looked round, pale, ghastly, in the\nwretched light of the fire and candles. The surgeon went first, then\nInspector Keene, then I and Wilmot. She marked each one as we\napproached the bed, eagerly, wistfully. At first Wilmot shrank behind\nme, and my tall frame hid him from view. Her lips moved.\n\n\"Where is he?\" I heard her murmur. \"Where is Lister Wilmot?\"\n\nThe surgeon approached her with a glass.\n\n\"You must drink this; it will give you strength to speak.\"\n\nHe lifted her head, and she swallowed it; then turned her face once\nmore toward us.\n\n\"Lister, are you there?\"\n\nHe stood forward, but did not go near her.\n\n\"I am here.\"\n\nShe gave a low moaning cry.\n\nFather Maurice went to her.\n\n\"Say what you have to say now, my poor sister, and make your peace\nwith God.\"\n\n\"Raise me up a little,\" she said to the surgeon; and they lifted her a\nlittle on the pillow. Then in low broken tones, with many a pause for\nstrength and breath, with the dews of death standing upon her pallid\nbrow, with the vision of life and judgment to come nearing her moment\nby moment in the presence of us all, Maria Haag made the confession of\nher life.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE HOUSEKEEPER'S CONFESSION.\n\n\"They tell me I am a dying woman; and though I feel as I never felt\nbefore, I can hardly realize it. I never thought to bring myself to\nsave the words I am going to say, to tell the story I am going to\ntell. All my life long I have been a wicked woman. I don't ask your\npity--I do not want it; and if you now feel pitiful, seeing me lie\nhere, when you have heard all, you will turn from me with loathing and\nspurn the miserable creature before you. No, I never thought it would\ncome to this--that I should wish to tell out the sins of my life. But\nI have listened to words this night that I have not heard since the\ndays of my childhood, from the lips of that good man, and they have\ndone what nothing else could do. I could fancy myself a child once\nmore, kneeling at my mother's knee and saying the 'Our Father;'\nlisping the prayers I have never dared to teach _my child_. My child!\nO God, {235} will he not curse his mother, knowing what she is, and\nwhat she has made him? My child, who will rise up in judgment against\nme at the last day, because in loving him I have worked his ruin!\nBetter he had died, my fair-haired boy, nestling his baby head against\nmy breast, cooing his baby cry in my ear, than live to be what I have\nmade him. Better far we both had perished--mother and son--and been\nburied in one grave; the angels would not have veiled their faces then\nas they veil them now. Life and strength are ebbing fast, fast from\nme; and if I want to say all that I have to say--all the crushing load\nof guilty knowledge that lies upon my soul--I must hasten on. Lift me\nup a little more--it is hard to get breath--and turn my face from the\nlight, sister. I can bear it better when it is dark. I go back to the\nbeginning. One is standing there who has a right to know all I have to\ntell.\"\n\n\"I am a Belgian by birth, a native of Antwerp. My father was clerk in\nthe custom-house there, and I was his only child. He and my mother\nlavished their love and their all upon me, and I received a very good\neducation. At seventeen I met Robert Bradley; he was mate on board an\nEnglish merchant-vessel. My parents looked down on him, but he loved\nme, and soon my heart was bent on him. We ran away together and were\nmarried at Plymouth. I never saw father nor mother nor my native place\nagain. They died soon after; I broke their hearts. A year after our\nmarriage my baby was born: it was the first joy unmixed with pain I\nhad known since I left Antwerp when the boy was placed in my arms; it\nwas the last I was ever to have. Six months after his birth Robert got\ninto trouble; trouble that brought him in danger of the law. His\nemployers dismissed him, and we were fated to quit Plymouth, where I\nhad lived since our marriage whilst he was at sea. The little savings\nRobert had put by were soon gone, like his character, and we had to\ntramp, tramp, till we came to London. There he got temporary\nemployment on the river; but he was changed. He was no longer like the\nRobert of old days, the man I had loved and for whom I had forsaken\neverything. Poverty pinched us very sorely; but if he had been what he\nwas when I first knew him I would have minded nothing. But he degraded\nme, and I felt he would degrade my child. It was all I cared for\nnow--my little boy; let him remember that. Oh! let him remember it,\nthat he was all I loved and cared for! For more than a year we\nstruggled on through misery untold. Robert drank terribly, and this\nvice brought out the coarseness of his nature, the low habits he had\ncontracted amongst his seafaring associates. At last, when it came to\nseeing my boy wanting bread, I could bear it no longer; and one day I\nleft the wretched hole where we lived, and with the child in my arms\nwalked away from London. Miles away I wandered beyond the Surrey\nhills, with a little money in my pocket and my best and only gown on\nmy back, lying down to rest in the sweet hay-fields or by the\nwoodside, for it was summer-time, till at last one early morning I\nreached a little village, and sought rest and shelter at a small\nfarmhouse. I found both, and I likewise found friends--or rather my\nchild did. He was fair and winning with his baby beauty, and the\nmistress of the house took to him, having just lost hers. I stopped\nsome months, helping her in all her household duties, for I was very\nthrifty and handy, and I earned my own bread and the boy's. But his\nfuture troubled me. I wanted money to educate him, to set him forward\nin life; and I determined to go into regular service. When my friends\nheard of this they offered to take charge of my little one, whom they\nloved as if he had been their own. So it happened that when I came\nacross an advertisement for a married woman to take charge of a city\nmerchant's house in London and act as housekeeper to him, I answered\nit. I referred to the people I lived {236} with and to the clergyman\nof the parish, and finally was engaged by Mr. Gilbert Thorneley.\nPerhaps the low wages I asked induced him to take me; perhaps having\nseen me, his keen shrewdness detected there was a story that was mine,\nand so could trade upon it and grind me down. Anyhow I entered his\nservice in the spring of 1832. Of my husband up to that time I had\nheard nothing. I assumed my maiden name, and carefully concealed every\nclue to finding either myself or my child. The kind people who had\ntaken charge of the boy were named Wilmot. He was christened Robert;\nbut they gave him the name their dead child had borne, and he went by\nthe name of '_Lister Wilmot_.' I made no objection; it helped to\nconceal him from his father.\"\n\nThere was the movement of a violent shiver in the form that stood next\nto me, and a low muttered sound; I did not catch the words, but the\ndying woman must have heard something, for she paused and half turned\nher head, as if listening. Then after a moment she continued her\nnarration:\n\n\"I have no need to describe to you Gilbert Thorneley's character. What\nright have I now, with death so close to me, to malign the dead! And\nyet I must tell, because it is part of the burden I am laying down,\nall the hatred, the contempt I felt for him as I got to know his\nmeanness, his low cunning, his niggardly ways. The clerks he kept on\nmiserable salaries, the workmen he employed and ground down to the\nuttermost farthing, all knew and told me of the heaps of wealth that\nwere flowing into his coffers; how sum upon sum accumulated in his\nhands; and how his name was a byword and a proverb for a rich and\nprosperous man. And one hundredth part of that wealth had bought me\nthe only joy I ever craved now--union with my child, and security for\nhis future! I brooded over this in long lonely hours, brooded until I\ngrew mad, until Satan entered into me, and I turned my face from God.\nJust at this time my master was away from home for many weeks. I did\nnot know where he went, or on what business; but on his return he made\ntwo announcements to me: first, that he had bought a house and estate\nin Lincolnshire; and secondly, that he was going to be married. I\nreplied I supposed he would now no longer want my services. To my\nsurprise and dismay, he answered me by saying he should require me to\ngo down to his new house and act there as housekeeper. He added he had\ndiscovered all about me, where my child was, and the whole story of my\nhusband; that I was now in his power; if I would serve him faithfully\nI should never want for money, and that my boy should be forwarded in\nlife. If I refused, he would make everything known, and put Robert on\nmy track. I consented to remain in his service, and to do all that he\nrequired.\n\n\"I went down shortly into Lincolnshire to the Grange; and there he\nbrought home his young bride. By this time I had got to know many of\nhis secrets. I had sold myself to him and he paid me; handsomely\nenough for him, considering the miser that he was. His wife was not\nhappy--how could she be? She was kept shut up in that dismal Grange\nfrom month to month, without a soul to speak to save him or me. He did\nnot want _her_, he wanted her fortune. That has been told before. To\nspy upon her, to watch her, was my office down in those dreary fens;\nto walk with her, to attend her in her drives, never to lose sight of\nher except when with him. If she had liked me, if she had shown any\nkindness to me, I would have been her friend, and shielded her from\nthe tyrant whom she called husband. But she treated me with\nhaughtiness--undisguised contempt; me, who had her in my power. I\nhave hot blood and passions in me, cold and phlegmatic as I seem; and\nshe roused the passion of hatred within me. During my residence in\nLincolnshire, my husband traced me out through an accidental\ncircumstance. We had one interview. {237} He entreated me to return to\nhim; but I would not. He threatened to keep and eye on me, to watch\nme. I dared him to it. Afterward I found that I had been foolish to\nbrave him. A year after her marriage Mrs. Thorneley bore her first\nchild; but before that an event occurred which influenced and sealed\nher fate. I detected her in two stolen interviews with a cousin of\nhers, an officer in the army. My master believed that when her aunt\ndied she had no living relative left. I bear witness now that nothing\npassed at those interviews that all the world might not have heard;\nbut I used my knowledge of them with Mr. Thorneley. I have said before\nhe wanted her money and not her, and this cousin turning up frightened\nhim. He accused her of all that was most shameful, egged on by me. I\nwas the richer for it. I had now a goodly sum put by for my boy. Then\nthe heir was born; a weakly, puling child. You know what he grew up to\nbe--an idiot. Mrs. Thorneley was very ill; I knew her husband did not\nwish for her recovery. I did not suspect he absolutely wished her\ndeath. At last she died--suddenly. Only he and I were in the room, _I_\nwas that '_other person_' spoken of by him to Mr. Kavanagh. She died\nby prussic acid administered to her by him; and _I_ discovered it.\nHenceforth _he_ was in _my_ power, not I in his. I kept silence, and\nthe matter was hushed up with money.\n\n\"The baby was left to be nursed at the Grange; and my master and I\nreturned to town. Once more I settled down to my old duties in the\ncity house, bearing in my breast the knowledge of my master's fearful\nsecret. All sense of right and wrong, all conscience, was deadened\nwithin me; the secret was mine--mine to turn into gold and riches for\nmy child. I went down to visit him at the farm in Surrey; and as I\npressed him in my arms I whispered to him of what he should be--a\ngrand, rich gentleman.\n\n\"Two years after this time my masters widowed sister, Mrs. Atherton,\ndied; and he adopted her only child, Hugh. I saw that this would prove\neither an aid or an obstacle to my plans. Very little, I found, was\nknown about Mr. Thorneley's family; he had come to London as a lad,\nfrom a distant part of England. One evening I sought him, and opened\nmy scheme to him. I had him in my power, terribly, irremediably; and\nhe consented to it. I was to bring my boy away from Surrey, and he\nwould adopt and bring him up as the child of another sister, with his\nnephew, Hugh Atherton. He was to retain the name of Lister Wilmot.\n\n\"Excepting during occasional hasty visits to the Grange, Mr. Thorneley\nnever saw his son and heir. The child had been born an idiot; that he\nwould ever be otherwise was hopeless.\n\n\"I went down to the little farm and brought away my boy--my little\nRobert. For two years he had never seen me, and had forgotten his\nmother. I brought him away from his friends, from all the pure, simple\ninfluence that surrounded him there, from the innocent joys of country\nlife, from the wholesome atmosphere of honest toil and labor--brought\nhim up to dwell in the abode of one whose hands were dyed with crime,\nbrought him within the baleful influence of his mother's teaching. Too\nlate now--too late; but as I see it all at this moment, it had been\nbetter to beg, better to die, than have brought him within the shadow\nof that man's gold.\n\n\"Once more my husband burst upon me. He was jealous, he said, jealous\nof my master, and he insisted upon knowing where his child was. With\nfalse promises I got rid of him. It was late in the evening when he\ncame and went. He had a companion with him--an ill-looking Irishman,\nnamed Sullivan. That night the house was broken into. Being roused, I\nsurprised one of the burglars retreating; he was the image of my\nhusband, and yet it was not he, I felt convinced. But it gave me an\nidea. If I could swear to him and he were taken, he would be\ntransported, and I should be free from {238} him, at least for a time.\nI helped Inspector Keene to detect him by means of anonymous letters,\nand then swore to his identity. He was condemned and sentenced to\ntwenty years' penal servitude. I have not much more to tell, up to\nlast October.\n\n\"The two boys grew up together into young men--one the real, the other\nthe pretended nephew of Mr. Thorneley--and as his joint heirs. Of his\nown son nothing was seen, nothing heard; he might have been dead, but\nthat I knew he was not. If Lister Wilmot had only succeeded to\none-half of Gilbert Thorneley's fortune his future would have been\namply, brilliantly provided for. I coveted more for my son; he coveted\nmore for himself. In those days he never knew I was his mother; but I\nhad tended him when a child, and he used to confide in me. It was the\nonly sweetness I ever tasted amidst the cup of bitterness I had\nprepared myself. He was proud and ambitious; I dared not tell him who\nhe was. So he grew up in ignorance of our relative positions--he, the\nreputed nephew and joint heir of the richest man in England; I, his\nmother, that man's housekeeper and servant. He confided in me; and\nshortly after Mr. Hugh Atherton's engagement to Miss Leslie, I wormed\nfrom him that he too loved her. This and some money difficulties he\ngot into at that time were harassing him sorely. I could not see my\nboy suffer and not try to help him--I could not see him thwarted in\nhis love; and one day I went to his chambers and told him I possessed\na secret of his uncle's, and would use it in his favor. He then said\nhow jealous he was of his cousin, how fearful he felt lest Atherton,\nbeing Thorneley's favorite nephew, should at last be left sole heir.\nThat evening I once more sought my master; and using all the power I\nhad over him, extorted from him an oath that, with the exception of a\nnominal sum left to Mr. Atherton, a will in favor of my son as his\nsole heir should be made on the morrow. This was done. That will was\nread on the day of the funeral. After making it my master never seemed\nwell or at ease; and day by day, hour by hour, I watched him in fear\nand dread lest he should revoke it. We were both hurried on\nmysteriously to our fate.\n\n\"On the 23d of October last Mr. Thorneley received a visit from Mr.\nJohn Kavanagh in Wimpole street. I misdoubted the object of the\ninterview; watched, listened, and overheard in great part what took\nplace. The sending for the two men servants, and their saying on\nreturning to the kitchen that they had been signing their names to\nsomething which looked like a will, confirmed my suspicious. Then the\ndevil once more entered into my soul. What! after all my toil, my\nwatching, my sufferings; after having bartered my salvation for this\nmess of pottage, should my boy be cast adrift upon the world when the\nold man died, and not inherit a penny of the money he had been taught\nto consider rightfully as his own? Never. Perish rather and die. Die!\nThe word haunted my brain and rang in my years--die! Who should die\nbut he, the old miser? Then a terrible resolve got possession of me,\nand I dressed myself and went out. The history of that evening is\nknown to you all. _I_ was the woman who met Mr. Kavanagh Vere street;\n_I_ was the women who entered the chemist's shop and the poison; _I_\nwas the woman who sent the money to James Ball and bade him not\nidentify me. I saw the meeting between Mr. Atherton, whom I hated, and\nMr. Kavanagh, whom I hated also, because he was his friend. I heard\nthe whole of their conversation and then the future opened out to me,\nlighted by the flames of hell. I went home; and scarcely had I arrived\nwhen first Lister came, and then Hugh Atherton. I heard them talking\ntogether; I heard my son say he trouble about money, and that he was\ngoing to ask for some. That was well. I had poisoned the old man's\nmind, and told him days before that Atherton was leading Lister into\nextravagance; that {239} only my son had gained Miss Leslie's\naffections, he should never have come upon Mr. Thorneley's for a son.\nHe was irritated against his nephew; this evening was the crisis. What\nI have related explains his words to Mr. Atherton.\n\n\"At nine o'clock I took up his usual refreshment. Ale _was_ poured out\nin a glass, and into the ale poured out I emptied the paper of\nstrychnine bought at the chemist's. Strangely enough, I did it\nunobserved by Barker. He little thought there was need to watch me.\nStrangely, too, Mr. Atherton never noticed that I spoke to Lister as I\nleft the study. I said to him in a low voice: 'Don't give your uncle\nhis ale to-night; let him get it himself'.' The results were what I\nforesaw. Lister never stirred, and Mr. Atherton handed the glass to\nhis uncle. I put the paper in the pocket of Mr. Atherton's overcoat as\nI passed through the hall on my way down.\n\n\"In the night I went into the dead man's room, took his keys, sought\nand found the will in the escritoire in his study. Mine were the\nfootsteps heard on the stairs by the cook. I took the will and\nconcealed it up in my bedroom, effectually as I thought; but it seems\nnot. This is the history of that night of the 23d of October last;\nthis is the mystery of Gilbert Thorneley's death. He was murdered by\n_me_.\"\n\nThe feeble voice ceased, and the weary head sank lower upon the hello.\nWe thought the end had come, and both priest and surgeon hastened to\nthe dying woman's side. But it was not so; her task was not yet done.\nAfter an interval of many minutes she rallied again. Whilst she had\nspoken Wilmot gave no sign, save that one shuddering movement. I had\nrapidly taken down her confession in shorthand, standing just as we\nhad entered, grouped at a little distance from the bed; and when she\nwas silent I looked round at her son beside me. There he stood with\nhis arms folded, motionless and rigid, his eyes fixed on the ground,\nhis lips drawn tightly together, set and firm, and a dark heavy frown\nupon his brow. His face was deadly pale. \"God move his heart,\" I\ninwardly prayed as I looked at him; for it was like gazing on a block\nof granite. Presently I heard Father Maurice say to her, \"Are you able\nto speak without pain? You have said all that is necessary.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" she replied, \"not all;\" and turned her face, on which the\nshadow of death was gathering fast, toward us once more. How long she\nhad been unburdening her soul we had taken no count, and the grey dawn\nwas stealing in at the window as she spoke again. It was opposite the\nbed.\n\n\"Will you undraw that curtain, sister?\" she said; \"I should like to\nlook once more upon the sky before I die. It is very long since I\ndared to lift my face to it without dread; there seemed to be an eye\nlooking down upon me with such terrible anger. It is gone now, the\ngreat fear. Can this be peace that is stealing over me? Peace for such\nas I?\"\n\nFather Maurice stooped down and spoke to her in a low tone, and I saw\nher hands fold together and her lips move. In a few moments she spoke\nonce more. Her mind was wandering. \"Robert! where is my boy?\" and she\nstarted forward. \"It is growing dark; why doesn't he come? Lister!\"\n\nOh! the anguished longing of that cry, as if the mother's heart went\nout and broke with yearning! Would he, _could_ he resist that appeal?\n\"Mother!\" I saw a wild movement beside me, and a figure rushed forward\nand flung himself on his knees by the bed. I saw him encircle the\ndying woman in his arms and press his lips passionately to hers. She\nlaid her hands round his neck and smoothed his face, just as if he had\nbeen a child. \"Robert, my little Robert!\" The intervening years had\npassed away to her mind; the memory of crime and sin {240} was taken\nfrom her, and only the consciousness of her child's presence was with\nher. \"Forgiveness!\" we heard her murmur; and she drew her son's head\nyet closer to her breast. Then there was a dead stillness. Once more\nthe surgeon approached and touched Lister Wilmot on the shoulder. He\nraised his head a little, and the arms that clung round his neck fell\npowerless on the coverlet.\n\n\"She has fainted,\" said Mr. Lovell. Lister knelt on whilst\nrestoratives were being applied, with his face buried in his hands.\nAfter a while consciousness came back; her eyes opened, and lighted up\nwith a gleam of ineffable joy as they fell upon her son's bent head.\nShe passed her hand caressingly over his hair, and then let it rest\nupon his shoulder.\n\n\"This is more than I deserved,\" she said; and her voice was fainter\nthan when last she had spoken. \"I ought not to have such happiness as\nthis. Are you there, Mr. Kavanagh?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am here;\" and I went up to the bedside.\n\n\"I have done grievous wrong to your friend Mr. Atherton. Can you, can\nhe forgive me?\"\n\nI told her yes, freely from my heart, and I knew I might say so from\n_him_. She moved her hand restlessly over Wilmot's hair, and a\nmomentary look of trouble crossed her face.\n\nI asked her if she had anything else to say to me; not to fear. That I\nprayed the Almighty Father to forgive her, even as I forgave any\ntrouble she had caused me.\n\n\"My son, my poor boy! What will be done to him? He is innocent of the\ncrimes I have revealed--innocent of the murder, innocent about the\nwill.\"\n\nThen a broken, hollow voice answered, \"No, mother--not entirely. I\nsuspected there was something wrong, but the temptation to profit by\nit was too strong.\"\n\nShe looked more troubled; and I thought she glanced at me piteously,\nimploringly.\n\n\"Do not let that disturb you. You may trust Atherton. Nothing will be\ndone against your son. Die in peace.\"\n\n\"Robert, don't kill me! I have not got him here. He is safe. Little\nRobert, little baby! kiss me, kiss poor mother. It is very dark. I\ncannot see him;\" and the poor hands wandered over the coverlet. We\ndrew near, and the low solemn tones of the priest were heard saying\nthe prayers for the dying. The red streaks of early morning shed their\nfaint glow on the dying woman's face; her lips moved, and Wilmot\npassing his arm beneath her head, raised her a little on his shoulder;\nshe stole her arm up round his neck, and we heard the words, \"Forgive!\nMercy!\" There was a long struggling sigh, a gasp for breath; the\nblue-grey eyes opened once more and looked toward the eastern sky,\nthen closed in death.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nEXEUNT OMNES.\n\nThis story which I have then telling, acted now long years ago, was\nwearing to an end. The unfortunate housekeeper's confession cleared up\nalmost entirely what had mystified and baffled our inquiries for so\nmany months; and, standing beside his mothers bier--the mother who\nhad loved him all too well for her peace--Lister Wilmot, in the depth\nof his humiliation and the grief which the tide of natural affection,\nso recently aroused within him, had wakened, added what little was\nwanting to throw complete light upon the dark mystery of the past.\n\nOn the day before the remains of his unhappy parent were consigned to\nthe grave, as he took his last farewell of the corpse, he told me his\nown story, his temptation and his fall. Alas! for him the sins of his\nparents had returned with double vengeance upon his head; the evil in\nthem had reproduced itself in him. Deluded with the belief that {241}\nhe was the heir to immense wealth, he had given full swing to his\nbesetting vice--gambling. The billiard-table, the gaming-house, and\nthat curse to young man, secret betting clubs and societies, had been\nhis familiar though unknown resort. There, too, he had met with and\nfallen into the meshes of a creature but too familiar to the\nfrequenters of such places--a man (if such can claim pretence to\nmanhood) mature in years, even to gray hair; one of those who gain the\nsubstance which supports their infamous lives by sponging upon the\nyoung, by in tangling in their web young men destined to be the pride\nand hope of high-born families with stainless lineage; or the scions\nof noble houses; or the youth of houses not less noble, though perhaps\nmore in the sense of present deeds than departed worth; or sadder and\nmore shameful still, the young man who is the only son of his mother,\nand she a widow, her sole stay and support. Into such hands did Wilmot\nfall when he met the man Sullivan or De Vos. Through him he became\nmixed up in some disgraceful gaming affair; and De Vos used it to get\nhim more thoroughly into his power, and upon the strength of it to\nextort money from him. Then came his real but misplaced attachment to\nAda Leslie, and consequent jealousy of Hugh Atherton. An affection\nrequited might have been his salvation; unreturned and hopeless, it\nbecame his moral ruin. Deeper and deeper he plunged into vice, faster\nand faster he gambled. None save those who haunted the same scenes as\nhimself knew how far he was involved, how far lost; none even\nsuspected a tithe of it, save one. But the mother's eye, the mother's\nheart could not be deceived. She whom he had been taught to look upon\nonly as his uncle's housekeeper, who had nursed and tended and petted\nhim as a child--she saw the care and trouble of his mind; she sought\nand won his confidence to a great extent. He told her he was\noverwhelmed with debt and difficulty, and she urged him to apply to\nMr. Thorneley for a sufficient sum to free him at least from danger.\nThat application was to be made on the very evening of the murder. She\nhinted to him darkly that she had the means of forcing Thorneley to\ngive what he required, and that she would risk everything and hesitate\nat nothing for his (Wilmot's) sake. The first suspicion which entered\nhis mind that she had indeed not scrupled even at the worst, was on\nthe morning after Old Thorneley was found dead. This had strengthened\nmore and more; but the temptation of his opening prospects, of the\nprincely fortune which he found he alone was inheriting, dazzled,\nblinded him, and stupefied his conscience. A yet greater inducement to\nevil lay in the alluring thought that if the murder of Old Thorneley\nwere saddled upon Hugh Atherton, and his disgrace, his banishment, if\nnot his death secured, there might be a chance of winning in time Ada\nLeslie's affections for himself. To this end he had labored,\nostensibly endeavoring to establish belief in Hugh's innocence, and\nacting as his best friend, but in reality undermining Mrs. Leslie's\nfaith in him by the most subtle diplomacy, and shaking, by the most\nspecious representations, Hugh's trust in and friendship for me. With\nAda alone he had met entire defeat. Steadfast and unwavering had been\nher solemn, unqualified declaration that her affianced husband was\nguiltless; steady and unwavering likewise--God bless her for it!--had\nbeen her childlike trust in her old guardian. And this maddened him.\n\nThen came Hugh's acquittal, accompanied by public censure and public\ndisgrace. Here was a loophole through which a ray of hope gleamed upon\nWilmot's dark soul. Atherton writhed beneath the shame that had fallen\nupon him with all the anguish of a keenly sensitive nature; and Wilmot\nplayed his game with this. He lost no opportunity of making Hugh feel\nhis position; constantly, though skillfully, {242} he brought before\nhim the shadow that was over him, and would artfully represent to him\nthe magnanimity of Miss Leslie's conduct in wishing to share his\nblighted name and fortune. Hugh's first proposition of emigrating he\nhad opposed outwardly, working in the dark to bring about its\nrealization; and when Hugh was actually gone, he felt at last that the\nfield was clear for him. Wilmot described his rage at finding that I\nhad outwitted him as ungovernable, his desire for revenge burning and\ndeadly. Then came the discovery of the will. Of its existence he had\nin truth been ignorant; and though suspecting some complicity in the\nmatter on the part of Mrs Haag, once possessed of Old Thorneley's\nmoney, he had buried his suspicions in his own breast. Three days\nafter the will was found by Inspector Keene, he received a letter from\nthe housekeeper. In it she told him of their relationship in brief\nwords, with no further explanation; she said that the discovery of the\nmissing document involved her in serious trouble, and that she was\nhastening to Liverpool to catch the first vessel for America. Then he\nfelt for the first time that his heyday was over, that the worst might\nshortly come; and he too began hasty preparations for leaving England\nsecretly. In the midst of these came the telegram from Liverpool, and\nthe subsequent tragic events.\n\nThis was the epitome of what Lister Wilmot (I keep his assumed name)\ntold me the day before his mother's funeral. I said to him, \"You have\nnot explained one thing. Why, when I went down to the Grange, did you\nsend De Vos to follow me and drug the coffee?\"\n\n\"I did not,\" he said. \"I knew absolutely nothing of it.\" And at such a\nmoment I felt he was speaking the truth. He continued: \"I have not\nseen De Vos for months; and I believe he has left the country.\"\n\nI found afterward that another person was to clear up this remaining\nitem of the mystery.\n\nOf Wilmot I have little more to tell. In the abyss of his humiliation\nand degradation the message of divine mercy reached his soul; in the\ndepths of his heart, chastened and and purified, he listened and\nresponded to its whisper. So far as Hugh Atherton was concerned he\nwent scatheless; and through the generosity of the man whom he had so\ndeeply injured, he was enabled eventually to emigrate to the same land\nwhither his unfortunate mother was flying for refuge when she met her\ndeath. But before that he had a duty to perform, a stern, hard duty of\npain; and he set his face to the work resolutely, unshrinkingly.\n\nIn the Liverpool prison late Robert Bradley the elder, biding his\ntrial for the murder of his wife; and from his lips we were to learn\nyet more to complete the history of the past. Once, and once only, the\nfather and son met. In the bitterness of his trouble and his newly\nwakened penitence, Lister had turned and clung to the one who had\nministered to his dying mother, and in Father Maurice, after God, he\nfound his best friend. At his request the old priest went with him to\nthat single interview with his father.\n\n\"I never meant to kill your mother, Robert,\" the convict said to his\nson. \"Heaven is my witness, I never had a thought of harm to her when\nI went after her in Cross street. I loved her, ay, I loved her, little\nas you may think it now. I loved her though she left me, though she\nhid my boy away, though she brought him up not know his father; though\nshe branded me with a crime I never committed, and got me sent to\nprison and chains, and a life in comparison with which death will be\nsweet; though she spurned me and defied me, I loved her with all the\nmight of my heart, all the passionateness with which I loved her when\nshe came to me a fair young bride. Away in that penal settlement,\namongst that hideous gang, beneath that burning sky, I had longed and\nthirsted more for one look at her face, for one touch of her hand,\nthen {243} ever longed for a drop of water to slake my parching thirst\nor cool the fever of my lips. They tell me she has revealed the story\nof our lives--all is misery and shame. I have heard a few particulars.\nIn one thing I believe I have wronged her; I thought her guilty of\nMrs. Thornely's death; I thought she wished to usurp her place. I used\nthe threat of what I suspected to induce her to make out with me; but\nshe spurned me from her; she told me she would die on the gallows\nrather than live with me again; and then the madness seized me; I\nstruck her--once--twice--and killed her.\"\n\nOf all that passed in that single meeting between the two Robert\nBradleys little was heard; it was not meet that much should be known.\nThey met solemnly, in bitterness, in shame, with agony in either\nheart, with a world of anguish, of feelings surging over their souls\nto which they dared not give utterance. They parted solemnly, but in\npeace: the son who had never you known his father until now--and then\nin what a terrible manner! the father who had never looked on his\nchild since the time when he had taken him on his knee and listened to\nhis infant prattle. Parted, never more to meet on this side the grave.\n\nI saw the convict once or twice before his trial came on, and I found\nfrom him that he had known Sullivan of De Vos all his life. That he\nwas on his wife's track when she went down to the Grange, and De Vos\nwas with him. That the latter, seeing I was bound thither likewise,\nand having reason to fear me both for his own and Bradley's sake, had\ngiven me the stupefying dose in my coffee at Peterborough Station,\ntrusting to the results which did really happen. That it was his\nappearance which must have alarmed his wife and caused her to\nrelinquish her visit to the Grange. Further than that he could give me\nno information. Strangely enough, the bad companion of the father had\nproved the bad companion of the son, though in totally different ways.\nThere is nothing more to tell of Robert Bradley. He was tried,\ncondemned, and sentenced to death; but the sentence was commuted to\ntransportation for life by the exertions of his son. Father Maurice\nhad the satisfaction of receiving from his lips the assurance before\nhe left the Liverpool Docks bound for his final journey, that he\naccepted his sentence as the only expiation he could make for his long\ncareer of sin.\n\nAnd what of those who were once so near and dear to me--dear still,\nthough far away, Hugh Atherton and Ada, now for many years his wife--\nwhat of them! We never met again; humanly speaking, we never more\nshall meet upon this earth. There is a writer--to my mind the essayist\n_par excellence_ of this age, with power to touch the finest chords\nand sound the most hidden depths in the heart of man--who says that he\nknows no word of equal pathos to the little word \"gone.\" And it is the\nword which expresses the long blank, the great vacuum of all these\nlatter years since they went away--since they have been among the\n\"gone.\" And how is it, you will ask, my readers, that still they\nshould be far away when all the storms and clouds which had shadowed\ntheir horizon passed away, and the sunshine and fair blue sky once\nagain greeted them? Well, it was in this wise:\n\nTidings of all that took place in Liverpool were instantly forwarded\nto Hugh Atherton at Melbourne, and we thought we should welcome them\nall back to England ere long; but he did not come--he never will come\nnow. He wrote that the thought of returning to England was\ninsupportable to both himself and Ada; that they would remain where\nthey were, and where he had received the greatest happiness of his\nlife--his true and tender wife. They settled in Australia, some miles\nfrom Melbourne, doing much for the new colony in the way of\nusefulness; and Hugh devoted {244} himself to the interests of his\nadopted country. His name is well known there, and it is coupled with\neverything that is good and great. I hear sometimes from them, most\noften from Ada. Her mother died a few years ago, and she has lost two\nchildren. They have three living, two boys and a girl; the youngest\nboy is called John after me. She would have it so. No, the old\nfriendship between me and Hugh has never been rekindled into the same\nwarmth; we are friends, but not the friends of yore. I do not blame\nhim; he was blind, blind; and so we drifted away from one another, or\nrather he from me. It was just one of those clouds which come between\nhuman hearts because they are human; and then we see through a glass\ndarkly whilst earth clings so closely about us. By and by all will be\nclear. He thought I should have confided his uncle's secret to him or\nMerrivale under the circumstances. Perhaps I ought. If I was mistaken,\nif I kept my solemn promise to the dead too rigidly, God pardon me; I\ndid it for the best. But we may make mistakes in our shortsightedness,\nin our finite views, in our imperfect comprehension of events over\nwhich we have no control, and in which we have very little hand. If he\noutlives me, he will perhaps know this; and the knowledge of it, the\nmemory of our ancient friendship will bring back the tenderness of his\nheart for me; he will feel, I pray not too sadly, that he also was\nmistaken when he withdrew the trust and confidence that never before\nheaven had for one moment been betrayed.\n\nSome years ago I buried Gilbert Thorneley's idiot son; he lived with\nme up to the time of his death, harmless, but irrational to the last.\nIt was a satisfaction to his guardian that with me he would receive\nevery kindness and attention; and the poor fellow died in my arms,\nrepeating in his indistinct and childish manner the words I had taught\nhim to address to his Father in heaven--he who had never known a\nfather's love on earth.\n\nI am alone in my old study, and I turn to write the last page of my\nstory.\n\nThe stillness of evening is creeping on afast, and the fire burns low;\nbefore it lies old Dandie--he is blind now and stiff with age. Neither\nhe nor I can ramble out far into the country lanes, or across\nHempstead Heath, as once we used. Years have come and gone, and the\nlittle golden circlet on my finger has grown thin and worn, but it\nwill last my days. Shadows of the past are around me, and voices of\nthe past are busily whispering in my ear. What is this that has fallen\nupon my hand? O Ada! is this \"worse than foolishness,\" the tears\nshould rush to your old guardian's eyes when he thinks of you, and\nwrites your name for the last time? Nay, that has passed--past with\nthe bygone years that have rolled on into eternity. A little longer,\nand the dark strait that divides us from our beloved shall \"narrowed\nto the thread-like mere;\" a little longer spent in hope and patience,\nand then the hand will come. Not now, Hugh--not now, Ada: I shall see\nyou by and by.\n\n\n--------\n\n{245}\n\nOriginal.\n\nDEVELOPMENT OF NATIONALITIES.\n\n\nEach age through which civilized humanity has passed, has its special\ncharacteristic. If, as most people admit, the nineteenth century has\ninaugurated a new era in the history of mankind, the characteristic of\nthat era will be found in the rapid strides which the various races\nare making toward the attainment of a national existence. This\ndevelopment of nationalities is not, however, peculiar to our time; on\nthe contrary, through its entire course modern history presents the\nsame scene--a scene varied indeed and often interrupted, but\npreserving its unity to such an extent as to justify us in discerning\ntherein a law of Providence. The constant yearning of each individual\nafter happiness is used by philosophers as a proof that he is destined\nto one day attain it, and we are not quite sure that the noble\naspirations of the great popular heart do not indicate on the part of\nthe great Ruler a design to one day furnish it with a realization of\nits hopes. The individual attains his end in the future world--the\npeople in the present. Those who respect but Little the popular\nfeeling call it mercurial. They are right. Dash some mercury on the\nground, and observe how the particles you have separated float wildly\non the surface as though seeking to be reunited. Do you see how\nnaturally they coalesce when brought in contact? There is an affinity\nmost perfect between these particles, and so there is between peoples\nof the same race. Both were originally separated by violence, and the\nprocess of reunion is in both quite natural. Modern history presents\nno picture more vivid than that of the disintegrated peoples of the\nearth slowly but uniformly tending toward a reunion of their separated\nportions. Just now the figures seem more distinct--they stand out in\nsuch bold relief that prejudice herself perceives them. A gigantic\nwar, commenced and finished almost with the same cannon's roar, has\nknocked out the keystone of a governmental fabric once admired for\nsymmetry, and rulers see that in their structures they must imitate\nthose architects who seek for stones that fit well one with another.\nPeople say that Beelzebub once gave a commission to a painter, for the\nportrait of his good dame Jezebel, and that when the poor artist\ndespaired of picturing a countenance fit for the queen of hell, the\nfiend turned to a collection of handsome women, and taking a nose from\none, an eye from another, mouth from another and complexion from\nanother, he manufactured so foul a visage, so dire an expression, as\nto cause the votary of art to die outright. Various fishes make a very\ngood chowder, and various meats, well condimented, produce an\nexcellent _olla podrida_; but history shows that the various races\ninto which it has pleased God to divide mankind, cannot be\nindiscriminately conglomerated without entailing upon the entire body\nchronic revolution, with all its attendant evils. If you can so merge\nthe individual into the country as the United States have done with\ntheir cosmopolitan population, no difficulty will be experienced; but\nif you take various peoples and fit them together as you would a\nmosaic, the contact will prove prejudicial to their several interests,\nand powers {246} which would have otherwise developed for the good of\nthe body corporate, will either lie dormant or exercise a detrimental\neffect upon the neighboring victims of short-sighted policy. Something\nmore than interest is felt in noticing the way in which the peoples\nnow enjoying national existence have attained so desirable an end; we\nare enabled to thereby judge, with something like accuracy, of the map\nthose who will come after us must give of the world. So long as man is\nman, just so long will it be in one sense true, that history repeats\nherself; but we do not believe in that system of Vico which would make\nof her a mere whirligig--introducing now and then something new to\ncertain portions of mankind in rotation, but nothing new to the world\nin general. Such a system might satisfy that conservative of whom some\none has said that had he been present at the creation, he would have\nbegged the Almighty not to destroy chaos; but our prejudices are\nagainst it, and though in avowing some prejudice we are pleading\nguilty to the possession of a bad thing, we think that in this case\nhistory will turn our fault into a virtue. We do not contend that\nmodern times present a picture of national development according to\nthe system of races so uniform as to contain no deviation whatever,\nbut history does show us that such deviations have been more than\ncounterbalanced by subsequent changes. The general rotundity of the\nearth cannot be denied, because of the inequalities of its surface.\nThe American Republic furnisher us with no conflict of races on\naccount of the fact already alluded to. The various peoples of Asia\nand Africa scarcely afford us a theatre for observation if we take our\nstand upon modern history, since for all practical purposes they are\nyet living in the days of Antiochus. Europe shows us a field worthy of\nresearch, for there were thrown together the mongrel hordes of Asia\nand the North, and with their advent and to the music of their\nclashing weapons a new scene unfolded itself to the gaze of man. With\nthe fall of the Western empire commence all reflections upon modern\nhistory, for then dawned our era by the release from the unnatural\nthraldom of the Roman Caesars of the innumerable peoples of the earth.\nTo notice the manner in which these tribes grouped themselves into\nnational and integral existence is our present purpose. In the early\nsummer of 1866, had we been asked to classify the peoples of Europe,\nwe would have spoken as follows: The nations of Europe worthy of\nconsideration, and which are now regarded as united or \"unified,\" are\nFrance, England, Spain, Sweden and Norway, and Russia proper. The\nnations as yet disintegral are Germany and Italy. The disnationalized\npeoples are those of Ireland, Poland, Hungary and her dependencies,\nVenice, Roumania, and Servia. Europe may hence be regarded as composed\nof, 1st, nations which are _in se_ one and undivided and leading\ntherefore a national existence; 2d, peoples not under are you foreign\nto themselves, but still not one with others of the same stock; 3d,\npeoples governed by foreign nations. Of this latter class the most\nprominent evil is furnished by the heterogeneous Austrian empire, to\ncompose which a draft is made on Hungary and the Hungarico-Sclavic\ndependencies, on Germany, on Poland, and on Italy. The late war has\nchanged the situation somewhat, but the classification may remain\nunchanged.\n\nThe first class of nations became integral by the grouping to gather\nof peoples of common origin; and the steadiness with which they\npursued their destiny and the easy manner in which they consummated\nit, cause us to believe that the others will yet attain a like end. Up\nto the time of Alfred, England was composed of seven kingdoms. The old\nBriton stock had been hidden in the mountains of Wales, and the\nAnglo-Saxon race, which held undisputed sway over the land, became\none. France, now {247} the most unified of all nations, was for\ncenturies the meet distracted. In A.D. 613, she was composed of four\nkingdoms: Neustria, Austria, Bourgogne, and Aquitaine. After the\nconquest of Neustria, Austrasia conquers Aquitaine in 760. The Romans\nfound a new power in the north, but the people bear ill the yoke. The\nFrench kings give them the aid of their arms, and after various losses\nand successes Charles VII., in 1450, unites the regions definitively.\nThe powerful duchy of Burgundy, which, for five hundred years, impeded\nthe unity of France, was at length united to the crown in 1470. Spain,\nonce composed of Leon, Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, was not unified\nuntil 1516. Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway) was, before the tenth\ncentury, composed of twelve states. It was then reduced to two, Sweden\nand Gothia, while in the thirteenth century these two were united. In\n1397, the \"union of Calmar\" added Norway, and to-day the probabilities\nare not very small for the annexation of the remaining Scandinavian\npower, Denmark. Especial attention is merited by Russia proper, by\nwhich term we mean the nation so called exclusive of her foreign\nconquests, Finland, Lapland, Poland and her dependencies, Caucasus,\nand Georgia. The groundwork or foundation of this people in blood,\nlanguage, and customs, is Sclavic. The proper name of the nation is\nMuscovy. When, in the middle of the fifteenth century, Ivan lV. shook\noff the Tartaro-Mongol yoke, the Muscovites commenced that headlong\ncareer of annexation and amalgamation which in four centuries has\nunited more than twenty once independent Sclavic peoples, and has\nformed what is now denominated the Russian nation. Although not\ndirectly coinciding with him, we must here allude to the prediction of\nthe first Napoleon that in a century Europe would be either Republican\nor Cossack. We half suspect that he leaned toward the first horn of\nhis dilemma, and we do not think he imagined that his second should\ninclude a physical sway of Russia over Western Europe. If, however,\nthe lance of the Cossack seemed to him to weigh heavily in the balance\nof power, history sufficiently justified him to prevent our regarding\nhis remark as absurd. When he saw that either by force or persuasion\nthe Sclavic peoples were being slowly but surely united, he might\nnaturally regard as probable the incorporation of the remaining\nSclaves of Poland, Bessarabia, Roumania, and Servia. Thirty years\nafter he so talked, Bessarabia went the way of her sisters, and\nRoumania and Servia are year by year nearing St. Petersburg. We do not\nthink, however, that history will warrant the application of\nNapoleon's theory to Poland and her dependencies, although they are\nSclavic. When history shows us the innumerable tribes of Europe, left\nfree by the fall of the Western empire, little by little grouping\nthemselves by races and situation, so that in a few centuries are\nformed the nations now integral, she informs us that if such groupings\nwere sometimes violent, they were still conquests _sui generis_. They\nwere not _national_ but _political_. The great Baron de Jomini, in his\n_Precis de l'Art de la Guerre_, insists most strongly upon the\nimportance of a general understanding whether the war he is about to\nundertake be a national or a political war. We think the principle is\njust as important for the historian. A national war is one of a people\nagainst another; a political war, of a dynasty against another, either\nto revenge an insult or to extend its own domain. The effects of a\nnational war are terrible, and the prejudices engendered are not\neasily eradicated; those of a political war are light, while there are\nentailed but few prejudices since the people have had no voice in the\nmatter. In a political war the people are not conquered--they merely\nchange masters, and often instead of receiving any injury {248}\nexperience a great benefit. Thus, when Ivan of Moscow conquers\nNovgorod, the Sclaves of Novgorod are not conquered--a dynasty falls\nand not a people. Such a conquest leaves behind it no heart-burnings\nin the masses, while, on the contrary, if the people united were\nhitherto not only disintegrated but also disnationalized, it is a\nconsummation by all devoutly wished. Poland, however, belongs to\nanother category, owing to the religious antipathy existing between\nher and Russia. So great has this hatred of late years become, that\nthe war for the incorporation of the unfortunate kingdom is at last\nnational, not political--a war of peoples and not of kings. Such a war\ncannot be terminated by annexation--nothing can end it but an\nannihilation of the popular spirit. Let us bear in mind, then, that if\nmodern history shows us a gradual development of nationalities and of\nunity in national government, there are certain principles according\nto which changes are wrought. But how is it with the two nations of\nEurope as yet disintegral? Have they hitherto tended toward unity? An\nimpartial and conscientious study of their history convinces us that\nthey have been uniformly nearing the goal which more fortunate nations\nhave already reached.\n\nIn the eighth century Italy was, the Roman States alone excepted,\nentirely in the hands of the barbarian. From A.D. 1050, however, the\ntwo Sicilies commenced to enjoy a half-autonomous existence, there\nbeing but a personal union by means of a common sovereign between them\nand the countries whose rulers successively wore the Sicilian crown.\nIn 1734 the kingdom became independent, and thus in this part of the\npeninsula was made the first step to unity, namely, independence of\nforeign rule. Parma became independent of the foreigner while under\nthe sovereignty of the Farnesi in 1545. Tuscany became independent in\n828, and with the exception of eighty years, during which the German\nemperors usurped the investiture of the duchy, remained so. The small\nrepublics need no allusion. Venice was independent from 697 to 1797.\nThe Milanais was always more or less subject to the empire. Savoy and\nPiedmont were ever independent. Italy was slow in becoming free from\nforeign domination, but not so slow in the concentration of her\nstrength. The innumerable states and principalities of which she was\nonce composed gradually amalgamated, until in 1859 there were but\nseven; two hundred years ago there were twelve really independent of\neach other, and many more virtually so. We do not intend to touch upon\nthe question of Italian unity in its bearings upon the independence of\nthe Holy See. God will work out the problem long before any\ndisputation of the point could come to a conclusion. This, however we\nfeel, that if Providence has guided the peoples of Europe in the way\nof national development, it is for the good of man and in aid of true\nprogress; and if in the case of Italy no compromise can be effected\nwithout injury to Holy Church, the future of Italy will prove that she\nhas not attained the end of other countries; but history will show\nthat until now she has tended to it. When studying the facts of\nhistory, one should not allow his feelings to blind his perception of\nthe scenes that pass before him, for his insincerity would prevent his\nbeing a successful defender of any cause however good.\n\nA few reflections upon German history as bearing upon the theory of\nnational developments cannot but interest us, both on account of the\nlate war, and on account of the apparent objection accruing to our\nposition from the fact of Germany's seeming to be an example of a\ngreat nationality slowly disintegrating herself.\n\nThe history of Germany may be divided into three periods: 1st, under\nthe \"Holy Roman Empire\" until the rise of Prussia; 2d, under the same\nfrom the rise of Prussia until 1806; {249} 3d, under the Confederation\nuntil the present day. In the first period there were an immense\nnumber of principalities, rivals not only of each other, but but also\nof him who held the imperial sceptre. The emperor depended so much\nupon his foreign vassals for his influence that he could scarcely be\nregarded as a German sovereign governing German states. Suddenly\nPrussia arose from nothing, and with majestic strides overran nearly\nall the north; then for the first time the Germans beheld a power of\nrespectable strength, essentially German. When a nation is divided\ninto many parts, its first step toward unity is the acquisition of a\ncentre toward which all may tend. We pass by the origin of Prussia\nsince we are dealing with facts and not principles at present. We know\nit is the fashion with a certain school to excite sympathy for Austria\nby alluding to Albert of Brandenburg; but as we are of those who\nbelieve that a man's own sins are scarcely less discreditable to him\nthan those of his ancestors, and have our memory fresh with\nrecollections of the long unbroken chain of outrages which the House\nof Austria, when powerful, heaped upon the Church of God, we ask to be\nexcused if we allow no false sentimentality to intrude upon us. The\nrise of Prussia and the interest manifested in her by the unitarian\nparty, forced the emperor and the secondary princes to be more German,\nless foreign, in their policy. This second period, therefore, had\nelements of unity which were wanting in the first. The third period,\nhowever, gave something more. In 1806 Napoleon I. bade Francis II.\nabdicate his title of Emperor of the Romans, and assume that of\nEmperor of Austria, and then disappeared even the name of that which\nfor two hundred years had been a shadow. Then came the federal union\nof all the German, and only the German provinces--a confederation in\nwhich the interests of Germany might be consulted without prejudice\nfrom foreign connections--a union full of faults, we confess, and in\nmany respects a sham, but yet an advance toward national unity.\n\nWe know of no records by means of which we can ascertain the exact\nnumber of independent states with which Germany was accursed under the\nfeudal system, but we know that after Prussia had swallowed up many\nthere were before 1815 nearly a hundred. Before the late war there\nwere thirty-seven. How many there are now the telegraph has not\ninformed us, but we imagine the number has become small by degrees and\nbeautifully less.\n\nSince 1815 the march toward German unity has been more steady and more\nuniform than at any other period. The pressure exercised upon Austria\nby Prussia, upon the secondary princes by their people, has forced\nthem to seek German rather than foreign alliances, to study German\nmore than dynastic or local interests. The Zollverein, the Reform\nassociations, the hue and cry openly made about unity, the very\nentrance of Austria into the Holstein war, and latterly the alliance\nbetween the liberals and a statesman whose principles they have\nuniformly opposed, all indicate the popular effervescence, and excite\na suspicion that ere long Germany will be united. All the machinery of\nwhich governments can avail themselves is used by Austria and the\nsecondary princes to ward off the danger which menaces them.\n\nThe friends of the system of which Austria is the last important\nstandard bearer, give us a bit of news which, if true, would be\ninteresting, since it would be the first time we could conscientiously\nreceive it, that the cause of the Kaiser is the cause of the church;\nthat to his banner are nailed her colors. The jackal follows the lion\nto pick up his leavings, but his eating them does not make him a lion.\nThe fact of the matter is, that the history of the church gives so\npainful a picture of her struggles with kings and princes, that it is\nto us a matter of complete indifference whether the {250} victory be\nwon by the impersonation of military autocracy, or by the sickly\nanomaly now catching at straws for an extension of life--unless,\nhowever, the victory of the former were to vindicate the principle\nthat the peoples of the earth have rights to claim, and were to result\nin the end in the collapse of its winner, and the leaving thereby of a\npowerful nation in the hands of popular government. If this latter\nconsummation is reached, we shall be ready to do what we can to attach\nthe children of the church to a particular government, for we believe\nthat then the church will have in Europe more than ever a fair show,\nso to speak, at humanity. The church is for the people, and for them\nalone--when she approaches a king, she approaches him as a man--and\nshe need fear but little from those for whose interest she lives. The\npopular heart quickly conceives an affection, and is seldom mistaken\nin its impulses.\n\nWe have alluded to an opinion held by some that Germany is an example\nof a great nationality disintegrated after centuries of integral\nexistence. If history deals with words and not with facts, if empty\ntitles and enthusiastic notions are criterions of national condition,\nthen that opinion is correct; but if the calling the Emperor of China\nthe Child of the Sun gives him no solar affinity, we must hold the\ncontrary one. The ancient so-called unity of Germany was not only an\nempty word, but the very title Emperor of Germany had no foundation in\nlaw. When the imperial crown was transferred from the French\nCarlovingians to the House of Saxony, its mode or conditions of tenure\nwere not changed by the Holy See. Just as Charlemagne, though Emperor\nof the Romans, was not Emperor of France, but as before King of the\nFranks, so Conrad of Franconia, Otho of Saxony, and their successors\nwere emperors of the Romans, and mere feudal superiors of the other\nGerman princes. If, in the lapse of time, the holder of the sceptre of\nthe \"Holy Roman Empire\" (which alone was the legal title from which\nimperial rights derived) came to be called Emperor of Germany, the\ntitle did not originate in law, but in the common parlance of the\nItalians, French, and English, who recognized in the emperor a foreign\nPrince, and who--at least the two latter--being naturally repugnant to\nthe universal monarchy system, constantly insisted upon the emperor's\nprimacy being as to them purely honorary. So much for the title. As\nfor the Holy Roman empire itself, nothing to prove the ancient unity\nof Germany can be deduced from it. The public law of the middle ages\nwas based upon the principle, then the foundation of all economy, of\nsacerdotal supremacy and princely subjection--a blessed thing for\nhumanity at that time by-the-by, which thus found some protection from\nthe tyrants who then ruled the earth. European government became\nhierarchical; at the head stood the pope, then came the emperor, then\nkings, etc. Now, according to the titles of courtesy in use at the\ntime, it might be supposed that France and England were subordinate to\nthe emperor, yet their constant history proves them to have been\nindependent of his sceptre. If, then, this so-called resurrection of\nthe western empire was purely nominal, was it merely honorific? Was\nthere no authority attached to it? If there were none, especially as\nto Germany itself, of a part of which the emperor was a hereditary\nprince, we would conclude at once that as Europe could not then be\ncalled one, so could not Germany. Our proposition, however, is not so\nself-evident.\n\nThere was an authority resident in the imperial sceptre over the\nprinces of Germany, but for all matters all practical importance it\nwas, with the exception of a few privileges, the same as that enjoyed\nover Italy, Hungary, Bohemia, etc, viz., that of right of investiture.\nIf, however, from this fact of imperial suzerainty any argument can be\ngathered for the ancient unity of Germany, we must say that at the\npresent time Egypt, Roumania, and Servia are {251} one with Turkey,\nLiberia one with the United States. If before the late war Germany was\nnot integral, it was not so under the ancient system. Then it had an\nemperor, in our days it had a federal diet--the emperors' decisions\nwere generally laughed at, while the decisions of the diet were\nrespected when allowed to decide. Nor, while speaking so disparagingly\nof the imperial power, do we allude to the time when the imperial\ndignity had become a mere puppet show--to the period between the rise\nof Prussia and the annihilation of the title. We need not confine\nourselves to the time when the great Frederick could laugh at his\n\"good brother, the sacristy-sweep,\" trying to rival his power; the\nsame want of efficacious influence was ever felt from the day when\nConrad accepted the diadem--one only period excepted, that of Charles\nV., and even he was wanting in force, and was obliged to succumb to\nhis powerful \"vassals.\" The history of no country, either in Europe or\nin Asia, can afford an example of such persevering strife for\nascendancy as that which the princes of Germany presented, either\namong themselves--the emperor a spectator--or united in factions\nagainst him and his factions. The imperial dignity was in some things\ngreat, and over some periods of its existence there is a halo of\nglory, but only in its external relations. The Hohenstaufen emperors\nwere by inheritance both internally and externally powerful princes;\ntheir principality of Suabia and their immense possessions of the\nPalatinate furnished them such a number of personal vassals that they\ndid much toward making the imperial sceptre respected, while there\nkingdom of Sicily and lordship of Milan caused them to be feared\nwithout. But then it was not the emperor who was feared, but the\nPrince of Suabia, the Count Palatine, the King of Sicily, and lord\nsuzerain of Milan and Tuscany; just as under the Habsburgs and the\nLorraines it was not the emperor but the Archduke of Austria, King of\nHungary, of Lombardy, of Naples, of Illyrium, who, by means of his\npersonal and hereditary states in foreign lands, commanded that\nrespect from his German rivals which a purely German emperor never\nextorted. The unity of Germany under the Holy Roman Empire was\ntherefore not of fact. It was an idea--quite poetical certainly, but\nstill an idea.\n\nWhen we consider the obstacles which had to be surmounted by those\npeoples who have already attained a national existence, we must fain\nbelieve that those who are yet panting for it will not be long\ndisappointed. Roumania and Servia have been for centuries dreaming of\nindependence, but we must remember that only at a recent period did\ncivilization commence to act upon their peasantry. Even now many of\nthe boyards seem to be removed scarcely a generation from their Dacian\nancestry. All the Sclavic peoples of Eastern Europe have much to\nacquire before they can be called fully civilized. The tyranny,\nhowever, to which they owe most of their backwardness has of late\nyears very much diminished, and already they commence to ask\nthemselves the question which has so long preoccupied other minds, Are\nthe people created for the ruler, or is a ruler established for the\npeople? When men commence to think seriously on such subjects, action\nis not far off. Bucharest and Jassy have been the scene of tumults\nwhich have made many a European conservative cry out that nothing but\nan iron rule will benefit the Roumanian--that Roumanian nationality\nwill prove a seminary of trouble for Europe. We believe in lending a\nhelping hand to a degraded people that they may in time raise\nthemselves to the level of their fellows--we would deem ourselves\nworse than their tyrants if we regarded the passions which tyranny has\nengendered as an excuse for that tyranny's perpetuation.\n\n{252}\n\nA bright day seems to have dawned for Hungary--at least so think the\nAustrian wing of the Hungarian patriots. For these gentlemen the\nungermanization of Austria means that Pesth is to be the capital of a\nnew heterogenous empire. They should remember those long years during\nwhich they mourned the short-sighted policy which drowned Hungarian\nnationality for the benefit of Germany, and reap from them a knowledge\nof other sins they will commit if they repress those nationalities\nwhich are as sacred as their own. Heaven cannot bless those who claim\nliberty for themselves and deny it to others.\n\nAnd in the midst of this conflict of the peoples of the earth for real\nor imaginary rights, how fares the church of God? Excellently well,\nfor no change man will here below experience can ever unman him. So\nlong as there are people on the earth, so long will there be souls to\nsave, and the church will be ever on hand to do the work. But there is\nmore to be said. Of those people who are now so strenuously laboring\nin the cause of liberty, a large proportion are outside of the church.\nMany of them are working from a pure love of justice, as God has given\nthem the light to see it, and if they are true to their natural\nconvictions the supernatural will yet be engrafted upon them. It\ncannot be denied, however, that there are many who throw their weight\ninto the scale of liberty as for they think Catholicity is in the\nother scale, and that they will hence contribute to weakening the hold\nthe church has upon man. Would they could live to see the day when\nliberty shall have triumphed--were it only to realize the true mission\nof that church they now so bitterly hate! From the day the church\nentered upon her glorious career she has been constantly contending\nwith the potentates of the earth. Her first struggle was with brute\nforce, and she triumphed. Her second contest was more terrible, for\nthe means brought against her were more insidious. Under the pretext\nof honoring her, the gods of the earth encircled her limbs with golden\nchains. How pretty they seemed, and how complacently some of her\nmembers regarded them! How anxiously some yearn after them yet! But\nthey were torn away, and--great providence of God!--by those who\nthought to thus ruin her. Her enemies say she yearns for that society\nnow disappeared. Has she forgotten how much those struggles cost her?\nGentlemen of the liberal world, you are mistaken if you think the\nchurch fears the success of your designs. You are another illustration\nof the truth of the saying, that God uses even the passions of men to\nfurther his ends. When you will have succeeded in obliterating all\nartificial distinctions of caste and privilege, and will have actuated\nyour vaunted ideas of liberty and equality, the church will confront\nyou, and thrusting you aside, will render real what with you would\nalways be an idea--fraternity. Those who now applaud you will lift\nfrom the church their eyes of suspicion and jealousy, and will realize\nhow greatly you were mistaken when you called her retrograde and\ntyrannical.\n\n--------\n\n{253}\n\nPHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION\n\n\n\nBY REV.  JAMES A. STOTHERT.\n\n\nIf the philosophers of the nineteenth century are proud of its\nscientific character, it is not without reason; if they congratulate\nthemselves on having penetrated further into the secrets of nature\nthan their predecessors, the impartial judgment of future times will\nconfirm the opinion. It is no ordinary age that has, in the first half\nof its course, produced men of the first eminence in every branch of\nscience, and contributed discoveries, remarkable alike for their\nintrinsic value, and their influence on the welfare of mankind. The\nprogress of the physical sciences, since the year 1800, has been rapid\nand unprecedented; some of them have assumed a character and position\nentirely new, in consequence of the number and brilliancy of the\ndiscoveries, and the importance of the principles unfolded in relation\nto them. Another era in the history of chemistry opened with Dalton's\natomic theory, aided by the amazing industry of Berzelius, in its\npractical application; the labors of Davy, in reducing the number of\nsimple elements by means of voltaic electricity, and Faraday's patient\nand even-advancing discoveries in the wide field of electro-magnetism,\nhave developed chemical science to an extent, and in a direction,\nwhich a former generation would have deemed fabulous. During the same\nperiod, geology has been rescued from neglect, and from serious\ncharges of unsound tendencies, and been placed in deserved rank among\nthe sciences by the eminent labors Smith and Buckland, of Sedgwick and\nDelabeche, of Lyell and Murchison, and Miller. Thee stamp of the age\nhas been put on the science of optics by the discovery of the\npolarization of light by Malus; by the subsequent extension and\nperfection of that discovery by Brewster and Arago; and, more\nremarkably still, by the profound investigations and independent\nresearch of Young and Fresnel, on the subject of the wave theory of\nlight. Zoology, especially in its bearing on geology and the history\nof the earth, has been carried to astonishing perfection, by the\nintuitive genius and sagacity of Cuvier and Agassiz and Owen and\nForbes. In the history of astronomy, the queen of the sciences, the\nnineteenth century must be ever memorable as that in which was first\nestablished the appreciable parallax of some among the stars commonly\ncalled fixed; at once spanning the hitherto illimitable abyss which\nseparates the solar system from those distant luminaries, and opening\nup to human intelligence clear and better defined views of the\nvastness of the universe. The names of Bessel, Struve, and Argelander,\nof Airy and Lord Rosse, and the two Herschels, are associated with\nobservations and discoveries, for which future ages will look back to\nour time with admiration and gratitude. The more recent observations\nof Herschel on Multiple Stars may be assumed to have established, the\nexistence of the great law of gravitation in regions of space, so\nremote from our sight, that the diameter of the earth's orbit, if\nsearched for at that distance, through telescopes equal to our most\npowerful, would be invisible. The circumstances attending the\ndiscovery of the most distant planet, Neptune, are perhaps the most\nextraordinary proof of the high intellectual {254} culture of our\ntime. Another planet, Uranus, its next neighbor, had been long\nobserved to be subject to perturbations, for which no known cause\ncould altogether account. By an elaborate and wholly independent\ncalculation of these disturbances, and a comparison of them with what\nwould have resulted from all the known causes of irregularity, two\nmathematicians, Leverrier in France, and Adams in England, were\nenabled, nearly at the same time, and quite unknown to each other, to\nsay where the disturbing cause must be, and what must be the\nconditions of its action. They communicated with practical\nastronomers, and told them where they ought to find a new planet;\ntelescopes were directed to the spot, accurate star-maps were\nconsulted, and there it was, the newly discovered planet Neptune,\nwandering through space, in an orbit of nearly three thousand millions\nof miles' semi-diameter. Other discoveries had been the result of good\nfortune, or the reward of patient accuracy and untiring perseverance;\nhere discovery was anticipated, and directed by the conclusions of\npurely mathematical reasoning.\n\nThe nineteenth century, little more than half elapsed, can also point\nwith satisfaction to numerous observatories in both hemispheres,\nwhere, in nightly vigils and daily calculations, the accumulating\nobservations and details are amassed and arranged, which for years to\ncome are to guide the mariner through the pathless seas, and to\nfurnish materials for future generalization in regard to the laws of\nthe physical universe; where untiring account is kept of those occult\nand variable magnetic influences which permeate the surface of our\nglobe and the atmosphere around it, to which the distinguished\nHumboldt first urged attention, and in the investigation of which the\nnames of Kater and Sabine are conspicuous. In chemical laboratories at\nhome, and on the continent, the progress of investigation into the\ninternal constitution of matter is so extensive and so fruitful in\nresults, that as we were lately informed by an eminent chemist, it is\nhardly possible even for a professional man to keep up to the mark of\nweekly discovery. The triumphs of steam-power in connexion with\nmachinery; the perfection attained my modern engineering, and the\nmultiplication of its resources; the wonderful results produced by the\ncombination and division of labor, illustrated by the completion of\nvast works, and the supply of materials for our world-wide commerce;\nand, not least of all, the application of the electric current to the\ntransmission of messages, originally suggested by a Scotsman, in the\nyear 1753,  [Footnote 40] and perfected by Wheatstone and others, the\ninfluence of which, in flashing intelligence from one side of the\nworld to the other, is not improbably destined to act more powerfully\nthan that of steam and railway communication, on the future history of\nmankind; all these valuable in enduring evidences of the scientific\npreeminence of our age, are no inconsiderable or unreasonable cause of\nelation and self-congratulation among contemporary philosophers. There\nnever was a time when juster views on the subject of physical science\nwere more generally diffused among the community at large; when a\nreadier ear could be gained for any new and well-supported claims of\nscience; when the public mind thirsted more eagerly for fresh draughts\nfrom the fountain of knowledge; or when more competent persons were\nengaged in providing means for satisfying this universal thirst.\nScientific societies are numerous and active; mechanics' institutes,\nphilosophical associations, athenaeums and other reunions alternating\nkindred nature, are organized and flourishing in every large town in\nthe country, for the purpose of conveying a little rill of this\ncoveted knowledge to the tradesmen and artisans in the short intervals\nof their daily toil. The very credulity with which some {255}\nunscientific and preposterous theories of motion have been lately\naccepted and believed by multitudes of educated persons, and which\nFaraday has the merit of first boldly denouncing, is another proof of\nthe desire of something new in physics, which animates large masses of\nthinking men, and which is often much more developed than their power\nof distinguishing what is true from what is false, or empirical, in\nthe philosophy of nature.\n\n  [Footnote 40: See Scots Magazine, February, 1753.]\n\nThe contemplation of this picture of the nineteenth century suggests a\nquestion of some moment: What is the relation of this scientific\ndevelopment to revelation? What influence is it likely to have on the\nconclusions of faith? A simple mind, or a simple age, receives these\nimplicitly: will the influence of science on either dispose, or\nindispose it, to similar confidence? Are modern discoveries likely to\nthrow a reasonable doubt on the province of revelation; or are they\nmore likely to reflect light upon it, and establish its landmarks?\n\nThis is a question of the last moment. The age is bent on acquiring\nknowledge; it is justly elated by its progress in search of this\nprecious gift; and, all the while, its dependence on the great truths\nof revelation is not less than that of a simple age. Faith, if ever\nnecessary, is not less so now, than when all the brilliant discoveries\nof our era lay in the folds of the future time. They will not, with\nall their brilliancy, direct and save one human soul, or illuminate\nthe obscure region which lies beyond the grave. If science must\ndissolve the charm of belief, alas! for the elation of our age at its\nown high attainments; better had it been for it that the ancient\nignorance of physical laws had never then dissipated, than that its\ndispersion should have been so dearly purchased.\n\nOf course, by revelation, the author must be understood to mean the\nwhole will of God, revealed to the world, and taught by the Catholic\nChurch; as well that part of it which Protestants reject, as the\nmutilated part of it which the greater number of them are agreed in\naccepting; all the doctrines peculiarly and distinctively belonging to\nCatholicity, together with others which it holds and teaches in common\nwith all calling themselves Christian. What relation, then, we ask,\nhas the modern advance of science to this undivided sum of revealed\ntruth? Is it one of hostility or of harmony, of illustration and\nconfirmation, or of antagonism? Is physical science the handmaid, or\nthe enemy of faith?\n\n(1.) Now, a very great number of persons, understanding revelation in\nthe sense in which we have defined it, would answer this question by\nsaying that science is the enemy of revealed truth, as maintained by\nthe Catholic Church; that the more generally scientific and accurate\nideas of the laws and constitution of the physical universe are\ndiffused, the more difficult must grow the belief of sensible men,\nclaimed by the Catholic Church for apparently impossible exceptions to\nthose laws. We can even imagine some good Catholics, little versed in\nscientific pursuits, of the same opinion, and therefore jealous of\nthis general craving of the people for secular knowledge. Among the\nProtestants of this country it is currently believed that the Catholic\nChurch is as keenly and doggedly opposed to science as science is to\nher; that her unchanging policy has always been to keep her children\nin ignorance, so as the more easily to subdue their intelligence to\nher bidding.\n\n(2.) An answer of a different kind we should expect to receive from a\nnumerous class of friends, and from a few opponents; namely, that the\nrelation of science to revelation is one of indifference, as they\nbelong to spheres of knowledge totally distinct and independent. A few\nremarks on each of these answers will best introduce the author's own\nattempt at a solution of the question.\n\n{256}\n\nAs to the first: well informed and candid inquirers into the truth of\nthings are beginning slowly to perceive that the Catholic Church has\nbeen misrepresented, as invariably the enemy of science; especially in\nthe critical and much agitated controversy of the geocentric and\nheliocentric theories of the planetary motions, which has been chosen\nas the weakest point of attack. Two writers of the highest eminence in\nscience, with no religious bias whatever toward Catholicity, have\ngiven remarkable testimony on this subject. Sir David Brewster in his\nLife of Galileo has adopted a tone of fairness to the Catholic Church,\nunhappily rare in Protestant treatment of such topics in general. We\ndo not think he has done full justice to Galileo's Roman judges; but,\nat least, he has given the Roman pontiffs some credit for their\npatronage of men of science. We recommend the whole life to the notice\nof our readers, and shall cite the following passage from it. After\nmentioning the pension granted to Galileo by Pope Urban VIlI., in\n1624, Sir David adds: \"The pension thus given by Urban was not the\nremuneration which sovereigns sometimes award to the services of their\nsubjects. Galileo was a foreigner at Rome. The sovereign of the papal\nstate owed him no obligation; and hence we must regard the pension of\nGalileo as a donation from the Roman pontiff to science itself, and as\na declaration to the Christian world that religion was not jealous of\nphilosophy, and that the church of Rome was willing to respect and\nfoster even the genius of its enemies.\"  [Footnote 41]\n\n  [Footnote 41:  Martyrs of Science, ed. 1846, p. 68.]\n\nThe other writer whom we shall cite is a no less celebrated authority\nin science than the present astronomer royal, who, while condemning\nthe treatment which Galileo received at the hands of the Roman\nInquisition, is free to admit that Rome did not always oppose science;\nand even this qualified admission, from so eminent a person, is worth\na good deal to our purpose. His remark is this: \"This great step in\nthe explanation of the planetary motions was made by Copernicus, an\necclesiastic in the Romish Church, a canon of Thorn, a city of\nPrussia. The work in which he published it is dedicated to the pope.\nAt that time it would appear that there was no disinclination in the\nRomish Church to receive new astronomical theories. But in no long\ntime after, when Galileo, a philosopher of Florence, taught the same\ntheory, he was brought to trial by the Romish Church, then in full\npower, and was compelled to renounce the theory. How these two\ndifferent courses of the Romish Church are to be reconciled, I do not\nknow. But the fact is so.\"   [Footnote 42]\n\n  [Footnote 42: Airy's Lectures on Astronomy, p. 85.]\n\nWe are not concerned at present with Galileo's unhappy story, farther\nthan to remark, that there is as usual much to be said on the side of\nhis Roman judges, which is perhaps nowhere so well said as in the\npages of the Dublin Review, No. IX., July 1838. The views there\nadvanced have never been called in question; we may therefore assume\nthat they are substantially unassailable. As to the general question\nof the assistance which the Catholic Church has lent, directly or\nindirectly, to science, we should like to know what other church, or\nbody of ecclesiastics, has done anything in this field compared with\nthe labors and the successes of the Society of Jesus alone. The names\nof Clavius and Kircher, of Boscovich, De Vico, and Pianciani, may\nstand for a memorial of the prosperous union of science and Catholic\nrevelation.  [Footnote 43]\n\n  [Footnote 43: F. Christopher Clavius, S. J., an eminent German\n  mathematician and astronomer, was employed by Gregory XIII. in the\n  reformation of the calendar. His Gregorian Calendar, published in\n  1581, tardily adopted in Protestant countries, and now regulates our\n  system of leap-years. His collected mathematical and scientific works\n  amount to five volumes folio. He was killed in 1612, page 75.\n\n  F. Athanasius Kircher, S. J., also a native of Germany, was a\n  diligent cultivator of science. His works, in twenty-two folio and\n  eleven quarto volumes, embrace learned and original treatises on\n  many recondite branches of physical science; on Magnetism, Optics,\n  Acoustics, Geography, etc., etc. He filled the chair of Mathematics\n  in the Jesuit Roman college, and laid the foundation of its\n  extensive and valuable museum. He died in Rome, in 1680, at the age\n  of 79.\n\n  F. Roger Joseph Boscovich, S.J., a native of Ragusa, filled the\n  chair of Astronomy in the Jesuit Roman College for thirty years, and\n  was highly distinguished for the depth, originality, and variety of\n  his aquirements in Natural Philosophy. He published several valuable\n  treatises on the philosophy of Newton, on optics, etc. He is best\n  known out of Italy for his ingenious theory of the molecular\n  constitution of matter: a theory which the increasing knowledge of\n  more modern philosophy has only confirmed. After the suppression of\n  his order in 1778, he was welcomed to Paris, and taught philosophy\n  there for a time; he returned to Italy, he died at Milan, in 1787,\n  page 73.\n\n  F. De Vico, S.J., was also an eminent astronomer in the Jesuit Roman\n  College. His discovery of several comets introduced him to the circle\n  of men of science. When the Jesuits were driven from Rome in 1848,\n  he was received with open arms in the United States; but, unhappily\n  for science, he died in London a very few years ago, while procuring\n  instruments for his observatory in the far West. He was highly\n  esteemed and beloved by his pupils, of whom there are many in this\n  country.\n\n  F. Pianciani, S.J., for many years taught chemistry in the Jesuit\n  Roman College. He is admired for the simplicity of his manners no\n  less than for the valuable contributions he has made to the nature\n  of chemical science. Besides all larger and smaller treatise on it,\n  he has published a work on the cosmogony of Moses; and we believe,\n  is still preparing other treatises for the press.]\n\n{257}\n\nAs to the second solution of our question--that science and\nrevelation are indifferent, because entirely dissimilar to each other\nin nature and objects; it appears to us that analogy points quite the\nother way. For, (1.) they both have a common origin in the will of\nGod; and it is not unreasonable to expect that they shall exhibit some\ntraces of common principles. And this, especially, if we direct our\nattention to the difficulties which lie in the way of our acceptance\nof the conclusions proposed to us by either; if they are actually\nfound to resemble each other in many of these, their relation can no\nlonger be considered one of indifference. Nay,  on the principles on\nwhich Dr. Joseph Butler constructed his immortal work, if revealed\ntruth proceeds from the author of nature, we may expect to find the\nsame difficulties in it as we find in nature. And, conversely, it is\nno objection to the divine origin of revealed truth, that its\nreception implies difficulties as great as the acceptance of the facts\nand laws of nature presupposes us to have overcome. And, (2.) we may\nargue from the mutual analogy of other sciences to one another; how\ndissimilar soever they appear to a superficial observer to be, there\nis a community of principles, and of general laws, which binds them\ntogether, and connects them with their common origin in the divine\nmind. This idea is, as many of our readers are aware, beautifully\ndeveloped by Mrs. Somerville in her charming work on the Connexion of\nthe Physical Sciences.\n\nFrom these preliminary remarks, the author's own solution of the\nquestion of hostility, or indifference, between science and revelation\nmay be gathered; namely, that though in their nature, objects, and\ndetails widely separated, yet they are linked together by a thousand\ndelicate ties, unperceived by a careless observer, but well repaying\nelaborate study. Science is the true handmaid of Revelation, doing\nservice to the superior nature, but exhibiting tokens of a commission\nto do so, imparted to her by the divine creator of both. The author\nhas devoted some attention to this interesting subject; and at some\nfuture time, if granted health and leisure, he hopes to state and\nillustrate his views more at large, and in a more permanent form;\nmeanwhile he proposes briefly to sketch some of the conclusions and\ntrains of thought suggested to him by these studies; confining his\nremarks entirely to those portions of revealed truth which are the\nexclusive property of the Catholic Church, and which are generally\nknown in the Protestant world as popish doctrines, such as the Blessed\nEucharist; the question of Miracles in general; and all that is\nsupernatural and imperceptible to the senses in Catholic belief.\n\nI. A preliminary difficulty lying in the way of belief in the\nsupernatural character of revealed religion, is the flat contradiction\nwhich it apparently gives to the evidence of the senses, the manifest\ndiscrepancy between what is alleged and proposed to our belief, and\nwhat is seen with our eyes, and appreciated by other sensuous organs.\n{258} Modern science, however, is as inexorable in her demands on\nhuman credence, in defiance of the senses, as was ever revelation on\nthe assent of faith. The senses have their empire much restricted by\nthe canons of our philosophers. For, (1.) it is fully established that\neach organ of sense is susceptible of one class of impressions only,\nwhich it passes on to the sensorium, or seat of thought. Thus the\norgan of vision admits and communicates impressions of light alone;\nthat of hearing, impressions of sound, or of the wave of air set in\nmotion by the cause producing sound, and no others. The organs of\ntaste and smell, in like manner, have their own classes of\nsusceptibilities, which, again, are not the same as those belonging to\nthe nerves of touch. For every other class of impressions than its\nown, each organ of sense is absolutely inert and useless. The eye can\ntake no cognisance of sound, nor the ear of light: if the eye can feel\na touch, it is because certain parts of its structure are furnished\nwith branches of the nerves of touch; and so of the rest. Electricity\nalone seems to have the remarkable power of exciting in all the organs\nof sense, sensations proper to the nature of each; in the eye, for\nexample, a flash of light; distinct sounds; a phosphoric odor, a\npeculiar taste, and a pricking feeling, in the same person at the same\ntime.  [Footnote 44]\n\n  [Footnote 44: Sommerville's Connexion, etc., \u00a7 xxix. p. 339.\n  Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, \u00a7 932.]\n\nAgain, (2.) sensations arising from those impressions are so\nexceedingly complex, that we attribute many more of them to each\nseparate sense than really belong to it. By habit we have become so\nmuch accustomed to associate several of those impressions together, as\nto be unable, without difficulty, to analyze them, and to separate the\nsimple results of the sensuous impression from the more complicated\njudgments which experience and reason add to it, and by which they\ninterpret it. The eye, for example, receives and conveys impressions\npurely and solely of light, and its absence, including those of color,\nwhich belong to light. Form, extension, sense of distance, etc., are\nno part of the simple impression made upon the eye, and through it\nupon the mind, further than they influence the condition of the light,\nas by bounding it, shading it, etc. These belong exclusively to the\nsense of touch, combined with experience, so as to be suggested,\nwithout actual contact, by certain conditions of light. An\ninexperienced eye, looking for the first time at a plain surface, as a\ndisc, or at a cube, or a ball, would see only the color, and the edges\nwhere that changed. It could not enable the mind to judge how far the\nobject was distant; nor why the light and shade were differently\ndisposed in each; why the light reflected from the disc was uniform,\nand bounded by a circle, while that from the ball was softly shaded,\nthough bounded by a circular line similar to the disc; nor why the\nlight coming from the cube was divided and bounded by straight lines\nand sharp angles. To judge of these peculiarities, and their meaning,\ntouch must come to the aid of sight; and afterward memory will recall\nthe conclusions of former experience; and comparison will enable the\nreasoning mind to form a judgment regarding the shape, size, and\ndistance of the object. In a similar manner, the organs of hearing\nconvey impressions of sound alone; distance, direction, exciting\ncause, are quite out of the province of its information. Sight and\ntouch, and experience and judgment, all enter into the complex\ninformation, now communicated to a practiced observer. This fact is\nstrikingly exemplified in musical sounds. A skillful musician will\ntell you the notes and chords composing a series of such sounds, in\nwhich an uninformed and unpractised ear will be able to detect nothing\nbut concord or this court. Thus Mozart, at two hearings, was able to\nnote down the score of Allegri's _Miserere_. Thus, too, there are many\nsubstances which we of {259} by taste, as it is supposed, but which\nare in reality operative on the sense of smell. For instance, if the\nnose is held while eating cinnamon, we shall perceive no difference\nbetween its flavor and that of a pine shaving.  [Footnote 45] The same\nfact is observed with regards to many aromatic substances: if held in\nthe mouth, or rubbed between the tongue and the palate, the nostrils\nbeing all the while dosed, their taste is hardly, if at all,\nrecognized; but it is immediately perceived on reopening the nasal\npassages. Thus, too, the wine-taster closes his mouth, and sends the\naroma of the wine through his nostrils. Other substances, again, there\nare, neither aromatic nor volatile, taste very strongly irritates the\nmucous membrane both of nose and tongue, as mustard does, for example,\njust as it would the skin, if applied long enough externally. Such a\nsensation, therefore, as the taste of mustard, evidently belongs to\nthe organs of touch, differing in degree of sensitivity only. Hence we\nare taught that the substances properly the objects of the sense of\ntaste, are those only which produce sensations purely and exclusively\ngustative, perceived neither through the nose nor through the nerves\nof touch, but acting on the tongue and palate only. Salt, sugar,\nquinine, tannin, and citric acid, types of the saline, saccharine,\nbitter, astringent, and sour, are said to possess sapid properties.\n[Footnote 46] From these simple considerations it appears undoubted\nthat the province of each separate organ of sensation, and its\nresultant impressions on the mind, are much limited, when compared\nwith the wider empire attributed to them by popular language and\nopinion. Reason is ever correcting and enlarging the simple\nimpression, adding the conclusions of experience and judgment and\ncomparison to the primary suggestions of the sensation; making\nallowances for what is faulty or imperfect; measuring circumstances,\nand comparing all the conditions of the impression with each other,\nbefore even an approximately true result can be arrived at.\n\n  [Footnote 45: Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural\n  Philosophy, \u00a7 72.]\n\n  [Footnote 46: Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, \u00a7 945.]\n\nFurther (3.) there is much in nature of which the senses totally fail\nin giving us any information whatever. \"None of the senses,\" says Sir\nJ. Herschel, \"gives us direct information for the exact comparison of\nquantity. Number, indeed, that is to say, integer number, is an object\nof sense, because we can count; but we can neither weigh, nor measure,\nnor form any precise estimate of fractional parts by the unassisted\nsenses. Scarcely any man could tell the difference between twenty\npounds, and the same weight increased or diminished by a few ounces;\nstill less could he judge of the proportion between an ounce of gold\nand a hundred grains of cotton by balancing them in his hands.\"\n[Footnote 47] Nay, even in their own proper and peculiar province, the\nsenses are singularly deficient in certain kinds of information,\nespecially when comparison is involved. \"The eye,\" says the same high\nauthority, \"is no judge of the proportion of different degrees of\nillumination, even when seen side by side; and if an interval elapses,\nand circumstances change, nothing can be more vague than its judgment.\nWhen we gaze with admiration at the gorgeous spectacle of the golden\nclouds at sunset, which seem drenched in light, and glowing like\nflames of real fire, it is hardly by an effort we can persuade\nourselves to regard them as the very same objects which at noonday\npass unnoticed as mere white clouds basking in the sun, only\nparticipating, from their great horizontal distance, in the ruddy tint\nwhich luminaries acquire by shining through a great extent of the\nvapor of the atmosphere, and thereby even losing something of their\nlight. So it is with our estimates of time, velocity, and all other\nmatters of quantity; they are absolutely vague and inadequate to form\na foundation for any exact conclusion.\"   [Footnote 48]\n\n  [Footnote 47: Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy,\u00a7 117.]\n\n  [Footnote 48: Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy,\u00a7 117.]\n\n{260}\n\nAgain (4.) there is a large class of phenomena whose causes, and even\nwhose existence, are far too remote or too minute to be revealed to us\nby our senses. What are telescopes and microscopes, but the means\nwhich science ingeniously devises to supply this innate and\nirreparable deficiency of our organs of sense? Satirists of the middle\nage, and its scholatic philosophers, have said that they would dispute\nas to the number of spirits that could dance on the point of a needle.\nModern science shows us, in the infusoria, animals of perfect\nformation, endowed with functions suited to their condition, many\nthousands of which could pass at once through the eye of the finest\nneedle; a million of which would not amount in bulk to a grain of\nsand. No less wonderful is the world of minute existence, revealed by\nthe microscope, in a drop of stagnant water. It is a world within\nitself, an epitome of the earth, and its successive geological races.\nA variety of microscopic creatures make their appearance, and die; in\na few days, a new set succeeds; these disappear in their turn, and\ntheir place is occupied by a third race, of a different kind from\neither of the former--the remains of all of them lying at the bottom\nof the glass.  [Footnote 49] \"If for a moment,\" says Humboldt, \"we\ncould yield to the power of fancy, and imagine the acuteness of our\nvisual organ to be made equal to the extreme bounds of telescopic\nvision, and bring together that which is now divided by long periods\nof time, the apparent rest which reigns in space would suddenly\ndisappear. We should see the countless hosts of fixed stars moving in\nthronged groups, in different directions; nebulas wandering through\nspace, and becoming condensed and dissolved like clouds, the veil of\nthe milky way separated and broken up in many parts, and motion ruling\nsupreme in every portion of the vault of heaven, even as on the\nearth's surface, where we see it unfolded in the germ, the leaf, and\nthe blossom, the organisms of the vegetable world. The celebrated\nSpanish botanist, Cavanilles, was the first who entertained the idea\nof 'seeing the grass.' He directed the horizontal micrometer threads\nof a powerful magnifying glass at one time to the apex of the shoot of\na bambusa, and at another, on the rapidly growing stem of an American\naloe, precisely as the astronomer places his cross of network against\na culminating star.\"   [Footnote 50] Without speculating so deeply in\nwhat is distant and hidden, the very atmosphere in which we live and\nbreathe is imperceptible to every one of our senses, except, indeed,\nwhen viewed through its whole depth, to that of sight in the blue\ncolor of the sky, or indirectly to that of touch, by the resistance\nwhich it offers to the hand, or the face, in passing rapidly through\nit, or when it is set in motion by the wind. We perceive its effects,\nindeed, in the modifications which the phenomena of light and sound\nundergo, in consequence of its action upon them; in the barometric\ncolumn, and in a thousand other physical and chemical agencies which\nattest the presence of the atmosphere, and the important functions\nwhich it performs in our terrestrial economy. But as far as sight or\nhearing, taste or smell, are affected by it, directly, it has\nabsolutely no existence.\n\n  [Footnote 49: Somerville's Physical Geography; II., xxxii. 348,\n  note.]\n\n  [Footnote 50: Cosmos, I. 189, 40.]\n\nModern science, indeed, coming to the aid of the senses, can enable\nthem to attain the results of an almost inconceivable acuteness. Thus\nwhile quantity and comparison are inappreciable, or nearly so, by the\nunaided organs of sense, balances have been constructed with a\nsensibility so exquisite, as to turn with the thousandth part of a\ngrain, and yet pretend to no extraordinary degree of merit.\n[Footnote 51]\n\n  [Footnote 51: Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural\n  Philosophy, \u00a7 338.]\n\n{261}\n\nBy the aid of an instrument called a spherometer, which substitutes\nthe sense of touch for that of sight, an inch may be divided into\ntwenty thousand parts; and the lever of contact, an instrument in use\namong the German opticians, enables them to appreciate quantities of\nspace even yet smaller.  [Footnote 52] Instruments have been devised\ncapable of measuring intervals of time equal to the 1/1000 part of a\nsecond. By the revolution of a toothed wheel, striking against a piece\nof card, human ear is enabled to appreciate a sound which lasts only\n1/24000 of a second, and thus to measure that extremely minute\ninterval of time. [Footnote 53] Wheatstone, in the course of his\nexperiments on the velocity of the electric fluid, constructed an\napparatus which enables the eye to perceive an interval equal to less\nthan 1/1000000 of a second of time. The exact value of this almost\ninfinitesimal interval was ascertained and measured by the known\neffect of a sound of high high pitch upon the ear.  [Footnote 54] It\nis unnecessary to multiply such examples; but so many we have adduced,\nfor the purpose of demonstrating the extent of the world of physical\nobservation which lies forever concealed from the natural organs of\nsense. We owe this knowledge of their incapacity for more than a very\nlimited range of observation to the inventions of science, applied to\nremedy and supplement this very incapacity. Thus science tells tales\nagainst the human senses, of which a less inventive and informed age\ncould never have even dreamed.\n\n  [Footnote 52: Herschel's Discourse on the Study of Natural\n  Philosophy, \u00a7 338.]\n\n  [Footnote 53 Somerville's Connexion, etc., \u00a7 xvi. p. 147.]\n\n  [Footnote 54: Ib., \u00a7 xxviii. p. 325.]\n\nOnce more, (5.) the senses are not only restricted in their sphere of\naction, and incapable of penetrating beyond a certain limit into the\nmysteries of physical nature, but even within their own proper\nprovince of observation their indications are constantly false and\nerroneous; so that if we were implicitly to receive and adopt these\nindications, without due correction, our notions of the constitution\nof nature would be singularly wide of the truth. As they appear to the\nnaked eye, the sun and moon seem nearly of the same size; flat discs,\nabout as large as the crown of a hat. Uncorrected sense teaches us no\nmore; it furnishes no means of measuring either their absolute or\ntheir relative distance. But from other sources, we learn that one is\nabout four hundred times further off than the other; that the mass of\nthe one would fill a space bounded by double the orbit of the other;\nand that the centre of the sun is nearly half a million of miles\nnearer our eye than his limb, or the bounding line of his disc, a\nspace equal to more than twice the distance of the moon from the\nearth. The limits prescribed to himself, forbid the author to enlarge\non this interesting portion of his subject, which, however, he regrets\nthe less, that any one anxious to follow it out, will find an\nexcellent paper on \"Popular Fallacies,\" in Lardner's Museum of Science\nand Art, January 1854; a new scientific and popular serial, which has\nstarted under the best auspices, and deserves to be widely circulated.\n\nDid space permit, we might illustrate the fallacious teaching of the\nsenses regarding the phenomena of nature, by the corrections made\nnecessary in every scientific observation, as to the position of\ndistant objects, in consequence of the refraction or bending of the\nrays of light in their passage through the air, which has the effect\nof making distant objects in space seem higher than they really are;\nof the correction necessary for the aberration of light, depending on\nthe time taken to transmit it from a distant object in space; together\nwith others which enter into the daily experience of the observers of\nnature. Other circumstances also materially influence the impressions\nconveyed through the organs of sense. Thus a person going into an\nordinarily lighted apartment from the dark night, will be painfully\naffected by the brightness of the light {262} for a few moments; while\nanother, entering the same room from a brightly illuminated chamber,\nwill hardly be able for a moment or two to see anything. [Footnote 55]\nIf we plunge our hands one into ice-cold water, and the other into\nwater as hot as it can be borne, and after letting them stay a while,\nsuddenly transfer them both to a vessel full of water at blood heat,\nthe one will feel it hot, and the other cold. If we cross the two\nfirst fingers of our hand, and place a pea in the fork between them,\nmoving and rolling it about on a table, we shall be fully persuaded,\nespecially if we close our eyes, that we have two peas.  [Footnote 56]\nThe other senses are similarly affected by circumstances, so as to\nconvey erroneous impressions. Mrs. Somerville sums up the evidence on\nthis head in one word, when she remarks that, \"a consciousness of the\nfallacy of our senses is one of the most important consequences of the\nstudy of nature. This study teaches us that no object is seen by us in\nits true place.\" [Footnote 57] And elsewhere she adds, \"A high degree\nof scientific knowledge has been necessary to dispel the errors of the\nsenses .\" [Footnote 58] Herschel has the following remark in his\nOutlines of Astronomy:  [Footnote 59] \"No geometrical figure, or\ncurve, is seen by the eye as it is conceived by the mind to exist in\nreality. The laws of perspective interfere and alter the apparent\ndirections, and foreshorten the dimensions of its several parts. If\nthe spectator be unfavorably situated, as, for instance, nearly in the\nplane of the figure, they may do so to such an extent as to make a\nconsiderable effort of imagination necessary to pass from the sensible\nto the real form.\"\n\n  [Footnote 55: Carpenter's Manual of Physiology, \u00a7 93.]\n\n  [Footnote 56: Herschel's Discourse, \u00a7 72.]\n\n  [Footnote 57: Collection of Physical Sciences, \u00a7 xxv. p. 264.]\n\n  [Footnote 58: Ib.,  \u00a7 iv. p. 37.]\n\n  [Footnote 59: Chap. i. \u00a778.]\n\nThere is one form of illusion to which the senses are liable, so\nremarkable and irremediable as to deserve a moment's notice; we mean\ntheir erroneous testimony regarding motion. We have the authority of\nSir. J. Herschel for saying, that \"there is no peculiar sensation\nwhich advertises us that we are in motion. The rough inequalities in\nthe road are felt as we are carried over them, by the successive\nelevation and falling of the carriage; but we have no sense of\nprogress if we are prevented from seeing surrounding objects. The\nsmoother the road, and the faster the speed, the less able are we to\nfeel our motion forward. Every one must have felt this in night\ntravelling by the railway, or in a tunnel. In a balloon, with a steady\nbreeze, which merely propels, without gyration or oscillation, the\nmotion is described as a sensation of perfect rest. The same is\nobserved on shipboard, in still water or a calm. Everything goes on as\nif on land.\"  [Footnote 60] To complete the illusion, nothing is more\ncommon than apparently to transfer our own motion to the stationary\nobjects around us. This is peculiarly observable at railway stations,\nwhen a train first gently moves off. If another training is standing\nnear, and parallel to our own, it is impossible to tell which is\nmoving, our own, or the other in an opposite direction, without\ncalling in the age of a third object, to correct the doubtful or\nerroneous impression, by the direction in which it seems relatively to\nchange its place; or by examining the wheels of the other training. In\nthe same way, many persons, while witnessing a panorama, are painfully\naffected by the shifting of the scenes, which conveys to them an\nimpression as if the room were going round, and the picture remaining\nstationary. It was this illusion of the senses, as to motion, that\nperpetuated to a very late date the capital error regarding the\nsupposed circulation of the sun and planets round the on moving; the\ndispelling of which, by Galileo and subsequent observers, was the\ngreatest triumph ever achieved my philosophy over the empire of the\nsenses.\n\n  [Footnote 60: Outline of Astronomy, \u00a7 15, 16.]\n\n{263}\n\nThe simple matter of fact is this, that our senses were given us for a\ncertain definite and practical end, not for the acquisition of\nuniversal knowledge. We use them thankfully within their own domain,\nbut we should err by inferring that their indications are the measure\nof the true, or of the whole constitution of things: their teaching\nfalls far short of what exists in the universe of material nature;\ninto the world of spiritual existence and operation they have no\nmission to enter. Catholic doctrine, therefore, is in no worse\nposition, as regards the contradictions of the senses to the results,\nthan is the great mass of scientific knowledge; to deny the one is as\nunphilosophical as to deny the other, merely because the organs of\nsense fail to appreciate it, or afford indications directly contrary\nto it.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\n\nHOME AT LAST.\n\n  They gathered 'round the dying stranger's bed,\n  They heard his words, yet knew not what he said--\n          \"Oh! take me home!\"\n\n  With earnest looks they pressed his feverish hand,\n  And sorely grieved they could not understand--\n          \"Oh! take me home!\"\n\n  The busy host forgot his clamoring guests.\n  Wistful to answer this of all requests--\n          \"Oh! take me home!\"\n\n  The good-wife scanned the stranger's pallid face,\n  And wept. But to his meaning found no trace;\n          \"Oh! take me home!\"\n\n  The hostess' fair-haired daughter stood apart,\n  \"What can he mean?\" she asked her beating heart;\n          \"Oh! take me home!\"\n\n  \"Whence had he come? His name?\" None knew. And yet\n  He speaks in tones I never can forget--\n          \"Oh! take me home!\"\n\n  With timid step she softly neared the bed,\n  And took his hand. The stranger raised his head,\n            And deeply sighed.\n\n  Weeping, she sang a simple, childish rhyme.\n  He smiled and said: \"Jetzt bin ich endlich heim!\"   [Footnote 61]\n            And then he died.\n\n  [Footnote 61: I am home at last.]\n\n\n----------\n\n{264}\n\n\n\nTranslated from the Etudes Religieuses, Historiques et Litt\u00e9raires.\n\n\nTHE OLD OWL.\n\n\nWhen I was living in my native village, about twenty years ago, I made\nthe acquaintance of an old owl who lived in one of my forests. One of\nmy forests I say, and with good reason; for I was the only being who\ncould appreciate them, although a few landed proprietors in the town\nwere wont to make clearings therein, on the plea of having bought them\nand paid down certain moneys in the presence of our notary public.\nTherefore in my forest dwelt my owl, who was a personage of mature\nyears, and had first attracted me by the singular similarity of his\ntastes and opinions with mine. Our first meeting took place under\nrather peculiar circumstances. One evening, after belaboring my brains\nover some enigmatical Persian verses for hours, I left the house,\nstill conning over an enigmatical hemistich; and strolling on until I\ngained the edge of the forest, plunged in without noticing whither I\nwent. I might have wandered about all night, lost in the mazes of this\nmysterious satire, had not the sweet odors of a cherry tree in full\nblossom attracted my attention, penetrating through the olfactory\nnerves to the inmost recesses of my brain; even to the bump of\npedantry itself. This brought me to myself; and astounded to see how\nfar I had wandered at that late hour, I turned to go home at once; but\nthe tangled path and deepening shadows threw me into confusion, and at\nthe end of a quarter of an hour I found myself completely lost. \"Never\nmind,\" said I, yielding gracefully to circumstances, \"this is just\nwhat I meant to do;\" so on I plunged, through brake and thicket, until\nI reached the confines of the forest, where an ancient ruined castle\nfrowned down upon the valley, with my little village sleeping at its\nfeet. I sat down by one of the towers to rest, but had hardly drawn\none long breath, when there came a flapping of wings about my head,\nand raising my eyes I beheld--_monstrum horrendum_--an owl. He flew to\nthe left of me, fanning my cheek with his heavy grey wings.\nSuperstitious as an ancient, I turned instinctively that he might be\non my right and, so dreadful seemed the omen; but hardly had I yielded\nto this involuntary impulse, when good breeding warned me that the\nself-love of the work hermit might be wounded;--for an owl has\nfeelings as well as other people. But I was mistaken, he replied to\nthe insult only with a disdainful laugh; and perching himself on the\ntop of the tower, glared at me out of his red eyes with an expression\nof profound pity.\n\nThe laugh irritated me; so I said, wishing to recover his respect if\npossible, (and here in parentheses be it said that this narrative is\naddressed, not to those who maintain that animals cannot speak, but to\nsympathetic beings who enjoy the singing of birds in the woods, and\nunderstand their mysterious language; who know what various emotions\ntheir songs express; who listen, in short, with reverence to the\naccents of nature and respond to them;--to such of these we tell this\nauthentic tale, begging the vulgar herd to withdraw from the\naudience.)\n\nThen I said to the owl, \"Pray pardon my silly rudeness; I merely\nobeyed an instinctive feeling, without the least intention of annoying\nyou; on the contrary, it would really grieve me if you doubted the\nhigh esteem in which I hold you.\"\n\n{265}\n\n\"Where's the good of excuses?\" said he, shaking his head; \"if you\nreally wish to serve me, take yourself off and leave me in peace.\"\n\n\"I cannot go,\" said I, \"until you pardon my offense.\"\n\n\"And if I did pardon you\", rejoined he, \"what use would it be? But\nI'll do no such thing. I cannot forgive you for being a man, or for\nbeing here. Begone! you are a miscreant like the rest of your kind.\"\n\n\"You are a miscreant yourself!\" retorted I, \"and very unjust and\ndistrustful to boot. I never injured the smallest creature--I have\nbeen the unfailing defender of birds' nests against children and\nfowlers. I have incurred the contempt of mankind by my\nknight-errantry. At least I ought to be treated with common civility\nby those whom I have loved and protected.\"\n\n\"Oh, well! well! well!\" said he, \"don't say any more about it. You are\nyoung, and seem to be well-meaning enough. I will trust you and rue\nthe indiscretion at my leisure.\"\n\n\"You must have been unfortunate,\" I remarked respectively, \"to have\ngrown so distrustful.\"\n\n\"What's that to you?\" he answered shortly; \"my wretched story will do\nyou no good if you are destined to remain innocent; and if you are to\nbecome like other men, it will not touch you.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said I, thinking to tickle his vanity by a neatly turned\ncomplement, \"it would teach me wisdom and prudence. What less could I\nlearn from the favorite of Minerva and the protector of Athens?\" But\nmy Timon's wisdom was proof against assault, and he replied:\n\n\"You think probably to flatter me, but I never knew the goddess you\nmention. She was, I am told, is exceedingly turbulent person,\ncontinually whirling and setting up her heroes by the years. And what\nwere the Athenians but a set of frivolous, shattering magpies,\nincapable of forming a sound idea, or of putting it in execution if\nthey had.\"\n\n\"You seem to have a great contempt for mankind,\" said I, rather\nabashed at the failure of my little complement. \"What has shaken your\nfaith in us, if I might venture to ask?\"\n\n\"That is a long story,\" answered he; \"but I will tell it to you one of\nthese days if you and death can wait so long.\"\n\n\"Why not now? Everything is at rest; even the squirrels are sound\nasleep, coiled up in the beech boughs, unmindful of you and me.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said he snappishly, \"I'm too tired to think now. Besides, I\ndon't know you, nor what you would be at with your teasing questions.\nGo away and let me alone.\"\n\nFearing to vex him further and rouse his suspicions, I bade him\ngoodbye and retreated, promising to return the following night. The\nnext evening, just after sunset, I turned my steps toward the forest,\nand heard as I drew near the tower my poor hermit shooting out into\nthe darkness his dismal cry houloulou! houloulou! which was answered\nby a dreary echo.\n\n\"Poor old soul!\" said I to myself, \"it is frightful even to hear him,\nhis cries are so full of hatred, menace, and irony. Either he is\nwicked or--\" but I was standing at the foot of the tower and the voice\nof the solitary called out: \"Oh! is that you? It never occurred to me\nthat you would be so punctual. I must confess that your exactness\ncharms me.\"\n\nAnd from that hour the anchorite and I were bound together by the\nstrongest friendship. He told me that from the first he had felt drawn\nto me by a singular sympathy, but had vigorously resisted the\nattraction for fear of fresh disappointment. His words shocked me by\ntheir harshness, but our disputes were always friendly and his rebukes\nwere administered with a fatherly tenderness which touched me\nextremely.\n\n{266}\n\n\"But,\" said I one evening, \"what would become of society if we adopted\nyour maxims? The noblest friendship, the most heroic devotion, would\nbe but deceitful snares. We should see in our companions only knavery,\nhypocrisy, and treachery beneath a fair outside. And at this moment\nyou are not in harmony with your theories, for you are confiding in me\nwithout dreaming that while I speak to you I may be planning your ruin\nand destruction.\"\n\nHe smiled, and I believed him convinced; but a moment after the\ndoleful theme was resumed, and he was preaching his lamentable\ndoctrines as if I had not interrupted him.\n\n\"You are sincere and perhaps even virtuous now,\" he said. \"But that is\nno more than your duty, so you deserve no credit. I am so old in\nexperience that sometimes my wisdom seems to have been bought with\nevery drop of blood in my veins, and with every hope of happiness.\nNow, this is the fruit of my experience, which I will give you, and\nyou can digest it at your leisure. Have no friends--live by\nyourself--never marry--live in a village rather than in a city, and in\na forest rather than in either. You laugh, but let me tell you that it\nis no laughing matter, as you will find when you know the world as\nwell as I do; and you will know it one of these days, when experience\nhas come too soon and death too late for your prayers.\"\n\nSo spake the misanthrope, and I replied: \"We must take men as they are\nand life as we find it; remembering that other people's faults are\nsooner seen than our own, and that they have as much reason to shun us\nas we have to despise them. God made us to live with our\nfellow-creatures, and if each person followed out your dismal precepts\nthe world would become a vast solitude--a living tomb to engulf\nhumanity.\"\n\n\"Alas! young man!\" was his mournful reply, and it was only by dint of\nentreaty that I at last discovered the grounds of his grief and\ndisappointment. One beautiful evening lie told me his story. The\nforest was radiant with a sunset glow; and the little birds were\nhopping about and building their nests in the branches of the trees,\ntwittering and singing in the fulness of their joy.\n\n\"I was born,\" said he, \"in the very place where I live to-day, for the\none illusion, the supreme consolation that I have left, is a love of\nmy native land. I was hatched in that crumbling old tower yonder\ncovered with moss and ivy. My two brothers came into the world with\nme, and it was a dream of ours that we would go through life together,\nalways sacrificing private interest to mutual happiness: promises\nsuited to infancy and destined to be forgotten before youth had fled.\n\n\"We were the pride of our parents' hearts, and as we grew from day to\nday our mother gloried in our size and beauty--our father in the\nfancied promise we gave of strength and virtue. One day, when we had\ngrown old enough to take a little care of ourselves, our parents\naddressed these words to us: 'In another month, little ones, you will\nneed our help no longer, and will enter boldly upon life. Now listen\nto our directions: if we should die before you are old enough to take\ncare of yourselves, go to our neighbor, the old owl, who lives in the\noak that was struck by lightning last year, and who comes to see you\nsometimes. He will be father and mother in one to you, if a parent's\nplace can be supplied. And another piece of advice: never let a silly\ncuriosity prompt you to leave this wood and go in search of new\nplaces. Beyond this forest you would find treachery, misfortune, and\ndeath. Now mind and remember our words when we are taken from you, and\nnever forget the father and mother who have love you so dearly.'\n\n{267}\n\n\"All this made us cry so bitterly that we could hardly speak. The\nwords had a dreadful sound, though we did not know what they meant.\n'What was it all about?' thought we; and yet with a sense of dread and\nill omen, we promised with tears to follow their device. We pledged\nourselves to everything, and thought our fidelity unimpeachable--for\nchildhood has such unbounded faith in itself. Our parents rejoiced in\nour docility, and for several days our happy life continued unclouded.\n\n\"One evening they went out as usual to get food for us after saying\ngoodbye very tenderly. For a long time we awaited their return in\nvain, and fell asleep at last worn out with watching and listening.\nWhen we awoke they had not come back, and we asked each other in\nterror if this could be the eternal separation they had spoken of. The\nruins rang with our cries, and the mocking echo sounded to our excited\nfancy like the laugh of some mysterious enemy. Then hunger came to add\nbodily misery to our sufferings; and I made up my mind that I, as the\neldest, was bound to sacrifice myself to save my little brothers.\nTelling them to keep up their courage and wait for me patiently, I\nthrew myself boldly out of the nest and flew off in search of the old\nfriend of my mother and father. By help of all sorts of landmarks, I\nsucceeded at last in finding the shattered oak, but he, alas! was not\nthere; and trembling with fatigue I perched myself on a bough to wait\nin dumb resignation for whatever might come next. A few hours had\ntaught me life's bitterest lesson, and I felt a century older than the\nday before. At length, hungry and tired, and crazy with grief, I made\nmy way back to my brothers, who were waiting to tell me good news. Our\nold friend, our only protector now, was with them. From his hermitage\nhe had seen his two poor friends pursued by an eagle and torn with his\ncruel claws. Then he had remembered us and flown to our nest, bringing\nfood for us all. So my strength was restored, and I awoke once more to\nthe full vigor of life and suffering. When the first anguish of grief\npassed away, it was only to leave room for fresh trial and\ndisappointment. One day--it was in the beginning of June--I heard the\nbirds singing in the foliage, I saw on every side living beings\nenjoying life in the great forest, and the thought came to me for the\nfirst time that I too might mingle in the festival of nature. I flew\nout of the nest and perched quietly on an oak that stood at the edge\nof the glade where all the little birds had met together for a\nconcert. They were listening to a linnet; every one was attending in\nsilence to her joyous notes, and all, even to the nightingale, were\nfilled with admiration for the pretty songstress. And I too admired\nher. I too was penetrated with love for all these little birds who\nlooked so kind and good. 'How sweet it would be to live among them!'\nthought I, and I determined to give up solitude and come with my\nbrothers to live among them, to be their friend and admirer. Love\nseemed so sweet! Admiration of others so ennobling!\n\n\"Such were the thoughts in which I was luxuriating while the linnet's\nsong lasted. When she ended, I was still rapt in attention and cried\nout: 'Oh! how beautiful, how exquisite that is!' Hardly were the words\nuttered when they discovered me. In an instant I was surrounded,\nhustled, assailed, insulted in a thousand discordant voices.\n\n\"'An owl! an owl! Gracious, how ugly he is! What a queer sort of a\n_dilettante_! Just look at his solemn face and his great beak! and his\ngreat round eyes! and is feathers! He's too hideous--what a fright!\nThere's a _connoisseur_ for you! Ugh! the brute!\n\n\"'Let's peck him,' said the gentle nightingale.\n\n\"'Yes, yes, hurrah! let's peck him well!' assented the thrush.\n\n\"And then they all crowded round me--nightingales, woodpeckers,\nlinnets, thrushes, blackbirds, tomtits, even to the turtle doves and\nwood pigeons themselves. I felt the strokes of twenty beaks fall upon\nme. It was like a quarry. 'Alas!' thought I, 'can such cruelty be\nallied to such genius?' And I struggled wildly, stupefied, panting,\npowerless amid the furious rattle. At last I succeeded in disengaging\nmyself {268} and flew away in desperation to hide from my persecutors.\nNow at last I knew what evil was, and I asked myself, with odd\nsimplicity, you will say, if it was not the contrary of good. It was\ntrue, then, as I had heard so often, that there were wicked beings in\nthe world! Could it be true? And while such thoughts whirled\nconfusedly through my unlucky brain, I flew to confess my defeat to my\nold friend.\n\n\"'Oh, well!' said he, 'I don't blame you; you yielded to an impulse of\nyouthful confidence and learned a valuable lesson. Do you suppose that\nI don't see as well as you that spring is fair and this forest\nbeautiful, and the linnet's song enchanting, and that everything bids\nus be happy? I know it all very well, and yet I stay all alone in my\nhole while everything outside is singing and rejoicing. You would not\nbelieve my words, perhaps you will believe your own experience. You\nthought there was no wickedness in the world, only innocence and\nvirtue? Well, your ignorance came from a kind heart, and, after all\nyou are happier in being good than your enemies in being victorious.'\n\n\"'But--just heaven! why did nature make these wretches so beautiful?\nor rather, why did she make such beautiful creatures so wicked? Why is\nnot the perverseness of their hearts to be read on their faces?'\n\n\"'Ah, my son, that is a vexed question that many persons have agitated\nbefore now, and that no one has succeeded in solving. Why has nature\nmade the good ridiculous and the wicked handsome? The best way is to\nresign ourselves to what we cannot understand.'\n\n\"'And then,' said I, 'they said I was ugly enough to scare anybody.\nBut that cannot be true, for I look like my brothers, and my\nbrothers--\"\n\n\"'No, my son,' answered the hermit, smiling sadly, 'no, you are not\nugly; nothing on earth is ugly excepting cruelty and vice. The\nbeautiful goldfinch, with his ash-colored throat and yellow wings, was\nugly to-day, and the linnet too, and all the pretty little birds who\ntormented you so. Yes, they are hideously ugly; their hearts are black\nas night, lovely though the plumage may be that covers them.\n\n\"'Then am I condemned to close my heart to love forever? Must I live\nalone because there is wickedness around us?'\n\n\"'Alone, always alone,' he answered, 'otherwise you will have neither\nrest nor happiness. But don't fancy that you have any cause for\nlamentation or complaint on that account. See life, once for all, as\nit really exist, and accept reality instead of pursuing phantoms.\nWould you have every one resemble you? is every creature by to be the\nhero of some dream of yours? Ah! I see that you are not cured even\nnow.'\n\n\"He was right; I was not cured, if you choose to say so. Of course I\nhad to confess that the small birds were wicked, that they were as\ncruel as they were pretty, and that I must distrust and avoid them.\nBut I sought all kinds of plausible explanations of this incongruity.\nI said that they had received from nature genius instead of virtue,\nand that I had no more right to complain of their cruelty than they\nhad to ridicule my ugliness (for ugly I certainly must be) or my harsh\nvoice.\n\n\"And having persuaded myself of the truth of this, I flew away and hid\nmyself in the gloomiest part of the forest, weeping over my loneliness\nand in deceived hopes. And now my eyes were opened to another\ndelusion. To the society of my two brothers I had looked for\nconsolation in every trouble, but before long they declared that one\nhole was too narrow to satisfy their desires, and that they must seek\ntheir fortune elsewhere. In vain did I use and elder brother's right\nin dissuading them from this mad design. In vain I reminded them of\nthe fate of our parents who had perished in spite of every possible\nprecaution, and showed them how much more they would be exposed in\nthus throwing themselves in the way of danger. Nothing influenced\nthem--not even the memory of our vows of {269} mutual fidelity, not\neven any entreaties that they would not leave me alone in this dreary\nsolitude. One--the youngest and handsomest, my especial favorite--was\npossessed by some crazy longing for travel and foreign adventure. He\ndreamed of some land of promise where all would be good and happy; and\non the faith of these dreams he left us one day, bidding good-by to\nhis country, his cradle, and his only friends, to go in search of the\nUtopia he longed to find. I never saw him again. Did he find the\nobject of his desires? Did he die on the journey? I know not; but one\nthing we may be sure of--that fate cheated him of his wild and\nambitious hopes.\n\n\"My other brother left me to follow a scatter-brained young\nscreech-owl who had entangled him in her fascinations. He established\nhimself with her in a neighboring wood, but parted from me with a\nthousand protestations of eternal friendship and devotion.\n\n\"And thus I found myself in that enviable solitude which my sage\nfriend had recommended to me--left to myself and my own sad thoughts.\nI only went out toward evening to look for food, and then returned to\nmy gloomy hole and left it no more. But isolation, instead of making\nme courageous, only disgusted me more and more with the life I was\nleading. From the depths of my retreat, I used to watch with envy the\ngaiety and animation of other birds. Not that I dreamed of joining in\ntheir mirth, for my own experience of their society had taught me to\nkeep at a safe distance; but the sight of their enjoyment led me to\nbelieve that I might find companionship quite as agreeable without\nleaving my own circle. I mingled more and more among the other owls of\nthe forest; I visited them in their own homes, and counted the hours I\nspent with them and their families as so much gained against grief and\ndullness. My most intimate friendship was with a highly respectable\nfamily who lived not far from my castle, and especially with a young\nowl, the fourth child of venerable parents who had known and valued my\nunhappy father. Her sweetness and innocence made her very lovely in my\neyes. What was it to me that her beak was too hooked, her eyes too\nhollow, and her head angular! beauty is the form of the ideal, not a\nmaterial regularity. While autumn lasted I visited her every day at\nthe hole of her aged parents, and before long we were bound together\nby ties of indestructible love. In the midst of our happiness winter\nseparated us. What is winter? Why should this spoil-sport intrude on\nour fairest days? And yet, after all, nature has a right to be cruel\nand mischievous, since all her children are so! For several months I\nwas parted from her whom I loved; but as soon as spring returned she\nbecame my companion, and I brought her home to my bower, which was to\nserve me now as a nest and as the cradle of my children. There we\nspent blissful days, the happiest perhaps of my life. Soon the nest\nwas full; two newly hatched little ones raised their bald heads, and\nfilled the air with infantile cries. With what solicitude we watched\nover them! what care and anxiety we felt for these darling little\ncreatures! At last we had the happiness of seeing them open their eyes\nand look up at us with that knowing air of intelligence so enchanting\nto young parents. I thought that happiness was restored to me, and\nthat fate was tired of persecuting me. 'What matters now,' said I,\n'the cruelty of the world and its unjust disdain? Do I need any other\nhappiness than this?\n\n\"It seemed as if we could see the children grow from day to day, and\ntheir good health, noble mien, and cheerful disposition were fast\nfilling our cup of happiness to overflowing. One day their mother went\nout in search of food, leaving me to watch the nest, for they were as\nyet too young to be trusted alone. Hour after hour passed on, and yet\nshe did not return. I became very uneasy as I remembered my parents'\nfate, and at last, telling the children to be very {270} quiet and\nprudent, I sallied forth in search of her. Soon she appeared, flying\ntoward me at the utmost speed of her rushing wings. 'At last I have\ncome,' she cried, 'let us be grateful for my escape! A falcon has been\nchasing me for two hours past, and I only eluded his pursuit by hiding\nin the hollow of a tree. We must get back to the children as quick as\npossible.' And we hastened back to the nest. As we approached the\ntower, we heard--oh, horror!--sharp cries of pain, and recognized in\nthose screams the voices of our little ones; on we plunged, distracted\nwith fear; and saw the falcon--it was he--rising up into the air\nclutching in his horrid claws one of our children, the little\ncreature's blood dropping down about us, while he struggled and cried,\n'Mother!--Father!'--and then all was still, and the falcon sailed away\nout of sight.\n\n\"You think that was enough, but not so. When we reached the nest and\nlooked for the other one, there we found his poor little body\nstretched on the wall, torn open with a frightful wound. What shall I\ntell you? Wild with grief, we wandered for days about the forest,\ninsensible to rain or wind, to hunger or thirst, even to the mocking\nsneers of the birds who hunted us, pecking at us and tearing out our\nfeathers. What did we care for that or anything else?\n\n\"At last my companion said: 'If you have no objection, let us leave\nforever this hateful wood, which has brought us such misery and\nbitterness. Let us give up this odious world and find some other\nhome.' 'But where would you have us go?' I asked. 'If we have not\nfound peace in this retreat, why should we find it anywhere else? We\ncould not be more completely hidden in any other place than we have\nbeen here, and yet here we have been discovered. I don't feel like\nbeginning a new life nobody knows where.' 'Let us go among human\nbeings,' answered she. 'There, at least we shall find goodness,\ngenerosity, and greatness. Just think how admirable their towns and\nvillages are! To be sure I can only judge them by hearsay, but I have\nevery reason to suppose that we should meet with a cordial reception.\nThe very day the falcon chased me I took refuge in a hollow oak, and I\nlistened to the talk of two men who were sitting at the foot of the\ntree. You never heard anything so beautiful as their words! Anybody\ncould see that they were the kings of the animal creation. They were\ncomplaining of the mice that make such havoc among their bins and\ngranaries. Let us go and deliver them from these pests.' 'You have\nconvinced me,' I replied. 'Yes, we will go to mankind an serve them\nfaithfully. How they will respect us and reward our services.' And so\nafter taking a sad farewell of our old friend and adviser, who saw us\ndepart with many forebodings of evil, we winged our way through the\nforest. Toward evening we reached its outskirts and saw before us a\nvillage. We had reached our new country.\n\n\"We chose one of the largest barns in this village for our home, and\nat once opened a desperate warfare against the rats and mice who were\nattracted thither in large numbers by the provisions. This novel mode\nof life brought us so much occupation and distraction, that we had no\ntime to dwell upon our grief. Our courage rose once more, and we used\nto say to each other: 'What sublime beings men are! How grand are all\ntheir actions! They are born ignorant and they know everything! They\nare born feeble and they conquer nature!' These perfections formed the\nsubject of our morning talks when the night's work was over, their\nhospitality and goodness, our faithful devotion to them, and the\ngratitude it could not fail to win.\n\n{271}\n\n\"Little by little we became familiarized with our position and enjoyed\nit. The more we studied human nature the more we admired it's\nclemency, justice, and rectitude. One evening we ventured cautiously\nout of our retreat, and looked about the village. Before each window\nhung cages filled with solitary prisoners. There I recognized the\ncruel nightingale, the linnet who had caused me so much anguish, and\nmany other birds who had been in the habit of tormenting us in the\nforest. We returned home enchanted with our expedition. 'Here at last\nwe have found justice,' cried I. 'In this happy land the wicked are\npunished for their cruelty and prevented from doing further mischief;\nwhile the good are left free and happy. Why, there was not an owl to\nbe seen among the prisoners! We have reason to be grateful that at\nlast we have reached a haven of rest and tranquility.'\n\n\"We at once decided that I should go in search of our old friend, and\ninduce him to share our happiness. 'Poor soul!' we said, 'at last the\ndestiny which he has so long sought is within his reach. Now, at last,\nhe will see that our hopes of final happiness were not mere dreams.'\n\n\"A few nights after I set out on a visit to our friend in his obscure\nretreat. We parted full of joy in thinking of the good old solitary,\nwhose last days we were to make so peaceful. I flew at full speed, and\nreached the wood without fatigue. Full of hope, and picturing the\npleasant surprise my coming would arouse in him, I entered his\ndwelling quite suddenly, exclaiming, 'Here I am, father; I have come\nto take you away from this place, and show you that happiness which\nyou have always treated as a chimera.' 'Is it you, my son?' he said\nwith joyful astonishment, but in a weak, choked voice; and I saw that\na great change had come over him. A shutter ran through me. 'Oh, yes,\nit is I,' replied I cheerfully. 'We have not forgotten you, and we\nshall not be able to enjoy our happiness unless you are there to share\nit with us. Come, I will tell you the rest on the way. But what ails\nyou that you do not move?' 'Nothing, my son; it will soon be ended.\nBefore this day closes I shall be cured.' 'Cured!--why, are you ill?\nyou who were so strong and hearty!' 'The illness from which I am\nsuffering has always afflicted me,' he said, 'but the time of cure has\ncome; the physician is at hand.' 'The physician! what physician?'\n'Death,' he answered in a hollow voice. 'Death!' cried I, 'what do you\nmean? would you leave us? we cannot live without you. Oh, come away!\ncome with me! have you no pity on me?' 'Pity! yes, child, I pity you\nfor your youth, and because you do not stand where I stand now. It is\nyou who have no pity in holding me back from my repose. Let me rest,\nmy son, in the eternal peace of nature.'\n\n\"His head dropped forward heavily. He was dead. Dead at the moment\nwhen I offered him the accomplishment of hopes long since abandoned.\n\n\"I flew away horror stricken, as if an enemy were tracking me to\ndestruction; but what I fled from was planted in my heart never to be\nuprooted. The night fell--one of those dreary autumn evenings when\ncloud and mist contend for mastery. With a heart oppressed with grief,\nI returned to the scenes I had passed through so gayly a few hours\nbefore. What had I left? Parents, brothers, children, friends, all\ndead--my opinion alone remained to sustain and comfort me; to be\nconsoled and supported.\n\n\"Absorbed in these gloomy ideas, I reached the confines of the\nvillage. Afar off I recognized the hospitable roof that had given us\nshelter, and my heart beat with joy in spite of my affliction. But who\nwere that troop of children gathered before the barn door? What did\nthese cries of joy, and stamping of feet, and clasping of hands\nportend, and the smiling old folks looking on and encouraging their\nsports? Of course it must be some pure and virtuous amusement since\nchildren joined in it, so I flew on with a sense of kindly interest.\nAs the distance lessened, I thought I saw--I {272} knew I saw a bird\nbanging with outstretched wings on the born-door--nailed there,\nbleeding, dead. Oh! heaven's justice! my companion murdered! dead!\nbutchered! And that before the eyes of nature, under the light of\nheaven! And no protesting voice raised from the bosom of the earth! I\nhung about there, staring at the horrid sight with my heart turned to\nstone within me. As night deepened the children dispersed, and then I\nfell upon that inanimate form like a wild beast, and fastened upon the\nnails with beak and claws to tear their prey from them. My furious\nstruggles only served to lacerate me till I bled; and all the time the\ndead thing looked at me; its cold, fixed glassy eyes glared at me with\na cruel irony that scared me from the place. Yet night and day I\nwandered about the barn, and night and day watched that dreadful\nobject, until at the end of two weeks madness relieved me of reason\nand self-consciousness. Then I went away with a heart bubbling over\nwith hatred of humanity. Oh, that I could have clutched the human race\nin one single body within these claws, to tear out its eyes, devour\nits heart, and fling the carrion to be the sport of winds and\ntempests!\n\n\"The thread of my life was broken. What more had I to do with the\nearth, that wicked stepmother who gives us light only to make its\nglare insufferable. With frantic speed I rushed through the valley,\nand paused only when fatigue and hunger forced me to rest. I stopped\non the margin of a little stream shaded by bushy alders, while the\nturf along its edge was strewn with wheat. I drew near to eat, but\nhardly had I touched the earth when I felt myself caught and held\nfast, 'Well,' thought I, 'man would be unworthy of his name if he did\nnot use all his splendid gifts for the destruction of others. At least\nI will thank him for ridding me of life.' And then I fell into a\ngloomy stupor, and became indifferent to everything around me, while\nin my memory there arose visions of childhood--of the old nest in the\ntower of my parents, and the pretty little brothers whom I had vowed\nnever to part from; and as my heart swelled with the woeful regrets\nthese images brought up to me, I suddenly caught sight of the fowler\nrunning toward me in all haste, and at the same instant I beheld my\nbrother--my brother whom I had never seen since our childhood. A\ntransport of joy came over me; now I was safe, and he it was who would\nrelease me. We would fly away somewhere together and begin life over\nagain. Divine hope! it restored strength and courage to me. 'Brother,\nbrother!' I cried anxiously, 'here I am--come this way. Don't you see\nme?' He turned his eyes toward me. 'Why, is that you? Caught in a\ntrap, aren't you? I really wish I had time to stop and help you, but I\nam in full chase after a young owl who has given me considerable\nencouragement. You had better get out of that snare pretty quick, for\nthe keepers coming. Good-by till we meet again.'\n\n\"And now anything, everything seemed possible, explicable, credible.\nAll my other miseries faded away in view of this lie against\nfriendship, this insult to humanity, this blasphemy against pity.\n\n\"But after all is said and done, the instinct of life is of all\nfeelings the most irresistible. A moment before I had loathed\nexistence; now, when I saw the fowler draw near, I struggled wildly\nwith beak and claws and wings to save myself. In the presence of death\nthe sun looked bright to me once more, and life again seemed good. A\nfew more desperate springs and struggles and I was free--flying\nwhither? to my native forest, where I had first known misery and\ndisappointment, now my only companions. There all would be unchanged,\nI thought, except myself. I only should be hopeless, I alone gloomy\nand silent amid the undying joys of serene nature. But--ah me! when I\nreached the old place disappointment was lying in wait for {273} me\nthere too. The dear old nest was gone; the wall had crumbled away and\nwas strewing the mountain-side. The kindly ivy that sheltered us once\nwas crawling on the earth; the beeches had decayed and scrub bushes\nchoked up the place where they had stood. Everything in me and in\nnature was dead, and so nothing was left but to bid good b to memory\nand joy--aye, and to trouble too, for the matter of that.\n\n\"This was my last deception. From that day to this I have stagnated\nhere, learning, hoping, fearing nothing' Joy and sorrow are so far\naway in the past that they seem never to have belonged to me. And this\nis peace.\"\n\nThere was a long silence, broken only by the sound of my oppressed\nbreathing. At last the owl said, with a weary sigh:\n\n\"You wished to know my story. There it is, and you are welcome to the\nlessons it may give you. In the mean time I can only say that I pity\nyou--pity your innocence, your candor, and your destiny.\"\n\nAnd I replied, \"You are right. I know life now, and its promises shall\nnever delude me.\"\n\nHe smiled and repeated, \"I pity you.\"\n\nThis history impressed me profoundly. I rehearsed the miserable\ndetails, and saw in his life my own. I was the credulous being who had\ntrusted implicitly to life. The wretch who had sown kindness among his\nfellow men and reaped contempt, was again myself. Was I then to\nclamber the rocky path to the end only to see hope receding in the\ndistance? Society became to me every day more unbearable; I avoided my\ncompanions with horror, and their railleries, which up to that time I\nhad borne with indifference, seemed like so many poisoned arrows aimed\nat my heart. Intercourse with my old friend only increased my contempt\nfor men and existence; yet in tins mute revolt against nature and\nhumanity, I selected him as the sole confidant of my woes, and\ninvariably left him with a heart more bitter and oppressed than\nbefore.\n\nOne day, toward sunset, I was wandering through the great arches of\nthe forest, going as usual toward the retreat of my bosom friend. A\nserious silence was creeping slowly down from the tree-tops. The birds\nwere still, the winds asleep; no sound or sign of life to be anywhere\ndiscerned, except the crushing of dried leaves beneath my tread. And\nas I went dreaming on amidst this solitude, I heard in spirit the\nmelody of Nature dropping through the tender evening air, and I tried\nto give it words in this little song:\n\n  When Spring with loft maternal hand\n    Spreads all the earth with green,\n  And 'gainst the sun's too ardent gaze\n    Weaves many a leafy screen,\n\n  Build your neats, bright-plumed minstrels,\n    Forgetting not to praise\n  The bounty that so lavishly\n    Sheds gladness on your ways.\n\n  Think not, in missing old-time friends,\n    Some favorite bower or hedge,\n  That Nature has misused her power,\n    Or broken a sacred pledge:\n\n  This is Spring's immortality;\n    Youth must replace decay.\n  Grieve not that your turn too must come:\n    Less brief than bright your day!\n\n  Build your nests then, my chanters sweet:\n    Bloom flower, vine, and tree:\n  Let no discordant wail disturb\n    Spring's song of rapturous glee.\n\nI reached the hermit's cell. He was not there as usual, crouched on\nthe edge of his nest; and I called to him, thinking he had fallen\nasleep or wandered off, as he sometimes did, into a thicker gloom to\nmeditate. No answer. I stood on tiptoe and looked uneasily into his\nretreat. There I saw in the confusing obscurity a greyish, motionless\nmass. I laid my hand upon it, and what was my horror to find my\nfriend, my owl! I turned in upon him the last beams of the sun, hoping\nto rouse him. Alas! the light did not penetrate his eyeballs; the rays\ndid not warm his frigid form. I lifted him up; the head dropped\nlifelessly, the wings were rigid, the shrivelled claws were cramped\nand clenched with the death struggle. He was dead! he suffered no\nlonger.\n\n{274}\n\nI replaced him in his hole and stopped up its mouth with stones and\nturf, sweeping a great branch of ivy across this improvised tomb. When\nthe wall crumbles, soft verdure will shield those poor remains. Oh! my\ndear, tired owl! I could only give thee a tomb; sleep well and\npeacefully therein! And so I turned away, thinking of my old friend\nand of his reverses, precepts, sufferings, and misanthropy.\n\n\"Such is the term of existence,\" said I \"so end our joys and our\npains.\" But higher and higher in my soul swelled the song of the\nforest, until I cried, \"This is the voice of God, and he cannot lie:\"\nand entering into myself I understood at last the merciful and\nprovidential law that governs nature, attaching to each suffering a\nconsolation, to each pang a hope. To what was my contempt of life\nleading me? To the gradual debasement of my being, to a forgetfulness\nof the duties that God imposes on his creatures. Man is made for\nstruggle, and he who deserts the field is a coward. If his strength\nfails, can he not draw fresh force from prayer? Does our Heavenly\nFather ever forget his weary children? Yes, life is a hard, rough\nroad, but it leads straight to a goal where the sanctified soul shall\nfind reward and rest. My poor owl might well feel sour and\nexasperated, since death meant to him only the peace of nothingness;\nbut man has other destinies, and rebellion is for him unjustifiable\nrevolt. What matter passing trials to him who is to possess eternity?\nShould we not blush at our cowardice when we remember that the\ninfinite God is our consoler?\n\nAnd all these grave thoughts anent a poor bird of whom nothing is\nleft but a bunch of feathers! Well! there are days when a slight\nemotion makes the human heart spill over, like a full vase overflowed\nby one drop too much.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nSONNET.\n\n\n  And thou wouldst live for ever, poet soul\n  In love of human kind! What must thou do?\n  Look o'er the past, scan well whose worth is true--\n  Not those mere forms that with the ages roll--\n  And say what readst of them on Time's bright scroll:--\n  \"Names faint or fading, save a fadeless few,\n  Like rare Etruscan colors, ever new.\"\n  Yet tell me, seer, how shine the favored whole:--\n  \"Some glitter as the icy mountain peak\n  Remote, whence flow a thousand generous streams:\n  Some glow as morn or even, or blushing cheek\n  Of one beloved, or angels known in dreams;\n  These touch upon the universal--speak--\n  Lo! Nature, Love, Religion, are the themes.\"\n\n------\n\n{275}\n\nFrom The Month.\n\nTHE MUS\u00c9E RETROSPECTIF IN PARIS.\n\n\nIt is probable that there has never been an Exhibition so singular in\nits contrasted contents, so rich in market value, prepared so abruptly\nfor submission to public inspection, as that which, during the latter\nhalf of the year 1865, was to be seen in the Palais de l'Industrie in\nParis, under the name of \"_Mus\u00e9e Retrospectif_\" In a general way, its\ncharacter may be comprehended in England by a reference to the\nKensington Museum Exhibition of 1862, from which its conception was\ndrawn, and which it outstripped. Like that Exhibition, it came into\nexistence in especial connection with an institute the primary object\nof which is to promote the cultivation of art in connection with\nmanufactures. This was formed in Paris three years ago, under the\ntitle of \"_L'Union Centrale des Beaux Arts appliqu\u00e9s \u00e0 l'Industrie_;\"\nand under circumstances not a little curious, and not a little\ngratifying to those who have led on the great movement of improvement\nin art for the last quarter of a century in England. They will find\nthat it has come to pass that the best leading spirits among our great\nrivals have felt and admitted, with no little alarm, the success of\nthat movement, and the formidable competition with which it has\nthreatened their previous preeminence. The simplest and most sincere\nevidence of this appears in the published Report of M. Prosper Merim\u00e9e\nin reference to the London Exhibition of 1862, and the adoption of its\nsentiments by the conductors of that admirable periodical, _La Gazette\ndes Beaux Arts_. In that Report M. Merim\u00e9e, who was official reporter\nfor the French section of the International Jury, thus expresses\nhimself:\n\n  \"Since the Universal Exhibition in 1851, and even since that of\n  1855, immense progress has taken place in Europe; and although we in\n  France have not remained stationary, we cannot conceal from\n  ourselves that our lead has become less sensible, and is ever\n  tending to its termination. It is our duty to remind our\n  manufacturers that, however successful they may have been on this\n  occasion, they may possibly sustain a defeat, and that at no very\n  distant date, if from the present moment they fail to address all\n  their energies to the maintenance of a preeminence which can only be\n  secured by an incessant aim at perfection. English industrial\n  produce more especially, so markedly behindhand in point of art\n  previous to the Exhibition of 1851, has made in the course of ten\n  years _prodigious advancement_; and if it should so continue its\n  onward movement, we might find ourselves unexpectedly surpassed.\"\n\nThis startling avowal from an authority not to be contravened led,\namong other consequences, to such reflections as the following: \"The\ncontact of England and France, rendered so frequent by the Universal\nExhibitions of Paris and London,\" observes the _Gazette des Beaux\nArts_, \"will not be without its use in reference to a regenerative\nmovement now in contemplation, to which we wish to draw the attention\nof our--so contiguous to us in locality, so severed in habits--we\nhave learned how much can be done by a few men of resolute\npurpose--citizens generously devoted to the public good, and\nunrestricted in their freedom of action. This lesson was well\ncondensed in the words, often quoted, of a sovereign who has passed a\nportion of his life in England, {276} and has brought from thence\ncertain English conclusions; namely, 'Individual initiative, urging on\nits plans with indefatigable ardor, saves Government from monopolizing\nthe management of the vital energy of the nation. . . . Stimulate,\nthen, among individuals an energetic spontaneity for promoting all\npurposes having in view the beautiful and the useful.'\"\n\nThe result of the very pregnant views thus unreservedly avowed has\nbeen an effort in emulation of that much-commended individual vigor of\noperation; and accordingly a small band of artistic and literary\nFrenchmen, led on by a distinguished and very zealous architect, M.\nGuichard, constituted themselves the nucleus of a society the great\naim and object of which is an incessant application of the most\neffective means for fertilizing the wide domain of native art and\nmanufacture, so as to sustain it in its present rich power of\nproductiveness. They have assumed the name of _L' Union Centrale des\nBeaux Arts appliqu\u00e9s \u00e2 l'Industrie_. They have instituted a museum for\nthe collection and exhibition of all manner of objects akin to their\nundertaking, where lectures are to be systematically delivered to the\nsame end.\n\nIn fine, they have developed so rapidly in their proceedings, that\nthey have designed, and we may say founded, a college wherein special\neducation and special distribution of honors are to be dispensed to\nstudents of industrial art. Until a suitable structure for this has\nbeen erected, within which the Society will establish its centre of\naction, its headquarters are in that quaint and spacious square in the\nMarais de St. Antoine Quartier of Paris, the Place Royale; noted for\nits clever white marble equestrian statue of Louis XIII., and recently\nderiving a melancholy interest from being the death scene of Rachel.\n\nIn addition to these great projects for permanent organization, of\nwhich the germs will be found at the Adelphi and South Kensington,\nthat special Exhibition of 1862 in the latter quarter, the success of\nwhich was so extraordinary, and we may add the influence of that noble\ndisplay of mediaeval ecclesiastical art which which was to be seen at\nMalines in 1864, were the occasions of suggestions which fell most\nproductively upon the zealous minds of our projectors. It was deemed\nexpedient in the councils of the Place Royale, that Paris too should\nhave its \"Retrospective\" exhibition. The French government, eschewing\nall jealousy of this independent association, lent its help as soon as\napplication was made: and Marshal Vaillant placed at its disposal\nabundant space for the proposed undertaking in the large saloons of\nthe Palais de l'Industrie.\n\nIt was not, however, without some apprehensions of success in their\nexperiment--without some nervous misgivings as to the realizing of\nways and means, and winning the loan of the treasures of antique vertu\nfrom their possessors, that they entered upon their work. However, _en\navant_ was the word, and full success ensued. The undertaking had the\ngood fortune to win favor in four quarters of immense influence--the\nEmperor, Prince Czartoriski, the Marquis of Hertford, and the Messrs.\nRothschild. When this became known, it acted as an \"open sesame\" to\nthe masters of lesser stores; and from that time streams of\nundreamt-of and unhoped-for valuables came pouring in upon the\nsociety, until at length an inconvenient overflow seemed imminent, and\nit became necessary to select and decline. The ultimate result,\nhowever, was, that the accommodation of twelve large saloons was\nabsolutely exhausted by the contributions; and it has been estimated\nthat the whole might realize on sale something like a million and a\nhalf of  pounds sterling.\n\nIt was a patent defect of this Exhibition, that works of the same kind\nwere not classed together. This was in consequence, doubtless, of the\nexactions of contributors. Each proprietor of a collection of\ntreasures, however various and unconnected their contents, required,\nboth for safety's sake and with {277} a pardonable vanity, that his\nown galaxy should shine apart The spectator, therefore, was for a\nwhile bewildered in discerning the various elements of this vast and\nmost miscellaneous collection.\n\nA small, neatly arranged selection of stone-weapons stood as a\nfoundation for the whole. From this we had to pass by a prodigious\nbound--for the next element was excellence itself, the masterpieces of\nGreece. The collection of these, if brought into one range and\nreceptacle, would have been sufficient to constitute a most valuable\nMuseum of statuettes, vases, and other objects--some of perfect\nbeauty. We cannot in a brief sketch like this attempt any detailed\ndescription, which could but be tantalizingly imperfect. We may make a\nstatuette of Minerva, thus noted as No. 98 of the catalogue: \"_Ath\u00e8ne\nToromachos; reproduction du Xoanon, conserv\u00e9 dans le Temple\nd'Erechth\u00e9e. Bronze fondu en plein, du travail le plus archa\u00efque. Un\ndes plus vieux bronzes grecs connus_.\" With what pardonable veneration\nmight not the lover of the Greek marvels of art bend over this, \"one\nof the oldest Greek bronzes known\"!\n\nAnother violent leap of transition brought us from the schools of\nPhidias and Praxiteles to the middle ages and the renaissance period.\nHere, again, the contributions were profuse. In the former the ivories\nwere of much interest--diptych, poliptych, and single subject--in\nwhich the deep sincerity of sentiment of their era struggled through\nand gave sterling value to imperfect art. All these, as well as the\nlarger portion of other works of the same time, were connected with\nsacred subjects. Although not equal, upon the whole, the Malines\ncollection, there was here abundant food for deep meditation and\nadmiration. Here, as there also, was a commemoration of the murder of\nSt. Thomas--a reliquary in the form of a rectangular box of silver,\ngilt and embellished with niello, its cover pyramidal, topped with a\nlarge garnet stone, surrounded by a setting of pearls. On either\nlarger side was pictured the slaying or the entombment of the martyr,\nwith inscriptions. Figures of angels completed the ornaments of this\nchoice work, which has been attributed, with some doubt, to a German\nhand of the twelfth century.\n\nNumerous works in iron, of the twelfth century, many of great beauty\n--others in brass, silver, and gold, together with specimens of enamel\nand jewelry, of middle-age handling, were exhibited on this occasion.\nFew, however, of the curiosities of this period drew more attention\nthan the manuscripts in simple scroll or illuminated. The greater\nportion of these came from the collections of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot\nor M. Le Carpentier. The Marquis de Ganay sent one article worth a\nhundred others, viz., the Books of the Gospels which had belonged to\nCharlemagne, and which, as tradition tells us, were wrung from the\nabbey of St. Maurice d'Argaune in the civil wars of the fourteenth\ncentury. On one side of its binding was a gold plate, impressed with\nthe figure of Christ Blessing--a work of the ninth century. It was\nalso adorned with a set of uncut precious stones, added in the twelfth\ncentury. Near to this were the Gospels, written in the eleventh\ncentury at the monastery of Ottenbeuren in Swabia, in characters of\ngold and silver. A copy of Josephus, from Saint-Tron in the province\nof Lemberg, Belgium, of the twelfth century, was also extremely fine.\nAn Italian manuscript of the fourteenth century was also there,\nwritten on vellum, with ornamental capitals and miniatures--the\nrevelations of St. Bridget Among these precious works not the least\nsingular was a _Livre d'heures_ on vellum, having 330 pages,\nillustrated and ornamented with as many different subjects. Of these,\nfifty-six were taken from the Dance of Death. This was a work of the\nfifteenth century, and, strange to say--whether in melancholy jest or\notherwise--had been presented by Louis XV. to his physician Dr. Mead.\nThe works of the renaissance and subsequent period, in this\ncollection, {278} were most numerous in what may be termed miniature\nobjects--light branches and lovely blossoms springing from the great\nmain trunks of painting and sculpture. For them chiefly, so full of\nwinning instructiveness, this _Mus\u00e9e Retrospectif_ would seem to have\nbeen especially got up. They appeared in forms of gold, silver, and\nmuch more cherished bronze, in ivory, and again the happier vehicle\nwood, in crystal and in glass, in steel, in gems and miniatures, in\nenamelled terra cotta, in furniture, in time-pieces, in tapestry, and\nnumberless other ways.\n\nThe bronzes, scattered among the collections on every side, were\nadmirable. The miniature model of an equestrian statue--a condottiere\nleader by Donatello--was universally felt to be a model in that most\ndifficult branch of art. It excited an absolute _furore_ amongst the\ncritics. In contrast to its graceful swing of boldness, there was a\n_basso relievo_ from an unknown hand, representing the figure of\nCharity--a draped female figure--clasping a child to her bosom\ncaressingly, while other fondlings of the like age cling round her\nneck and her knees. Exquisite sweetness of expression is here found\nunited to perfection of form and masterly arrangement of elaborate\ndrapery. Yet the author is wholly unknown. Numerous statuettes\nsustained the honor of this class. We pass them to note three\nbusts--full size--which could not fail to arrest the attention and\ncommand the deep admiration of every amateur or artist who passed\nthrough these saloons. The first was that of Beneviani, an Italian\nnoble of the fifteenth century; the second, of Jerome Beneviani, a\npoet and philosopher of the sixteenth century; the third, of the great\nBuonarotti. The rigid adherence to nature, full of sincere force of\nexpression, impressed on all three, compelled one to pause and ponder\nand commune with character so deeply significant. Such busts leave\nimpressions not easily to be effaced, and are most instructive to the\nsculptor.\n\nThe great strength of this Exhibition lay, however, not so much in the\nsubjects to which we have alluded as in its singular profusion of\nexamples in the vast field of pottery and Limoge enamelling. It is\nprobable that never have so many and such various specimens of both\nthese branches of art been hitherto brought together. It is but just\nto say, that by far the greater part of the voluminous array had\nattached to it the names of Baron G. Rothschild and M. Alphonso\nRothschild. Every variety of pottery or porcelain having any claim to\nreputation (with the exception of our own English works) seemed to\nhave here, in one quarter or another, its representative.\n\nHere were Moorish and Hispano-moresque vessels, comparatively rude in\ndesign and tinting, from which the great susceptibility of Italian art\ndrew its first inspirations. Then came the majolica, in all its\nprogressive modifications; the varnished sculpture of Luca della\nRobbia; the relievo of Palissy, of which we had here every contrasted\nvariety of subject, and all the different schools of Italy fully and\nmost interestingly illustrated. The value attached to some of the\nrarer specimens might be thought fabulous were we not familiar with\nthe extravagances into which the long-pursed amateurs are led, in\ntheir devotion to the singular, if not the unique. Thus there appeared\nin the treasury of the Rothschilds a morsel--a small candlestick--of\nthe almost extinct _faience_ of Henry II., to which, it was affirmed,\nthe value of forty thousand francs was attached. If the whole thirty\nor so subsisting specimens of this rarity were swept away, what, in\npoint of general grace of form, elegance of linear detail, or delicacy\nof color, would be lost to the world? Something infinitesimally\ninconsiderable. Around this precious relique there was a wondrous\nprofusion of Limoges enamels, belonging to various persons, and\nexhibiting in every degree the beauties of that exquisite specialty of\n{279} art applied either to portraiture or five historic or sacred\nsubject. These, indeed, deserve to be cherished with watchfulness and\naffection.\n\nAmong other contributions to this Exhibition were a large collection\nof fine Chinese and Japanese curiosities, to which with great truth\nthe title _Retrospectif_ could be affixed. They combined admirably\ngreat strength of construction with charming delicacy of\nembellishment.\n\nIn contrast to all these gentler productions of human genius came the\nspecial contribution of the emperor, presenting art and ingenuity as\nhandmaidens to war--not as ministering to the amenities or luxuries of\npeace. In other words, it gave, in review, a complete array of the\nheaviest heavy armor of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries--some\nthirty suits, standing cap-\u00e0-pie--illustrating the period when almost\nthe entire frame of the man militant was encased in metal plates;\nwhen, consequently, to fall in battle was but too much after the\nfashion of Lucifer--never to rise again, unless as a prisoner, or\nunless assisted from mid m\u00eal\u00e9e by the smart hands of some sturdy\nsquire, and thus once more restored to the perpendicular on the back\nof that singular hippogriff, a horse in armor. In this collection of\npanoplies the variety of helmets was most striking--some singularly\nextravagant in their steel contour, and all with as little\naccommodation as possible for the functions of breathing or seeing. A\nfew offered most ludicrous mockeries of the human face divine, a nose\nalone projecting in Roman ruggedness: truly an iron joke. Among the\nrest, a German tournament-casque was conspicuous. It belonged to the\nsecond half of the seventeenth century, was wholly of silver, and\nrichly ornamented both in carving and indenture. This gem of the\ncollection was, it appears, a present from the empress to the emperor.\n\nThe armor of the central and most conspicuous group in the saloon had\nthe like honor. It presented a knight on horseback--man and horse in\nfull panoply, and an attendant man-at-arms. It seemed intended to\nunite the aspect of lightness with genuine metallic strength. A\ntradition is connected with it: that at a period when the progressive\ndevelopment of the fatal use of fire-arms, of cannon, arque-buss,\npetronel, and pistol, had gradually weakened faith in the utility of\nthe chivalric steel coat, Louis XIII. and his potent minister Cardinal\nde Richelieu were both staunchly true to the olden creed of the olden\ntime, where\n\n  \"None of your ancient heroes\n    Ere heard of cannon-ball.\n  Or knew the force of powder,\n    To slay their foes withal;\"\n\nand it was thought expedient by both that his majesty should have this\nsplendid model-suit made, in order to use influence of the most potent\nkind against the new martial heterodoxy. The progress of time has\nproved how vainly the recalcitrant effort was made. The great\nexplosive agent has prevailed--until at length, in our own time, the\nmanagement of the _bouches \u00e0 feu_ is the beginning and end of all\nscientific strategy; and even the cuirassier--the last of the\nsteel-clads--is surmised to be on his last legs.\n\nWhile thus on one side of this saloon these numerous examples of armor\nwere ranged--a terrible show--and the helmets occupied, in close\nmuster, an encircling shelf, the _arme blanche_ had its honors\nsustained by a series of radiating groups attached to the walls, in\nwhich blades of Italy, Germany, and France, with matchless Toledo\nrapiers, showed their quality unsheathed. The thrilling simplicity of\nthe cold gleaming steel in these deadly implements was, in many\ninstances, strangely contrasted with the exquisite artistic\nelaboration of ornament upon their hilts. This anomaly was completed\nby the adoption, for this purpose, of subjects taken from Holy Writ,\nand the most tender illustrations of religious charity, sculptured in\ngold or silver, or tinted in the most delicate enamel. Thus we found\n{280} upon one the for phases of the Prodigal Son's career admirably\ncomposed in miniature _basso relievo_. One sword of this kind could\nnot fail to hold attention. It had been sent to Henry IV. by the pope\non his abjuration. On its pommel two metals were inserted--the one\nhaving for its subject the Crucifixion, the other the Resurrection. On\nother metals, combined with the hilt, were represented the\nAnnunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi,\nand the Circumcision. Finally the portrait of Henry himself was\nintroduced supported by Angels.\n\nHere also was the blade of a different man, and of a different import,\nonce grasped by the strong hand of Charles XII. Of Sweden, vigorous\nfor cut, or subtly tempered for trust [thrust?]. No mincing ornament\nof delicate tracery embellished its hilt; but it was appropriately\nwreathed with oak foliage in iron, and it bore an interlaced cipher of\nC's, surmounted by the words, _Soli Deo gloria_.\n\nThis weapon,\n\n  \"A better never did itself sustain\n  Upon a soldier's thigh,\"\n\nwas worn by Charles at Bender, and was given by him to General\nMayenfelt. It was presented to the Emperor Louis Napoleon by the\npresent King of Sweden.\n\nAssociated with these specimens of the _arme blanche_ were\nwell-preserved examples of the cross-bow and earlier invented\nfire-arms, with their attendant accoutrements; the whole forming an\nextremely rich set of illustrations of the centuries to which it more\nespecially referred.\n\nTake it for all in all, this room was pregnant with suggestion. No\nextraordinary susceptibility of imagination was required for one\nlingering over its relics to shadow forth fearful episodes without\nnumber of tale or history connected with these crowded weapons of\nslaughter.\n\nIndependent of this splendid collection of arms, there were many\nothers among the miscellanea of the Exhibition. By far the finest\nbelong to the Marquis of Hertford, figuring conspicuously in the\nchamber specially devoted to _chefs-d'-oeuvres_ contributed from that\nnobleman's collection; and evidencing that it was not alone on\nmasterpieces of painting that it could depend for its well-merited\ncelebrity. The most prominent arms here were Circassian helmets and\nsabres, all fresh in brilliant preservation, as if they had just come\nfrom the anvil or workshop; the former more particularly remarkable\nfor their exquisite inlaid golden tracery, the latter for their\ngorgeous richness of minute carving. These, with many other specimens\nof Oriental ornament--creeses, poniards, or scimitars, here enclosed\nin glass cases--almost compelled one to the conclusion that in the\nEast there is a more delicately inventive genius for ornamentation\nthan can be found in Europe. This we may again see exemplified in the\ncarpets of Persia, the shawls of Cashmere, and in the muslins of\nHindostan, gleaming with fire-fly splendor of metallic foliage.\n\nHaving dwelt on the specialties of warlike equipment, the footsteps of\nthe visitor were led to the last of the saloons, and found it\ndedicated, in almost monumental melancholy, to reminiscences of Polish\nroyalty. Members of the Czartoriski family, Prince Ladislaus, and the\nPrincess Iza, had furnished forth almost all the contents of the\ncases, which lined three sides of the apartment. A very copious\nmiscellany of jewelry and ornaments in gold and silver--some singular\nfor their artistic beauty, and others for their quaint antiquity--was\nhere to be seen. Of special note amongst the former was a charming\nmorceau of jewelry, wherein the letter A, standing for Auguste, was\nset in diamonds, and supported by two exquisite enamel infant figures,\nattributed to the hand of Benvenuto Cellini. Also a chain which had\nbelonged to Maria Louisa Gonzaga, enameled and enriched with pearls\nand precious stones. {281} For purity of taste this could impeach with\nthe best French works of its class of the sixteenth century. It was\nnot, however, with a critic's eye, but with painful historic musing,\nthat one contemplated these objects. Here was the ivory sceptre of\nKing Frederick Augustus; and here also a flagolet, in the like ivory,\nthat had been fingered and blown by the same sovereign. Here a great\nsilver goblet, with portraits inserted in its indentures of two kings,\nSobieski and Korybut. Here a fair cross of sapphire and a chain of\nAnne de Jagellon; and here, not the glass slipper, but the\ncrimson-velvet shoe--thick, as if the Chinese model--of good Queen\nHedwige. Here was the most splendid of field-marshal's batons--as long\nagain as those of modern times--of ebony enriched with diamonds, and\nbearing a kingly cipher. Here were a brace of pistols that once had\nbeen clasped by the vigorous hand of Saxe; and here a watch and chain\nrecall to mind the poets tribute--\n\n  \"And freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell.\"\n\nThese gems and all this orient pearl and gold once gave brilliancy to\nscenes such as are long since passed away from the festivities of\nPoland. These veteran sword-blades vainly remind us of the noble race\nof warriors by whom the reckless Turk was swept back from the walls of\nVienna, and the possible conquest of Europe arrested. They all,\nhowever, tell the old and ever-to-be-repeated tale. Like other\nvaluables of Royal Association, with which this _Mus\u00e9e Retrospectif_\nwas in every quarter redundant--forgetting that pretty, ivory-piped\n_cornemuse_ or bagpipe, knotted with its still unfaded green ribbons,\nwhich once made music to the touch of Marie Antoinette--they express\nwith mute melancholy eloquence the stern old apothegm, _Sic transit\ngloria mundi_.\n\n\n\n--------\n\nMISCELLANY.\n\n_The Colosseum and St. Peter's_--Now when I recall my impressions of\nRome, I find only two that efface or at least predominate over the\nothers: the Colosseum, the work of the Roman people, and St. Peter's,\nthe master-peace of Catholicism. The Colosseum is the gigantic work of\nan almost superhuman people, who, in a ferocity of pride and pleasure,\nerected only such buildings as contained an entire nation, rivaling\nnature, if possible, in massiveness and duration. The Tiber would have\ndrained the mud of its banks, that the Colosseum might command it\nforever. But St. Peter's is the work of a thought, of a religion, of\nan entire humanity, at an epoch of the world. Not an edifice simply to\ncontain an ignoble people, but a temple admitting all of philosophy,\nof prayer, of grandeur--every aspiration of man. The walls themselves\nseem to rise and grow, not in proportion of a people, but a God.\n\nMichael Angelo alone has understood Catholicism, and in St. Peter's\nhas given it its most sublime and complete expression--an apotheosis\nin stones, the monumental transfiguration of the religion of Christ.\nThe architects of gothic cathedrals were sublime barbarians--Michael\nAngelo a philosopher in conception. Saint Peter's is itself\nphilosophical Christianity from which the divine architect chases\ndarkness and superstition, and bids enter the imperishable stream of\nbeauty, symmetry, and light. In its incomparable beauty--a temple that\nmight serve any worship, a temple deistical, if I may use the word\napplied to stones--God himself reclothed in his splendor. Christianity\nitself might perish, but St. Peter's would still remain the eternal,\nuniversal, and rational temple of whatever religion succeeded\nChrist's, provided that religion was worthy of God and humanity. The\nmost abstract Temple that ever human genius, inspired by divine ideas,\nhas constructed here below. {282} When one enters, one knows not if it\nis ancient or modern. No detail offends the eye, no symbol distracts\nthe thought. Men of all religions enter with the same respect;\nsufficient to know the idea of God alone pervades it, and none other\ncould occupy the place.\n\nChange the priest, take away the altar, detach the pictures, carry off\nthe statues--nothing is changed, it is always the house of God, or\nrather, St. Peter's is to him alone the great symbol of that eternal\nChristianity, which in influence and sanctity is but the germ of\nsuccessive developments of the religious thought of all men and every\nage; and in proportion as God has illuminated it, so it opens to\nreason, communicates with him in this light, enlarges and elevates\nitself in proportion to the human mind, growing endlessly, gathering\nall people in a unity of adoration more and more rational, and making\nof each form of divinity an only God, of each age a single religion,\nand of all people a single humanity. Michael Angelo is the Moses of\nmonumental Catholicism, and as such will one day be understood. He has\nconstructed the imperishable arch for the future--the pantheon of\ndivine reason.\n\nLAMARTINE.\n\n\n\n_Oriental Translation Committee_.--An attempt is being made to\nresuscitate the operations of the Oriental Translation Committee. The\nOriental Translation Fund was established in 1828 by several Oriental\nscholars and others interested in Eastern literature, \"for the\ntranslation and publication of such works on Eastern history, science,\nand _belles lettres_ as our inaccessible to the European public in MS.\nform and indigenous language.\" This scheme received at first very\nconsiderable support, and the reigning sovereign has from its\ncommencement always been the patron of the undertaking. During a\nperiod of thirty-two years the committee have published, or aided in\nthe publication of more than seventy translations. Of these many are\nhighly valuable, all are curious and interesting, and several of them\nare of such a nature, that without the aid afforded by the Society\nthey could scarcely have been undertaken. The Sanskrit translations\ninclude those of the Sankhya Karika, Rig Veda, and Vishnu Purana.\nAmong those from the Arabic, are found the travels of Ibn-Batuta, and\nof the Patriarch Macarius, Al-Makkari's history of the Mohammedan\nDynasties in Spain, and the extensive Lexicon of Hajji Khalfa. There\nare also on the list translations from the Persian, Syriac, Ethiopic,\nArmenian, Chinese, and Japanese languages. For the last two or three\nyears no work has been issued from the press of the society, nor is\nany one preparing for publication; but as there are signs in the\nliterary world of a renewed interest in Oriental learning, the\ncommittee invite[s] the special co-operation of all those who are\nanxious to bring the East and West into a still closer communion with\neach other--_London Reader_.\n\n\n\n--------\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS.\n\n\nELEMENTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.\nBy Henry Wheaton, LL.D., Minister of the United States at the Court of\nPrussia, corresponding member of the Academy of Moral and Political\nSciences in the Institute of France, honorary member of the Royal\nAcademy of Sciences at Berlin, etc. Eighth Edition, edited, with\nnotes, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., LL.D. 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 749. Boston:\nLittle, Brown & Company. 1866.\n\nWhoever will examine Fulbecke's Pandects of the Law of Nations,\npublished at London in 1602, which the author styles the first, to his\nknowledge, that hath been written on this subject, and compare it with\nthe first addition of Wheaton's International Law, published in 1836,\nmust be astonished at the great progress which has been made in this\nmost interesting science in a period of two centuries and a third. But\na glance at Dana's Wheaton will satisfy the most superficial Inquirer\nthat the last thirty years have still more fully develop the\nprinciples of that code of law which professes to find the nations of\nthe civilized world.\n\nMr. Dana has well and faithfully performed a duty, requiring for its\nproper {283} and efficient discharge talents of the highest order. He\nhas produced a book which will be read with interest, not only by the\nprofessional man, but by the general reader; for he treats on subjects\nthat the people of the United States are, at the present time, and\nhave been for the last five years, more nearly concerned with than\never before in the history of their government. And as the work is\nedited with signal ability, it is the more to be regretted that, in a\nTreatise on International Law, Mr. Dana has deemed it proper to\nincorporate his own political opinions on a question not of\nInternational, but of American Constitutional Law.\n\nOn pages 82 and 85, in a note on the United States as a supreme\ngovernment, the editors says:\n\nThe United States \"is a new state or government, acting directly upon\neach individual, by its own officers and departments, in the execution\nof its own laws. Within its sphere it acts as if there were no\nseparate states in existence. _It is also the final judge in a dispute\nbetween itself and a state as to the limits of its sphere of action.\"_\n\n\"The civil war saw the final and complete establishment of that\nconstruction of the Constitution which makes the United States a\n_State_ in the scientific sense of the term, having direct authority\nover each citizen, to be exercised by its own officers independently\nof the states; and a right to the direct allegiance of each citizen,\nfrom which no state action can absolve him; _with the right to\ndetermine the limits of its own jurisdiction_; with no appeal from its\ndecision except through constitutional methods of altering the laws,\nor the administration, by the ballot, or through public revolution.\"\n\nThe editor entirely ignores the theory that the federal government is\none of delegated powers, as well as the 10th article of the amendments\nto the Constitution, by which it is declared that \"the powers not\n_delegated_ to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited\nby it to the states, are _reserved_ to the states respectively, or to\nthe people.\" If the federal government has this exclusive right to\ndetermine the limits of its own jurisdiction, then has this provision\nof the bill of rights become nullity. Besides, the argument is an\nillogical one; if it be once admitted the powers of the federal\ngovernment are _delegated_ powers, it is difficult to maintain the\ntheory that either an individual, or a government acting by virtue of\ndelegated powers, is competent to decide, without appeal, on the\nextent of the powers delegated. There is always this great question to\nbe solved, Have the people delegated such a power? If not, how can the\ndetermination of the federal government, that the people have done so,\nbe construed to confer it?\n\nIf Congress should, by statute, enact that the presidential term of\noffice should continue during the life of the incumbent, and the\nexecutive should ratify the act, and the judiciary decide that it was\na constitutional exercise of the powers delegated, inasmuch as the\nfederal government has the exclusive right to determine the limits of\nits own jurisdiction, would any sane man believe that this could give\nefficacy to such a gross usurpation?\n\nBut it is useless to follow out the argument; the mere statement of\nthe principal is its own reputation.\n\nNor has the Civil War just ended established any such principle.\nSlavery has been abolished as a result of the war, but this has been\ndone under the forms of the Constitution. The heresy of secession has\nalso been overthrown forever; this, however, has been accomplished,\nnot by virtue of any power in the federal government to determine the\nextent of its own jurisdiction, but because the majority of the people\nof the North have decided in favor of such a construction of the\nConstitution, upon a point left undetermined at its formation, upon\nwhich two great parties have ever since held opposite views, and which\ncould only be settled by the _ultima ratio regum_; there being no\nother tribunal to which they could submit their differences.\n\nThe civil war was not waged for the purpose of enlarging the powers of\nthe federal government, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or\ninterfering with the rights or established institutions of the states;\nas was emphatically declared by both branches of Congress in 1861; and\nits effect has been simply to maintain the authority of the\nconstitution, with all the powers which it confers, and all the\nrestrictions which it imposes, unabridged {284} and unaltered. No such\nauthority having been previously vested in the government, it cannot\nbe assumed as one of the results of the civil war.\n\nPutting aside, however, this only blemish upon a great work, we\ndesired to call particular attention to the masterly manner in which\nMr. Dana has treated the great topics of the day.\n\nHis note on the Monroe doctrine will well repay perusal, as it is a\nsubject on which much apprehension exists in the public mind. This\nenunciated of American policy, he shows to have consisted of two\npoints: 1. That inasmuch as the whole of the American continent is now\nwithin the territorial limits of some one or other civilized power, it\nis no longer open to colonization by European nations.  2. That the\nUnited States will view, as an unfriendly act, any attempt on the part\nof European powers to interfere for the purpose of controlling the\npolitical affairs of any of the American States, or to extend to them\nthe operation of the European political system. The question is well\nworth the study of the statesman, and it is ably treated in this work.\n\nAnother question of more than common interest, especially to our\nnaturalized citizens, is the extent to which the government of the\nUnited States will afford them protection in foreign lands. The\ndoctrine extracted by Mr. Dana from the cases of Martin Koszta, Simon\nTousig, and others, is, that the government will afford protection to\na domiciled resident of the United States whilst travelling in a\nforeign country, under her passport, against any arrest or seizure by\nthe government of his native sovereign, in any event except that of a\nvoluntary return to his place of birth; but in such case he will not\nbe protected against military service owing by him to his native\nsovereign at the time of his emigration.\n\nThe case of the Trent, in which Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the rebel\ncommissioners to Great Britain and France, were removed from that\nvessel, at sea, by the commander of an armed vessel of the United\nStates, and brought in as prisoners of war, is the subject of a\nlearned note by Mr. Dana. He considers this case to have settled but\none principle: \"that a public ship, though of a nation at war, cannot\ntake persons out of a neutral vessel, at sea, whatever may be the\nclaim of her government on those persons.\" A doctrine always held by\nthe government of the United States, and one which they were glad to\nsee authoritatively established on a claim made by that of England.\n\nWe have not space to point out in detail the many interesting\nquestions discussed in Mr. Dana's learned notes, such as those of\nIntervention, Mediation Extradition, etc. But we cannot, injustice to\nhim, omit a reference to the question now agitating the public mind,\narising out of our reclamation on Great Britain for compensation for\nthe ravages of the Alabama and other Confederate privateers, fitted\nout in the ports of that country. The question at issue is a somewhat\ndifferent one from what is generally supposed. Our own supreme court\nhas decided that it is no breach of neutrality, in the absence of any\ntreaty stipulation, or local statute, to build, arm, and equip a\nvessel of war, and send her, under American colors, to the port of a\nbelligerent, with the _bon\u00e2 fide_ purpose of there offering her for\nsale as a commercial enterprise; though she may be subject to capture\nby the other belligerent, as contraband of war. Mr. Dana, after a\nthorough examination of the authorities and of the diplomatic\ncorrespondence between the two governments, thus sums up the points at\nissue:\n\n  The United States claims reparation from Great Britain for injuries\n  done to her commerce by cruisers under the rebel flag, for the\n  following reasons:\n\n  1. Because Great Britain made a precipitate and unwarranted\n  recognition of belligerency of the rebel power, and thereby\n  established in law, and to some extent brought about in fact, a\n  state of things which made possible and probable the illegal acts of\n  individuals complained of.\n\n  2. Because the measures taken by the British Government to prevent\n  the sailing of vessels from British ports, fitted and equipped\n  therein in violation of her neutrality, were tardy and feeble, as\n  well as ineffectual; whether this arose from mistakes of law in the\n  advisers of the crown, or bad faith, or incapacity in inferior\n  officials, or from the insufficiency of the Acts of Parliament,\n  being purely an internal question, with which the United States were\n  not bound to deal.\n\n  3. Because Great Britain did not seize and detain or disarm these\n  vessels, or refuse them asylum, or otherwise deal with them in such\n  manner has the law of {285} nations authorized her to do, after\n  their fraudulent escape from the original ports.\n\n  4. Because the British Government refused even to suggest amendments\n  of her Acts of Parliament in any respect whatever, or to introduce\n  the subject to Parliament when their inefficiency had been proved,\n  and the government had then requested so to do, not only by the\n  United States, on terms of reciprocity, but by citizens interested\n  in preserving neutrality.\n\n  5. Because the government had neglected or refused to prosecute\n  citizens of the so-called Confederate States who work openly\n  residing in England as agents for that power, and notoriously\n  engaged in fitting out vessels in violation of British neutrality,\n  though abundant evidence had been furnished to authorize\n  proceedings.\n\n  6. Because, by reason of this course of the British Government, the\n  rebels had been able to set forth and maintain an effective force of\n  steamers cruising against American commerce, having asylum and\n  making repairs and getting coal and supplies in British ports;\n  built, fitted out, armed, and manned in and from England, and never\n  even expecting, or pretending to visit a port of the confederacy,\n  when otherwise they would scarcely have had a single cruiser; the\n  result of which had been a most effective belligerent aid to the\n  rebellion, and the great advantage to England and detriment to the\n  United States of driving from the seas the greater part of the\n  American mercantile marine, heretofore the equal and rival of Great\n  Britain, and transferring the commerce of the world to the British\n  flag.\n\nThe British Government replies:\n\n  1. That the recognition of belligerency was justifiable, and made\n  necessary at the time it was done, and dictated by a duty to the\n  United States as well as to Great Britain: and that the United\n  States gained by it the rights of blockade and search.\n\n  2. That the government acted in good faith and with reasonable\n  diligence in in enforcing its laws for the preservation of it's\n  neutrality; and that, if subordinate officials failed in capacity or\n  diligence in particular cases, their acts or failures being but a\n  part of the entire proceedings otherwise proper and effective, the\n  nation cannot be expected to hold itself responsible their remote\n  consequences, in the way of making compensation for acts done by\n  belligerents out of the jurisdiction.\n\n  3. That the government did seize and prosecute, in her colonial\n  ports, vessels which were charged with being fitted out at home in\n  violation of neutrality; and that she was not bound by the law of\n  nations to refuse asylum to, or seize or disarm or insist on the\n  disarmament of vessels afterward commissioned as public ships of war\n  of a belligerent visiting her ports, on the ground that they had been\n  originally, and before their commissioning as vessels of war, fitted\n  out in her jurisdiction in violation of her neutrality.\n\n  4. That the government was not satisfied that the Acts of Parliament\n  had proved inadequate to such an extent, and after so full trial, or\n  that any amendment would be likely to improve them so materially as\n  to justify the United States in charging the refusal to attempt\n  their amendment as a want of good faith.\n\n  5. That the government had judged in good faith, on the advise of\n  competent counsel, whether, in cases suggested, prosecutions against\n  individuals should be instituted.\n\n  6. That if vessels fitted out and dispatched from Great Britain ever\n  so clearly in violation of her neutral rights, had fraudently\n  escaped, without bad faith on the part of the government. Great\n  Britain was not responsible for acts of hostility done by such\n  vessels beyond her jurisdiction. Her duty was fulfilled if she\n  restored any prizes such vessels might bring within her\n  jurisdiction.\n\n  7. That it was inconsistent with the dignity and honor of the\n  government to submit to arbitration claims of another government,\n  the decision of which involved a question whether the advisers of\n  the crown had correctly interpreted the law, or the executive\n  officers of the crown had acted with diligence, good judgment, or\n  good faith.\n\nThe points we have thus briefly noticed are but a few of the most\nimportant ones which are fully discussed by Mr. Dana; for a proper\nappreciation of his labors we must refer the reader to the book\nitself, with the assurance that it will well repay the time devoted to\nits perusal. It is no ephemeral production, but a good, solid, and\ndeeply interesting work, which will long preserve its place as a\nlandmark in the literature of the nineteenth century.\n\n{286}\n\nLIFE OF SAINT CECILIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR. By the Reverend Prosper\nGu\u00e9ranger, Abb\u00e9 de Solesmes. Translated from the French. 12mo, pp.\n404. Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1866.\n\nThis work from the pen of the learned Benedictine will, no doubt, be\nwarmly welcomed, both because of its authorship and its own intrinsic\nmerit. It will take its rank, however, rather among works of profound\nhagiological research than as a contribution to popular biographies of\nthe saints. The history of the life and martyrdom of St. Cecilia\noccupies but a very small portion of the volume. The rest is devoted\nto the confirmatory testimonies to her life afforded by the liturgies\nof the church, both Greek and Latin, the history of her relics and of\nthe Roman basilica erected in her honor, and the homage paid to her\nthroughout Christendom in literature and the arts. All this is of the\ngreatest interest and value, and no little thanks are due to the\neminent author for his labor and research. As a life of Saint Cecilia\nit does not satisfy us. The style is crude and laborious, and lacking\nin the elements of a finished biography. The author has collected\nmaterials which would have come from the hand of a Wiseman or a Newman\na masterpiece of literary art, a living picture of the life and times\nof one of the most illustrious saints of the church. But he does not\nappear to know how to take advantage of the treasure which he has\ngathered together with so much painstaking labor. Hence the scenes in\nthe life of Saint Cecilia furnished him by the quaint and charming\ndescriptions in the \"Acts\" of the saint--her espousals, the vision of\nthe angel seen by her husband, the martyrdom of the two brothers\nValerian and Tiburtius, her own interrogatory before the Roman\nprefect, and sublime death--scenes replete with varied interest, and\naffording matter for the most powerful dramatic description, and\npresented to us in the tamest and rudest style. What, for instance,\ncan be more commonplace than the following: Valerian, in presence of\nCecilia and the angel, is assured by the heavenly visitor that in\nreturn for his consent to the vow of virginity made by his saintly\nspouse, any request he might make will be granted him. The young man,\novercome with gratitude, threw himself at the feet of the divine\nmessenger, and thus expressed his desires: \"Nothing in life is more\nprecious to me than the affection of my brother; and now that I am\nrescued from peril, it would be a bitter trial to leave this beloved\nbrother exposed to danger. _I will, therefore, reduce my requests to\none_: I beseech Christ to deliver my brother, Tiburtius, as he has\ndelivered me, and to perfect us both in the confession of his name.\"\n\nThe translation we should judge to be a faithful one, and is, in the\nmain, correct English. We hardly see how it could be much improved\nconsidering the formal unsympathetic style of the original; but we\nwish that in certain descriptive passages the historical present had\nbeen preserved throughout, or altogether avoided. We are surprised to\nsee the authors styled upon the title page as the _Reverend_ Prosper\nper Gu\u00e9ranger, _abb\u00e9 de Solesmes_. It is not common to attach the\ntitle of Rev. to the name of authors and prelates of such note as Dom\nGu\u00e9ranger, and abb\u00e9 de' for 'abbot of' is not in good taste.\n\nA fancy portrait accompanies the volume, representing Saint Cecilia\nwith a harp, which ill accords with the Antiphon quoted on the\ntitle-page: \"_Cantantibus organis, Cecilia Domino decantabat_,\" and\nwhich is, moreover, so completely at variance with all representations\nof her by both ancient and modern artists, and we would willingly\ndispense with that; but the book is, for the reasons we have assigned,\nof such value, that we thank the enterprising publisher for the\nopportunity afforded the American public of perusing the work in\nEnglish.\n\n\nSPANISH PAPERS AND OTHER MISCELLANIES,\nhitherto unpublished or uncollected, by WASHINGTON IRVING. Arranged\nand edited by PIERRE M. IRVING. 2 vols., 12mo. With a portrait after\nWilkie. New York: G. P. Putnam. Hurd and Houghton. 1866.\n\nIn the first of these volumes we are presented with a choice selection\nof papers by the illustrious author, consisting of several charming\nSpanish legends, illustrative of the events of the conquest of Spain\nby the Moors, the greater portion of which is newly published. The\nsecond volume contains some early contributions to the Morning\nChronicle, when the author was but nineteen years of age. These were\nhis first essays in print, but they are none the less remarkable for\nthe fine humor they display, and for which he became so much admired\nhim after years. {287} The biographical sketches, which follow, of\nCaptain James Lawrence, Lieutenant Burrows, Commodore Perry, and\nCaptain David Porter possess no little historical value; and the\nextended memoir of the child poet, Margaret Miller Davidson, the\nyounger sister of the well-known youthful authoress, Lucretia Maria\nDavidson, is full of the most touching and romantic interest. A number\nof reviews and miscellaneous papers close these volumes, which need no\nfurther praise from us than to say that they are all marked with the\ngenius of Washington Irving. We have been so much charmed by the\nperusal of the Spanish legends that we could not refrain from placing\none of them entire before our readers--the Legend of Count Julian and\nhis family. It will be found in the pages of the present number of THE\nCATHOLIC WORLD. The form in which the publication is given is as\ncredible to the publishers, as it is worthy of the  interesting\nmatter.\n\n\n\n\nLAURENTIA: A Tale of Japan. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. (American\nReprint) Baltimore: Kelly and Piet, 174 Baltimore street. 1866.\n\nLady Georgiana Fullerton consecrates her high intellectual gifts and\nfinished culture with a noble devotion to the sacred cause of the\nCatholic religion. In her latest story of Laurentia, she has chosen\nher theme from the comparatively unknown history of the Catholic\nChurch in Japan, and appears to have derived her materials chiefly\nfrom the work of F. Charlevoix on that subject.\n\nF. Charlevoix's History of Christianity in Japan is one of the most\nintensely interesting books we have ever read, and unfolds a page in\nthe annals of the church equalling the records of the first three\ncenturies in glory. The persistent misrepresentation and suppression\nof truth, which the enemies of the Catholic religion make use of just\nso far as the credulousness of the public will permit, have hitherto\nkept the facts in regard to this topic under a veil of mist. This veil\nis lifting, however, and is destined soon, we trust, to disappear\nbefore the rays of truth.\n\nLady Fullerton's story is well adapted to awaken attention to this\nsubject, if the general apathy and aversion to all Catholic literature\ndoes not prevent its being read. Its incidents are mainly historical,\nwith just enough of embellishment and portraiture of imaginary\ncharacters and incidents to make it life-like. It is written with that\nardor of feeling and in that glowing style, chastened by good taste,\nwhich are characteristic of Lady Georgiana's productions. As a work of\nart it is not equal to her master-piece, Constance Sherwood. The\nevents described are, however, so replete with the highest and most\nabsorbing interest, that one feels no inclination to advert to the\nmere artistic merit of plot, style, or description. It combines the\nfascination of a well-written sensation novel, with the utility of a\nsolid book of spiritual reading. We recommend it to all who read\nanything at all except the daily papers, and advise all parents,\nwhether they read or do not read themselves, to give it to their\nchildren. The latter, we are sure, will not find it hard to take.\n\n\n\nVIGNETTES, Biographical Sketches of Madame Swetchine, La Soeur\nRosalie, Madame Pape Carpentier, Madame Lamertine, etc. By Bessie\nRayner Parkes. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1866.\n\nThese sketches are all full of interest, some of them most touching\nand beautiful. The life of La Soeur Rosalie cannot fail to win\nadmiration from every heart. The most wretched faubourg of Paris was\nthe scene of her labors; here with heart and hands, with every power\nof soul and body, she labored year after year, never weary, but simply\nand quietly performing a work which man has been proud to honor, a\nwork which God alone fully knows. We quote a short passage describing\nthe funeral of La Soeur Rosalie:\n\n  \"She was followed to the grave by a multitude such as could be\n  neither counted nor described: every rank, age, and profession was\n  there; great and small, rich and poor, learned men and laborers, the\n  most famous and the most obscure. Instead of going straight toward\n  the church, the body was borne through the streets where she had\n  been accustomed to visit, and women and children who could not walk\n  in the great profusion fell on their knees and prayed. A band of\n  soldiers surrounded the bier and rendered military honors to the one\n  who lay upon it, for she had been decorated with the Cross of the\n  Legion of Honor.\"\n\n{288}\n\nThis lowly Sister of Charity felt not that her sphere was narrow, but\nher love, her energy, and activity found everywhere opportunities;\nthey never failed her, she never failed them. This life of Sister\nRosalie alone would give interest to any volume of biographies; but\nseveral others have almost an equal interest, particularly that of\nMadame Swetchine, a noble Russian lady. She embraced the Catholic\nfaith, spent many years of her life in Paris, associating with the\nnoblest spirits of the day--Lacordaire, Chateaubriand,\nMontalembert--by all of whom she was admired with a sort of tender\nreverence. Though influencing for many years the highest circles of\nParisian society, her life was most simply, humbly, and devoutly\nChristian. The sketch of one of our own countrywomen, Harriet K. Hunt\nof Boston, who has done much toward enlightening the women of the\nworking classes by her lectures on physiology, is also pleasantly\ngiven. We think our authoress has shown in this volume that women have\npower to do a great work, and that this work can easily be found, and\neasily done, if but the heart and soul are in it. The volume is\nbeautifully gotten up.\n\n\nTHE SHAM SQUIRE, AND THE INFORMERS OF 1798, with a View of their\nContemporaries. To which are added jottings about Ireland seventy\nyears ago. By William John Fitzpatrick, J.P., Biographer of Bishop\nDoyle, etc., etc. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 379. Boston: Patrick Donahoe.\n\nIn THE CATHOLIC WORLD for April last, page 122, will be found an\narticle entitled: \"Ireland, and the Informers of 1798.\" That article\ngave a synopsis of portions of \"The Sham Squire,\" of which the copy\nunder notice is a reprint from the last Dublin edition. It is a\ncurious book, and contains many highly interesting incidents of the\nrebellion of 1798; of the death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Emmet, and\nother Irish patriots of that day. The facts disclosed show that\nthrough bribery and the spy system, England succeeded in crushing out\nall efforts for Ireland's independence, even better than her ministers\nhoped. This system of bribery, however, is not peculiar to Ireland, as\nmany writers have asserted; but is the same in all countries, and in\nall times. It has been used in this country by both sides in the late\nor, with as much success as it ever was in Ireland. The only\ndifference being that the Irish patriots never had money to use for\nsuch a purpose, while England had plenty, hence her success. The book\nis well worth reading, and throws white on many disputed points of\nIrish history, especially that portion of it relating to 1798.\n\n\n\nFIRST PRINCIPLES: A letter to a Protestant friend asking information\nabout the Catholic Church, by the Rev. G. H. Doane. New York: P.\nO'Shea, Publisher, No. 27 Barclay Street. 1866.\n\nThe title of this pamphlet speaks for itself. It is a plain statement\nof the difference between Catholics and Protestants on the way pointed\nout by Christ to find true Christianity.\n\n\nLAWRENCE KEHOE, New York, will soon publish a new volume of Sermons by\nthe Paulist Fathers. It will contain several Sermons by the late\nFather Baker.\n\n\nMESSRS. JOHN MURPHY & CO. announce a new edition of \"Good Thoughts for\nPriest and People.\" By Rev. Father Noethen.\n\n\nRECEIVED:\n\nFrom J. J. O'Connor and Co., Newark, N. J. Curious Questions. by Rev.\nHenry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. 292.\n\n\n\nD. and J. Sadlier and Co., New York. Disappointed Ambition; or,\nMarried and Single. By Miss Agnes M. Stewart 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 248.\n\n\nWanted to purchase, at this Office, several copies of Branchereau's\n\"Praelectiones Philosophicale.\" Second Edition.\n\n--------\n\n{289}\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\nVOL. IV., NO. 21.--DECEMBER, 1866.\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nPROBLEMS OF THE AGE.\n\nTHE STATE OF PROBATION--IT'S REASON\nAND NATURE--THE TRIAL OF THE ANGELS.\n\nIn our preceding number we have endeavored to show what is that order\nof regeneration or supernatural grace, in which rational nature, and\nthrough it all nature, attains the end of creation metaphysically\nfinal. The position we have taken is, that the creation returns to God\nas final cause through the hypostatic union of created nature with the\ndivine nature in the person of the incarnate Word, and the\nparticipation in this union by angels and men who are elevated through\ngrace to the rank of sons of God.\n\nWe have now another problem to deal with. The Catholic doctrine\nteaches that angels and men are not brought to their destined end, in\nview of which they were created, by an immediate, indefectible\noperation of divine power alone; but by a concurrence of this divine\noperation with the spontaneous, contingent, and defectible operation\nof their own free-will. Moreover, that in consequence of the\ncontingent, defectible operation of the second cause which is\nconcurrent with the first cause, a multitude of angels and men finally\nand irremediably fail to reach their destination.\n\nThis statement of the relation of the rational creature to God as\nfinal cause, involves a number of the most difficult and perplexing\nquestions. The reason for placing creatures in a state of probation by\nwhich their eternal destiny is decided, the relation of divine\nforeknowledge to contingent events, the conciliation of the efficacy\nof grace with the liberty of the will, the nature of free-will itself,\nthe reason for permitting the existence of evil, predestination, and\nsimilar vexed questions, start up at once to trouble and compound the\nfeeble human intellect.\n\nThey are all summed up in the problem of probation. The creature is\nplaced in a state where he is to decide in a certain brief span of\ntime, by his own voluntary choice, his eternal destiny; this destiny\nincluding the alternative of the attainment or the forfeiture of\nsupreme beatitude. What reason can be given for this? Why is the\nrational creature defectible or liable to fail of reaching his\ndestination? Why does God place him in a state of probation, knowing\nhis defectibility? Why is it that some fail and others do not fail to\nattain their destination?\n\n{290}\n\nA de-Christianised and de-Catholicised philosophy cannot get even a\nplausible solution of this great problem, and the problems arising out\nof it. It must either deny the problem, or throw out some ingenious\nguesses which satisfy no one. It is wholly at fault, always has been,\nand always will be. With those who deny the whole problem, by denying\nthe whole supernatural order, we have nothing to do at present; for we\ncannot raise anew questions already discussed. We are concerned only\nwith those who would admit the moral order of the universe; and these\nadmit the existence of a period of probation, although some of them\nmay extend the limits of this probation indefinitely, and doubt or\ndeny some of its consequences.\n\nThe very notion of probation springs from the notion of a free will,\npermitted and even compelled to choose between good and evil. Now, why\nis the created will permitted and even compelled to exercise this\nprerogative which is too often the occasion of the greatest injury to\nits possessor?\n\nA certain class of philosophers answer this question by asserting that\nit could not possibly be otherwise. They exaggerate beyond all measure\nthis liberty of choice as something essential to all voluntary\noperation. They have no conception of any moral goodness, virtue, or\nsanctity, except that which is the product of this continual striving\nto make a right choice between two rival objects of desire, the good\nand evil. They even extend their notion so far as to include God; as\nif he were in a kind of infinite state of moral probation, amenable to\na standard or law above himself, and only preserving his holiness by a\ncontinual effort of will to choose among various possible\ndeterminations that which is most perfectly conformed to this\nstandard. Of course, then, when he created intelligent spirits like\nhimself, he was obliged to leave them to their liberty of choice. They\ncould not become holy or happy in any other way. Indeed, according to\nthis system, they must remain in this state of moral probation for\never. There is no conceivable way of determining them to good without\ndestroying the liberty of will which is essential to a rational\nnature. The only immutability of will possible is that which arises\nfrom a confirmed, long-continued habit of choice. Therefore God has\nnot absolutely determined the wills of his rational creatures to good,\nbecause he could not. He has left them with the power and exposed to\nthe risks of wrong choices because he could not help it.\n\nThis solution of the problem must be rejected as completely\nunsatisfactory. God is good, and is blessed, by his nature. The human\nnature of Christ is holy, impeccable, and beatified, by its hypostatic\nunion with the divine nature. The Blessed Virgin was impeccable from\nthe instant of her immaculate conception. The holy angels and just men\nmade perfect have finished their moral probation, and are in an\nunchangeable state. The perfection of the intelligent nature,\ntherefore, so far from implying, excludes liberty of choice between\ngood an evil. If this be so, this liberty of choice is an\nimperfection. Why, therefore, did God create rational existences with\nthis imperfection? Without doubt he could have given them\nimpeccability. He could have elevated them to a state of perfection\nwithout requiring them to pass through any probation. He could have\nplaced all rational creatures at once in the state of beatitude, and\nkept all sin an evil out of the universe. Why, then, is evil allowed\nto enter?\n\nMoreover, _whence_ and _what_ is evil? How is it possible that there\nshould be any evil? Extrinsic to the being of God which is the\nabsolute good, nothing does or can exist, except that which God has\ncreated after the similitude of his own being, and which, therefore,\nparticipates according to its measure in his goodness. Besides, God\nhas created all things in view of an end. Being infinitely wise, he\n{291} knows how to attain this end through his works, and being\ninfinitely powerful, he is able to do it. Being also infinitely good,\nonly good can terminate is volition. Therefore, if evil were possible,\nhe could not will to actualize it; and if, by an impossible\nsupposition, it could come into actual existence without him, he must\nwill to destroy it. The superficial theology and philosophy which\ndates from the Reformation, is tied up here in a Gordian knot, which\nno skill can unravel. It contains two dogmas which are absolute\ncontradictions: creation, and the substantive essence of evil. These\ntwo can never coexist in harmony. One or the other must be modified or\ngiven up. Either the dogma of creation must be so far given up as to\nadmit of some eternal self-existent _materia_ in which lies the\nessential principle of evil, or the substantive existence of evil must\nbe denied. Those who deny or impair the first, have ceased to be\nTheists in the strict and proper sense of the word, and are already\nmoving toward Pantheism. Those who deny the second, throw up with it\nthe conception of a moral order in the universe, of a state of\nprobation, strictly so called. There is no Theistic, Christian\nphilosophy of any depth or comprehensiveness on these topics, except\nthat which is included in the theology of St. Augustine, St. Thomas,\nand other great Catholic writers.\n\nIt is well known how completely the ancient philosophers were befogged\nin regard to the nature and origin of evil. Plato taught that the\n_materia_ out of which God formed the universe is eternal, and that,\nfrom an inherent intractability in its essence, it is incapable able\nof perfectly receiving the of the divine ideas. The constructor of the\nuniverse was, therefore, hindered from realizing his ideal and fully\nexecuting his design by the defectiveness of his material. He was like\nan architect who has only soft, crumbling stone, or a sculptor with\nveined marble. From this source, according to Plato, is all the evil\nexisting in the universe.\n\nThe Persians, whose great master was Zoroaster, resorted to the theory\nof two subordinate creators, both the offspring of the Supreme Being,\none Ormusd, being good, and the other Ahriman, being evil. All that is\ngood in the creation comes from the first, and all the evil from the\nsecond of these great master-mechanics. Ahriman is destined, however,\nto be eventually converted, with all his liege subjects, his botched\nworkmanship will be repaired, and the universe will come all right in\nthe end. This ingenious theory left out, however, one essential point;\nnamely, how Ahriman came to have an evil nature, since he was created\nby the good God as well as Ormusd, and how he and his works could\nbecome good, if they were essentially evil.\n\nManes and the Manichaeans carried their dualism to a point of more\ncomplete consistency, and more absolute absurdity. They taught the\nexistence of two eternal, self-existing principles, one good, the\nother bad, who are engaged in perpetual warfare. Spiritual existences\nproceed from the good principle, corporeal existences from the evil\none. Human souls, having been in some way allured into corporeal\nforms, are polluted by them and involved in evil. It is necessary for\nthe soul to disengage itself from matter, and it will then be fit to\nreturn to the supremely good being from whom it proceeded.\n\nAny system which teaches that evil has anything essential or\nsubstantive, must give up the pure dogma of creation. For it is\ninconsistent with that dogma to suppose that God can create anything\nessentially evil, or that any creature can create anything, or that\nany substance essentially good can become essentially evil by\ncorruption; since corruption produces no new substance, but modifies\nsubstance already existing.\n\n{292}\n\n_Whence_, then, and _what_ is evil? What can there be as an\nalternative of good before the intelligence and will of a rational\ncreature to form the material for a dilemma, and oblige him to\nexercise a faculty of choice? Where is the substratum of a state of\nprobation?\n\nMetaphysical evil, or that evil which is included in the metaphysical\nessence of all created things, is merely the limitation of their\npossible good. Simple being, _ens simpliciter_, is alone the absolute\ngood in possibility and in act. Jesus Christ has said, \"There is one\ngood, God.\"  [Footnote 62] In actual existences, evil is merely a\nrecession from God. It is only relative, and negative, therefore, and\nexpresses the absence of that good which exists in some other\ncreature, or in God. In created existences, good is relative and\npositive, and evil, or the absence of good, is relative and privative.\nIt is a mere deficiency, but nothing substantive, any more than\ndarkness, cold, or vacuity are substantive.\n\n  [Footnote 62: St. Matt. xix. 17.]\n\nIf we can suppose, therefore, a certain good proposed to a rational\ncreature as attainable by his free volition, with a power to the\ncontrary, we have the necessary conditions of a state of moral\nprobation. That is, the possibility is proved of a certain good being\nmade contingent on the voluntary choice of rational creatures; and\nwith it, the possibility of this good being forfeited by the\ndeficiency of this choice. This answers the question whence and what\nis the possibility of evil as the concomitant risk annexed to a state\nof probation. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that we can\nmake this supposition, by explaining how the will can be constituted\nin an equilibrium between this proffered good and some other object,\nwith complete liberty to incline itself to either.\n\nThat other object cannot be an essentially evil object, for there is\nno such thing in existence. It must be, then, an inferior good. In the\nstate of probation the will is inclined to all kinds of good\nindifferently, and capable of choosing any which the intellect judges\nto be best or most desirable. It is capable of making a false choice,\nbecause the intellect is capable of making a false judgment.\nIntelligent spirit has self-dominion where it is not determined by\nintrinsic necessity. It is lord over its own acts. It can determine\nits own judgments and volitions. And this makes it a proper subject of\nprecept and moral obligation, capable of being placed in a state of\nprobation.\n\nIt may appear very difficult to understand how this can be, but our\nown consciousness and practical experience give us an intimate sense\nof it's truth. Let us take, then, a familiar example in illustration.\n\nA child is capable of appreciating the good of delicious fruit, the\ngood of approbation and reward, the good of play and amusement, and\nthe good of knowledge. His parents allow him to eat peaches under\ncertain restrictions, and forbid him to eat them without their\npermission. They allow him to play at certain times and under certain\nconditions, and forbid him all other amusement and recitation. They\nrequire him to devote a certain time to study, and to apply himself to\nthis study with diligence. It is plain that the will of the child is\nin equilibrium toward all the various kinds of good in respect to\nwhich he receives precepts from his parents, and is thus placed in a\nstate of probation, the issue of which is in great measure left to the\narbitration of his own free choice. He can determine himself to obey\nhis parents for the sake of their approbation and rewards, or to\ndisobey them for the sake of eating forbidden fruit. He can determine\nhimself to study for the sake of knowledge, or to neglect it for the\nsake of play. When he determines himself to the inferior, sensible\ngood, he does so by a false judgment, that in the particular instance\nthe present sensible enjoyment is best for him for most desirable. Yet\nhe has power to the contrary, and both can and ought to make a right\njudgment. He is determined to neither side by any {293} necessity, but\ndetermines himself and destroys the equilibrium of his will by a free\nchoice, by virtue of his self-dominion. The necessity of exercising\nthis self-dominion proceeds from imperfection of nature. It is easily\nconceivable that his nature, if it were rendered more perfect, would\ndetermine him always to prefer the approbation of parents, and of his\nown conscience, of the pleasure of eating fruit, and the pleasure of\nknowledge to that of play.\n\nThis illustrates our present point, and shows how the imperfection of\nan intelligent creature, which makes him capable of false judgments in\nregard to the eligibility of different objects of volition, renders\nhim a fit subject of probation.\n\nBut why is he created in this imperfect state, and obliged to run the\nrisks of a difficult and dangerous probation? It is evident that God\nmight easily pour such a flood of light upon his intelligence that he\nwould be incapable of making a false judgment, and communicate to him\nsuch a degree of felicity in the enjoyment of the true good, that his\nwill would be rapt away without effort beyond all possibility of\nattraction from any inferior objects. He might communicate the\nbeatific vision simultaneously with the first act of reason, as the\ndoes to those infants who are translated to heaven in their infancy.\nThus he might secure the eternal beatitude of all intelligent\ncreatures without placing any of them in probation.\n\nIt is evident that God must have a reason for establishing a state of\nprobation, and that this reason must involve some great good to be\nattained by it. This reason is, also, in part intelligible to us. So\nfar as we can understand it, it is, that God and the creature are more\nglorified through the elevation of created nature to supernatural\nbeatitude, when the created nature concurs with God as First Cause, by\nits own activity, as Second con-creative cause, in the highest manner\npossible. It is the will of God that beatitude should be the prize of\nmerit, and merit implies liberty of choice. Supernatural beatitude is\na pure boon from God to the creature, not due to him as simply\nexisting. Therefore, God may bestow it on whom he pleases, and upon\nany conditions he pleases to establish. As probation implies\nimperfection, and the creature is created for his proper perfection,\nwhen he attains it probation must cease. The period of probation must\ntherefore be limited. It must be also a real, _bon\u00e2 fide_ probation;\nthat is, the attainment of beatitude must really depend on the right\nuse of the term of probation. Consequently, when the term of probation\nhas expired, those who have failed in it must be left to the eternal\nconsequences of their own voluntary error. That species of virtue\nwhich makes an intelligent creature capable of attaining supernatural\nbeatitude is itself supernatural, and therefore impossible without\ndivine grace. When this grace is lost, there is no natural power to\nregain it. Sin is therefore in itself irreparable. It can be repaired\nonly by a second supernatural grace. If this grace is not conceded,\nthere is no second probation, but the sinner must remain perpetually\nin that state to which his sin has reduced him. If this grace is\nconceded, and the limits of probation are extended, those who fail\nfinally and pass out of the fixed period of probation must also remain\nperpetually in that state to which they have reduced themselves by\ntheir own free and voluntary election.\n\nAnother great difficulty here presents itself, namely: it appears that\nthe fulfilment of the divine purpose is left to the contingencies of\nsecond causes, and at the mercy of the arbitrary wills of creatures.\nGod appears to be like one who makes his plans in the dark, without\nbeing able to know what their success will be, or to take efficacious\nmeasures for securing their success. For how can he foresee future\nevents that are purely contingent on the free choice of created wills?\nHow can he predetermine an end, to be infallibly accomplished, when\nthis accomplishment is contingent on the free arbitration of the\ncreature? {294} The Catholic doctrine teaches that a multitude of\nangels and men destined to supernatural beatitude finally fail of\ntheir destination. Does not this failure partially thwart the divine\nplan, mar his work, and deprive his universe of its perfection?\nAlthough the divine plan has a partial success, through the\nconcurrence of a certain number of angels and men with the divine\nwill, is not this success even due to hap-hazard? Must we not suppose\nthat the divine plan ran the risk of a complete failure, so far as the\nco-operation of free-will is concerned?\n\nIt is evident that these suppositions are all incompatible with the\nessential attributes of God. He must necessarily have a perfect\nforeknowledge of all things that will ever come to pass. He must also\nhave supreme dominion over his entire creation, and be able to\naccomplish all his purposes without any liability to be thwarted by\nhis own creatures. He must have decreed from eternity whatsoever he\ndoes in time through his creative act.\n\nTherefore some, overwhelmed by the difficulties which encompass the\ndoctrine of the freedom of the created will, in its relation to the\ndivine, have adopted the part denying it altogether. The denial of\nfree-will, however, makes the state of probation, and the entire moral\norder of the universe, with its retributions, completely illusory and\nfantastic. It is a denial of a fact of universal human consciousness.\nWhoever makes it ought to become a pantheist at once, and maintain\nthat all individual existences are mere emanations of the divine\nsubstance.\n\nThe Catholic doctrine distinctly proclaims both the divine\nforeknowledge and decrees, and also the liberty of choice in the\ncreated intelligent nature. A Catholic theologian, therefore, cannot\ndispose of the difficulty in the case, by summarily denying either\nside of the dogmatic truth. St. Thomas Aquinas, with those who follow\nhis school strictly, endeavors to resolve the difficulty by the\nhypothesis of a physical premotion of the will, or an efficacious\ngrace, which has an infallible connection with a right choice, but yet\nleaves the will to make this choice freely and with power to the\ncontrary. God has therefore predestined, by an infallible decree, all\nthose to whom he gives this efficacious grace, to the attainment of\nbeatitude. His foreknowledge is also explained as the knowledge of his\nown determination through which all events, even contingent, are made\ncertain.\n\nThis system has a certain hypothetical finish and completeness about\nit, and it appears to vindicate the supreme dominion of God over all\ncontingent existences, second causes, and events taking place in time,\nmore effectually than any other. It fails, however, to reconcile with\nthe attributes of God the freedom of the created will and the state of\nprobation. For, according to this system, the will, although in\nequilibrium, and intrinsically capable of motion to either side,\ncannot put itself out of equilibrium by its own self-determining\npower, but needs a previous, efficacious concurrence of the divine\nwill, in order to pass from the potentiality of choice to the act of\nchoice. All acts of the created will are, therefore, determined by the\nwill of God as efficient cause. If this is consistent with the liberty\nwhich is necessary to the created will, that it may be second and\ncon-creative cause in concurrence with the first cause to the effect\nof its own beatitude, God could infallibly determine all rational\ncreatures to beatitude without infringing on their liberty. The\ncreature could evolve into act all its causative activity, free-will\ncould receive its fullest scope, the principle of merit and reward\ncould be fully exemplified in the universe, without risking the\neternal destiny of a single individual, or permitting even the\nsmallest sin to be committed. It become very difficult, then, on this\nhypothesis, to explain the permission of sin, and the eternal loss of\nso many millions of rational creatures. The reason usually given, that\nsin is an evil incidentally necessary to a system of probation, {295}\npermitted on account of the greater good attained through the\nprobation of free-will, falls to the ground, and we have never yet\nseen any other satisfactory reason substituted for it.\n\nIt may be true that, without this hypothesis, the foreknowledge of God\nand his supreme dominion over his creation are more incomprehensible.\nThis is no decisive argument, however, provided that these divine\nattributes can be shown to be intelligible without thus said\nhypothesis.\n\nFirst, in regard to the divine foreknowledge, it is argued that God\ncannot foresee that which is purely dependent on the created will,\nunless there is some cause or ground of certainty that there will\nshall actually place the effect which is foreseen. This cause or\nground of certainty can only be the divine determination to concur\nefficaciously with the will, that it may infallibly place the foreseen\nact.\n\nTo this it is replied, that God foresees all contingent, future\nevents, by a kind of knowledge called the super-comprehension of\ncause. Knowing completely all causes, he knows all there effects in\nthem. This does not explain, however, his knowledge of the\nself-determining acts of the will, since in these the same cause is in\nequilibrium to opposite effects. It is better explained, we think, by\nthe theory of Suarez, that God sees all things in their objective\nverity. He knows with certainty all that depends on the\nself-determining action of free-will, because he directly beholds the\nfree-will determining itself. There is no succession in God. He\ncoexists from eternity and in eternity to all the successive periods\nof created duration. What we call future is equally visible to God in\neternity with the past. There is no more difficulty, therefore, in his\nknowing from all eternity all future contingent events, than there is\nin our knowing anyone of these events in the time of its taking place,\nor after it has happened.\n\nBut, it is further argued, if God knows the acts of his creatures by\nan immediate vision of them in their objective verity, he is perfected\nby the creature, which is incompatible with his essence. God is the\nadequate object of his own intelligence; therefore he knows all things\nin himself.\n\nGod is the adequate and sole object of his own intelligence in the act\nof simple intelligence in which his essential being in the Three\nPersons is constituted. Created existences are not included in this\nact, and the knowledge of them is not perfective of the being of God.\nGod knows them in himself by the knowledge of vision, _scientia\nvisionis_, and sees them in himself as in a mirror. This perfection of\nvision, by which God sees and knows all things which exist, is a\nperfection proceeding from his infinite intelligence, not given to him\nby the creature. The creature is its terminus, but the changes of the\nterminus affect itself alone, and do not make the essential attribute\nof God less immutable or infinite. The same objection might be made to\nthe statement, that created existences are the terminus of the divine\nvolition or love. The essential act of volition or love is completed\nin the act of God _ad intra_, or his infinite love of himself. Yet God\nloves the creature, delights in the love of the creature, wills the\nbeatitude of the creature. That he may do this, the existence of the\ncreature as the terminus of his volition is necessary as the _conditio\nsine qu\u00e2 non_. It might be said, then, that the existence of the\ncreature, and his act in loving God, is perfective of God. It is not.\nFor it is altogether distinct from that which is the terminus of the\ndivine act of love, in which the perfection of the being of God is\nconstituted, viz.: from the essence of God itself. God has the\nplenitude of love in himself, and it remains the same whether more or\nfewer created existences are its recipients. So the infinite power of\nvision in God is the same, whether more or fewer created existences or\nacts of existing agents come within its scope. There is no objection,\ntherefore, to the theory {296} respecting the science of God, which\nmaintains that he knows all future contingents which depend entirely\non his divine decree in that decree, all that depend on second causes\ndetermined of necessity to produce certain effects in his\nsupercomprehension of cause, and all that depend on free-will in his\nforesight of the self-determination of free-will. The whole\nincomprehensibility of this foreknowledge is reduced to an identity\nwith the essential incomprehensibility of God, as eternal and as\ncoexisting to all the successive periods of time.\n\nSecondly, as regards the divine supremacy over creation, and the\nability of the Sovereign Creative Spirit to bring the universe to an\nend predetermined by himself.\n\nIt is argued, that if we reject the Thomist hypothesis, we reduce\neverything to the hap-hazard of capricious, eccentric, lawless\nfree-will, which makes it impossible to suppose any plan regularly and\ninfallibly carried out through the medium of second causes, in the\nuniverse.\n\nThis is not so. Free-will is not mere lawless caprice, directed by\nmere accident. It is directed by intelligence, and acts according to\nthe law of motives. It must choose the good, and can never choose that\nwhich is evil, _ratione mali_. Since, by a law of its probation, the\nreal chief good and the apparent chief good are presented before it in\nsuch a way as to leave it in equilibrium toward both, without any\ndominant or necessitating motive toward either, it makes the motive on\none side preponderant by its exercise of self-dominion. This is not by\nchance or caprice. It is by the exercise of intellect, and through the\nimpulse of powerful motives. Its circle of variability is restricted,\nand its determination is capable of being influenced by intellectual\nand moral considerations. It is perfectly evident that a man, even\nwithout the slightest power of exercising any determining influence on\nthe wills of other men, can nevertheless, without infringing on their\nperfect liberty, reason them into a co-operation with himself in\ncarrying out a plan, or persuade them into it by proving its\nadvantages before them. Much more, then, is God able to bring a\nsufficient number of angels and men to a voluntary co-operation with\nhimself to secure the success of his great design. It is in this way\nthat God manifests his infinite wisdom and divine art, by arranging\nall things with such consummate and complex skill and harmony, and\ndirecting all things from end to end by such a wise far-reaching\nProvidence, that he is able to bring out in the end the desired\nresult, through the concurrence of free, con-creative second causes.\nIt may be said that, since all angels were free to reject the\nbeatitude proffered to them, God, in creating them and giving them\nthis freedom, exposed his plan to the risk of being completely\nthwarted by their unanimous refusal to comply with the terms of their\nprobation. The same might also be said of mankind.\n\nWe must understand, however, that, although Almighty God does not\ndeliberate, change, modify, watch for results, make experiments,\nprofit by experience, devise new expedients, like a man of creative\ngenius, and although his creative art is one, simple, and from\neternity, yet it includes in itself in an eminent mode all these\noperations of the finite intelligence. If by an impossible\nsupposition, God had delegated creative wisdom and powered to a\ncreated spirit, such as Arians fancied the Logos, and others the\nDemiurgus, to be; and this mighty intelligence had proceeded to\nexecute his task in the same manner, but on a grander scale, that men\nexecute great undertakings, and we should endeavor to describe the way\nin which he accomplished his work, we should have a correct though\nimperfect representation of the actual operation of Almighty God in\nthe execution of his works _ad extra_. The conceptions we are able to\nform of the operation of God are all analogical. We cannot transcend\n{297} these analogies. And although we know them to be imperfect and\ninadequate, yet we know also that they have all the verisimilitude\nnecessary to give us true conceptions. In this way we understand that\nGod knew all the risks to which his plan was exposed, and made\nprovision for them. Wherever it was necessary, he protected his\ndesigns from the risk of failure through the non-concurrencc of second\ncauses. For instance, having determined to create a heaven containing\na multitude of beatified spirits, and foreseeing that a certain number\nof those who were destined to this high position would forfeit it by\nsin, he took this into the account in determining the number to be\ncreated, and the conditions of the trial through which they were to\npass. A profound theologian, who was of the strict Thomist school, the\nlate Bishop of Philadelphia, expressed to the author on one occasion\nthe opinion, that only the lower orders of angels were made liable to\nsin. He thought that the higher orders received a grace incompatible\nwith sin, though not with merit, and that Lucifer was therefore the\nchief, not of the Seraphim, but of the Archangels. On this\nsupposition, the risk of sin was confined within narrow limits, so far\nas the angels were concerned. Whether this be a well-grounded\nhypothesis or not, it is evident that these pure and exalted spirits,\npossessing the highest natural intelligence, being impelled to good by\ntheir nature, having received the gift of supernatural grace, and\nhaving the prospect of a still greater glory before them, were very\nlikely, speaking after a human mode of thought, to make the requisite\nact of concurrence with the divine will and thus secure their\nconfirmation in grace. In other words, there appears to be an _\u00e0\npriori_ probability that at least a great number of them would do so.\nWe know that, in point of fact, a great number of them did, and,\naccording to the common opinion, much the largest portion of the whole\nnumber who were tried.\n\nNow, this to us apparent probability was a certainty to God, as\nclearly known before as after the fact. In view of this certainty he\ncreated them and placed them in the state of probation. He foreknew,\nalso, how many would fail, and therefore, if his purposes required it,\ncould easily create such a multitude that the angels who fell would\nnot be missed from their ranks. Those who fell did indeed thwart the\nbenevolent designs of God, so far as their own particular persons were\nconcerned. But these designs were conditional, as respecting\nindividuals, and were made in full view of the actual event. God could\nnot be thwarted or disappointed in regard to his grand design, because\nthis did not depend on any particular individuals.\n\nSo in regard to men. Jesus Christ as man, and the Blessed Virgin, on\nwhom the fulfilment of the divine plan absolutely depended, were\nabsolutely predestined, and rendered impeccable; Jesus Christ by\nnature, and the Blessed Virgin by grace. If any other particular\nindividuals were placed in a position which required it, they too\nreceived a grace which gave them immunity from any liability to fail\nin their necessary concurrence with the divine will as second causes.\nA vast multitude of human beings are elevated to beatitude without\nrunning any of the risks of probation. Adam, it is true, was able to\nthwart the first design of God in regard to the mode of bringing the\nrace to its destination. But he could not thwart God's ultimate\ndesign, because he was able to accomplish it by another mode.\nParticular men, in vast numbers, are able to thwart the designs of God\ntoward themselves. But they cannot thwart his designs toward the race.\nFor he is able to regulate and order times, events, and circumstances,\nand to continue creating generation after generation, until, by moral\nmeans alone, he has completed the number of his saints and peopled\nheaven sufficiently to fulfil his purpose. Moreover, if necessary, he\ncan always {298} touch the springs of the will directly, and determine\nit to any act which he has positively decreed must be performed. He\ncan also modify, restrict, alleviate, set aside, or shorten the risks\nof probation, according to his own good pleasure, in regard to any or\nall of men, with an infinite and infallible wisdom.\n\nBut it is again argued, that according to this view, God is not the\nabsolute cause of all things, nor the absolute sovereign over all\nthings. The created will has an independent sovereignty of its own,\nand God is dependent in certain things on his creatures, obliged to\nmodify his plans and to condition his decrees to suit their\ndeterminations.\n\nThis is not a conclusive argument. It is a maxim of philosophy, that\n_causa causae est causa causati_; the cause of a cause is the cause of\nthat which is caused; _i.e._, caused by this second cause. God is the\ncreator of free-will, and his perpetual influx gives it always the\npower of choosing and acting. Free-will is not, therefore, an\nindependent, but a delegated and dependent sovereign. God can deprive\nit of the opportunity of choosing, or frustrate its determinations. It\nis sovereign within a limited sphere, because God has chosen to create\nit and give it sovereignty.\n\nIf God is absolute sovereign, can he not concede to a creature the\npower to do his own will within a certain sphere, if it [is] his\nsovereign pleasure to do so? Can he not determine to do certain things\non the condition that the creature uses his free-will in a certain\nway, if he pleases? He has pleased to do it. He has made his eternal\ndecrees with a full view of all that his creatures would do before\nhim. All the incidental and partial evil resulting from the misuse of\nfree-will in the universe he has foreseen, and determined to permit.\nHe has decided on his great plan, notwithstanding the incidental evil,\nin view of a greater universal good. Not that sin and evil are\nnecessary means of the greatest good, or directly conduce to a greater\ngood than that which could exist in a universe without sin; but that\nthe concession of the liberty on a grand scale, the particular and\nincidental misuse of which occasions sin and evil, is the necessary\nmeans to that greater good. The greater good itself is the obedience,\nhomage, love, service, and fidelity given to God by a multitude of\ncreatures who have been left free to sin, and who have not sinned, or\nnot sinned irremediably and finally.\n\nWe conclude, therefore, _pace tantorum virorum_ who have maintained\nit, that the theory of the strict Thomists on this point is not\nconclusively established. To our mind, the theory which is in\naccordance with the philosophy of the great fathers before St. Thomas,\nwith that of the Scotists in the middle ages, and with that of the\nmost prevalent Catholic schools since the Jansenist controversy, is\nthe more probable one. According to this theory, in a system of strict\nprobation, a physical premotion, or a grace efficacious _in se_ and\n_ab intrinseco_ is not metaphysically necessary in order that\nfree-will may actually concur with the divine will to secure the\npermanence of the creature in a supernatural state. Nothing is\nnecessary beyond liberty of choice and the grace which gives power to\nelicit supernatural acts. When the angels passed through their\nprobation, therefore, we cannot go behind the exercise of their\nliberty in choosing or rejecting the proffered boon of celestial\nglory, to seek a deeper cause, determining some to choose and not\ndetermining others. They were free to choose; and being free, some\nshows wisely and well, others foolishly and ill. So, also, with Adam.\nHe might have stood, but he did not. He had the power to choose, and\nhe chose wrongly. By the very same power he might have chosen rightly,\nwithout any additional Grace, The _arbitrium mentis_, the exercise of\nfree self-dominion, is the only reason that {299} can be given. This\nprerogative is indeed mysterious and inscrutable. We do not pretend to\nhave removed all difficulty of comprehending it. But it is\nincomprehensible to us in our present state of imperfect intelligence,\nbecause the soul itself is an inscrutable mystery. Its relation to the\ndivine will and operation is a mystery full of inexplicable\ndifficulties. But it is because of that ground mystery of mysteries,\nthe coexistence of God and the creation, which was the insoluble\nenigma of all ancient philosophy. The great Aristotle saw the\ndifficulty so clearly which is involved in the relation of a\ncontingent world to the necessary being of God, that, unable to find\nan ideal formula which could unite the two terms by a dialectic\nrelation, he denied all relation between them. He affirmed the\nexistence of God and of the world. But he affirmed also, that the\nworld exists independently of God, as self-existent, eternal, and\nnecessary. Moreover, that God has or can have no knowledge of the\nworld. For, he argued, God can have no knowledge of the world unless\nthe world is the object or terminus of the divine intelligence. But if\nthe world is the object of the divine intelligence, God is not perfect\nas intelligence in himself alone, but is conditioned and perfected by\nthat which is inferior to his own being. Thus we see that the\nobjection to the divine foreknowledge of the contingent in its\nobjective verity which is found in scholastic theology, is one derived\nfrom Aristotle, and that the extremely subtle and acute reasoning of\nSt. Thomas and the Thomists were directed toward a reconciliation of\nthe Aristotelian philosophy with the Catholic dogmas. The difficulty\nlies in the creative act of God, which is a mystery not fully\ncomprehensible by human reason, and, therefore, not fully to be\nexplained by any hypothesis or theory of philosophy. The activity of\nfree-will as concurrent, con-creative cause with God approaches the\nnearest of anything in creation to the creative act of God, and,\ntherefore, is the most mysterious and incomprehensible fact of\npsychology. It is incomprehensible in itself, and it complicates still\nfurther the incomprehensibility of the creative act of God. It is not\nstrange, therefore, that there should have been such a long and still\nunsettled controversy in the Catholic schools respecting this topic,\nsince the church has hitherto abstained from deciding it. Still less\ncan we wonder that non-Catholic schools, having no fixed dogmas or\nauthoritative formulas of doctrine to check the spirit of private\nspeculation, go round and round continually, involving themselves more\nhopelessly every day in entanglements from which they can never\nextricate themselves.\n\nThe explanation we have endeavored to set forth as the most probable\nwill, we think, commend itself to the minds of most of our readers as\nthe most intelligible and satisfactory which can be given. If a better\none can be furnished by some one more competent to the task, we shall\nwelcome it. Meanwhile, we leave what we have written to find what\nacceptance it may.\n\nIt will be seen at once, by those who are at all versed in these\nmatters, that, according to the theory we have proposed, the\npredestination of those who attain eternal life as the term of a\nperiod of probation is consequent on the foresight of their fidelity\nand merit, at least as a general rule. It does not follow from this,\nhowever, that we reject the doctrine of efficacious grace. As this\ndoctrine is immediately connected with the points we have been\nexamining, we will give it a brief consideration now, in order to\navoid returning to it hereafter.\n\nIn the Thomist theology, efficacious grace means a grace distinct in\nits own nature from sufficient grace. Sufficient grace gives the power\nto elicit a supernatural act, efficacious grace gives the act itself.\nIt is therefore efficacious _in se_ and _ab intrinseco_. {300} This\nnotion of efficacious grace is derived from the philosophical notion\nof the previous and efficacious concurrence of the will of God with\nevery act of free-will, in the exercise of the faculty of choice.\nAccording to this philosophy, it is impossible for this faculty, as it\nis for every second cause _in potentia_ to its proper act, to pass\nfrom potentiality into act without a special movement from the first\ncause.\n\nThe contrary hypothesis, sustained by Molina, the great body of the\nJesuit theologians, Thomassinus, and the generality of modern Catholic\nauthors, is, that the grace which is auxiliary to the will in\neliciting free supernatural acts, is not efficacious _ab intrinseco_,\nbut is made efficacious by the concurrence of free-will. This implies\na different notion of divine concurrence from the one just stated,\naccording to which the influx of divine power into free, spontaneous,\nactive second causes gives merely an aid which is indeterminate,\nleaving free-will to its own election among two or more terms upon\nwhich it can direct this indeterminate aid. When an artilleryman\nsights his gun, the divine power which supports and gives efficiency\nto all natural laws and forces must propel the ball. But this divine\npower stands ready at his disposal, and will propel the ball in\nwhatever direction, toward whatever point, he selects. So it is with\nthe choice of free-will.\n\nWe have already indicated our adhesion to this latter hypothesis. It\nis far more in accordance with the doctrine of the Fathers, Latin as\nwell as Greek, including St. Augustine himself, than the other. The\nformer one was wholly unknown to the Greek Fathers, and does not\nappear in the Latin Fathers before the Pelagian controversy. Even\nafter this period it appears, in the writings of St. Augustine and\nothers of his school, in an entirely different form from that which\nwas given to it by St. Thomas. That is to say, it is applied to the\ncase of fallen man, who is supposed to need an efficacious grace on\naccount of the weakness of his will, and to receive it as a special\ngift of mercy through Christ. The perseverance of those angels who\nstood their trial successfully is attributed, not to a grace\nefficacious _ab intrinseco_, which was withheld from the other angels,\nbut to a right use of the same grace which was equally conceded to\nall, and abused by some. So, also, the fall of Adam is attributed\nsimply to his failure of concurrence with a grace which needed only\nhis concurrence in order to become efficacious, but was frustrated of\nits effect by his abuse of his own free-will. Moreover, all that St.\nAugustine says about efficacious grace in fallen man is reconcilable\nwith the doctrine of congruity and sometimes directly favors it, as is\nproved by Antoine and others who have written in vindication of his\ntheology from Jansenist perversions. This doctrine of congruity has\nbeen introduced in order to explain more satisfactorily the perfect\nliberty of the will, without denying the existence of efficacious\ngrace differing _in actu primo_, or antecedently to the consent of the\nwill, from grace merely sufficient. Although the opinion that the\nactual efficacy of divine grace is to the sought exclusively in the\nconsent of the will has not been condemned, it has nevertheless been\nreceived with disfavor and generally rejected. It is commonly taught\nthat God confers, whenever he pleases, upon men, a grace which\ninfallibly secures their co-operation, and their final perseverance.\nIn our view, this doctrine can the sustained by ample and certain\nproofs from Scripture and Tradition, and is the only one which can be\ncompletely developed in consonance with the decisions of the church,\nespecially those of the Council of Trent respecting final\nperseverance.  [Footnote 63]\n\n  [Footnote 63: Si quis _magnum illud usque in finem perseverantiae\n  donum_ se certo habiturum, absoluta et infallibili certitudine\n  dixerit, etc. A. S.\n\n  If any one shall say that he will certainly have that _great gift of\n  perseverance to the end_, with an absolute and infallible certitude,\n  etc.\n\n  Si quis dixerit, justificatum vel sine _speciali auxilio Dei,_ in\n  accepta justisia perseverare posse, vel cum eo non posse. A. S.\n\n  If any one shall say that the justified man either can, without a\n  _special aid of God_, persevere in the justice he has received, or\n  can not persevere with it, let him be under the ban. De Justif. Can.\n  16-22.]\n\n{301}\n\nThe reason why certain graces are actually infallible in their effects\nis to be found in their congruity he to the character, disposition,\nand circumstances of the subject, and in their multitude. The\nnecessity for them is not a metaphysical but a moral necessity. The\nfragility of our nature is such, that although a grace merely\nsufficient makes us metaphysically capable of persevering without sin,\nwe are you sure to become wearied, and through fickleness, weakness of\npurpose, changeableness, etc., to break down somewhere. Our own\nconsciousness and experience teach us that we need a divine and\nprotecting arm to encompass us continually and secure us against\nourselves, and they incline us to utter that prayer of the Divine\nLiturgy: \"Compelle, Domine, rebelles voluntates nostras:\" \"Compel, O\nLord, our rebellious wills.\" God, who knows human nature perfectly,\ncan, in a thousand ways, by ordering the circumstances of life,\nshortening or prolonging it, regulating the influences which act on\nthe character, alluring or terrifying the heart, illuminating the\nmind, impelling without coercing the will, and adapting his influences\nwith infinite wisdom to the special state of the soul, convert whom he\nwill, sanctify whom he will, give perseverance to whom he will, and\nstill gain his point with the free consent and concurrence of the\ncreature. \"Non est volentis neque currentis, miserentis est Dei:\" \"It\nis not of him who willeth or of him who runneth, but of God who\nshoweth mercy.\" The difficulty may still be raised, that God withholds\nthese graces of congruity and the gift of perseverance from those who\ndo not in the first instance accept the proffered Grace, or who do not\nfinally persevere. But this is removed by the doctrine so ably and\nstrenuously advocated by St. Alphonsus Liguori, that common grace is\nsufficient to enable one to pray fervently and do ordinary good acts;\nand that by prayer, with the use of other facile means, efficacious\ngraces and the gift of perseverance may be infallibly obtained from\nGod.\n\nWe may now return to our theme of the state of probation originally\nestablished by God for those who were made candidates for supernatural\nglory. We have endeavored to clear our track of difficulties impeding\nthe clear view of the truth that God established this probation\nthrough goodness and love, or with the simple view of communicating\nthe greatest good to the creature.\n\nThe principle questions respecting probation having been already\ndiscussed, there remains now but one, viz.: what was the precise and\nspecific nature of the trial to which rational nature was subjected.\nThis divides itself again into two, one respecting the trial of the\nangels and the other respecting the trial of man.\n\nThe angels, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas and theologians\ngenerally, were created at the summit of intelligent being, incapable\nof error or false judgment in their natural, intellectual operation,\nand therefore impeccable in the natural order. Supernatural grace was\nconferred upon them simultaneously with their creation, although, as\nF. Billuart holds, they may have concurred actively to the reception\nof this grace, by a spontaneous act preceding all deliberation. Grace\nmade them capable of eliciting supernatural acts, but did not\ndetermine them to those acts without the free concurrence of their\nwill. Their intelligence must have been, therefore, left in a certain\nobscurity as regards the supernatural object, in order that an error\nof judgment should be possible, or even an act of deliberation\nterminating in a free volition. What the precise object of\ndeliberation and choice was cannot be certainly and precisely\ndetermined. It must in some way have presented the alternative of\neither eliciting a supernatural act by the aid of the obscure\nsupernatural {302} light, or of falling back on the free, natural\noperation of intelligence. God must have exacted some act of homage to\nhis sovereign will, disclosed some condition as the indispensable\nprerequisite to obtaining the crown of supernatural glory, which the\nnatural intelligence of the angels could not see to be just and right\nwithout the aid of a supernatural light. This light was given, clear\nenough to enable the will, by a strong voluntary effort, to determine\nitself to act by this light, in preference to its natural light; dim\nenough to allow the will to turn from it voluntarily, and find in its\nnatural light a plausible reason for withholding its submission to the\nsupreme will. Certain passages of Scripture, and the common\ntraditional Catholic doctrine, indicate that the angels who fell, fell\nthrough pride, and that Lucifer, in particular, their chief spirit, in\nsome way aspired to a resemblance with God. Some have thought that he\ndesired to become God. St. Thomas, however, says that this is\nimpossible, because his intelligence was too perfect to permit him to\nconceive such a thought. He explains the sin of the angels to have\nconsisted in a refusal to accept supernatural glory as a pure boon\nfrom God, and a wish to attain beatitude by the exertion of their own\nnatural powers.\n\nThe most plausible supposition, in our view, is one that may be said\nto be contained under the more generic statement just given. It is,\nnamely, that the angels were tried by the revelation of the\nIncarnation. The union of the Second Person of the Trinity with human\nnature, the elevation of human nature to divine glory and honor, the\nobligation of doing homage to Jesus Christ, as King, and to the\nBlessed Virgin, his mother, as Queen of Angels, was revealed, as the\ncrucial test of the absolute obedience of the celestial spirits.\nAccording to their natural reason, and natural love of their own\nnature and kind, it would appear to them a violation of order and\njustice to pass them by, in order to assume an inferior nature partly\ncorporeal and animal, into a hypostatic union with the Godhead;\nelevating this nature above their own, which was the highest in the\nnatural order. Supernatural light suggested to them that God, as\nsovereign, had a right to bestow his supernatural gifts according to\nhis own will, and, as infinitely wise, must have a secret reason for\napparently inverting the order of nature in establishing the\nsupernatural order of the universe. Those who voluntarily submitted\nthemselves to the decree of God were rewarded by an illumination which\ndisclose to them the wisdom and goodness of the decree of the\nIncarnation, and the glory which they themselves as well as the whole\nuniverse would receive from it; and thus became incapable for ever of\nerring in their judgment respecting the highest good, and consequently\nof swerving from it through sin. Those who fell turned their minds\naway from the supernatural light toward the consideration of their own\nprivate good, and the glory of their own persons and their own order.\nThey revolted at the idea of being subordinated to human nature, and\ndesired that the angelic nature should be the subject of the\nhypostatic union. Lucifer, in particular, as their chief, desired that\nhe himself might be assumed into union with the Word, exalted to the\nthrone of the universe, and deified. He and his associates demanded it\nfrom God as a right due to their natural dignity, and thus rebelled\nagainst his sovereign majesty, were cast out of the celestial sphere,\nand forfeited for ever the crown of supernatural glory. Hence their\nenmity to the Incarnate Word, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to the\nhuman race. Hence their efforts to establish their own supremacy over\nman, and the continual conflict which the holy angels and the children\nof God on earth must wage against them in the sacred warfare for the\ntriumph of Christ's kingdom upon earth. This brings us to the\nconsideration of human probation, a topic which must be reserved for a\nfuture number.\n\n------\n{303}\n\n\nFrom the Dublin University Magazine\n\n\n\nMISSAL-PAINTING.  [Footnote 64]\n\n  [Footnote 64: _Authorities_: Plinii Nat. Hist.; Cornel. Nepos;\n  Giraldus Cambrensis; Anglia Sacra; Brompton's Chron.; Humphreys' Art\n  of Illumination and illuminated Books of the Middle Ages; Sylvestre\n  Pal\u00e9ographic Universelle (Sir F. Madden's edition); Muratori Antiq.\n  Ital. Mediaevi; Lanzi Hist. of Painting; Baldinucci Notizie;\n  Froissart's Chronicles; Mrs. Jamieson's Life of Our Lord; Cotton.\n  MSS.--Claud. B iv.--Faustina, B vi.--Galba, A xviii.-Nero, C\n  iv.--Tiber. A ii., C vi.--Vesp. A i.; Harleian MSS. 2904, 5102,\n  7026, 2900, 2846, 2884, 2853; Bib. Regia, 2 A xxii., 1 D i., 2 A\n  xviii., and 2 B vii.]\n\n\nThe review of monastic literature which we can present in the limited\nspace of a single paper must necessarily be a concise and condensed\none, a mere skeleton of the superstructure, not exhaustive but rather\nsuggestive of the sources where information may be found by others who\nmay care to investigate the merits or demerits of a subject about\nwhich there have been such varying representations. A complete history\nof monastic literature would occupy as many volumes as this essay will\npages, for it would not only necessitate a review of certain portions\nof the literature of every civilized country in Europe, but to a great\nextent at some periods of the whole of European literature. The\nmaterials of history, the hymnology of the church, the elements of\nscience, art, and the very woof, as it were, of modern literature,\nwere all handed down to us by that great institution, whose fate as it\nchanced in England we are endeavoring to delineate. We have hitherto\nstriven to make this investigation a fair and impartial one, based\nupon facts not as represented by the biassed pens of Protestant\nhistorians, but upon facts gleaned almost entirely from the works of\nmen who lived and died in the bosom of that church of which this\ninstitution was the cherished offspring. Still more unreasonable is\nthe prejudice of many who refuse to award any meed of praise to the\nliterary labors of monasticism, who look upon the monk as a lazy,\nsensual, selfish misanthrope, who have heard of the dark ages and are\ntherewith satisfied that they must have been totally\ndark--intellectual obstinates who wilfully shut their eyes and\nmaintain there is no light. We may have doctrinal prejudices,\ntheological prejudices, social prejudices, against monasticism, but\nthese things ought not to prevent a reasoning man from paying his\nhomage to the genius which may be found in its works. Genius is\nuniversal; it is not confined to any doctrine, for it is found in all\ndoctrines; it is not limited to any age, for it is common to all ages;\nit does not flourish merely under enlightened and free governments,\nfor it has lived triumphant through the dull oppression of tyranny;\nriches cannot create it nor poverty crush it out: it is born in the\nhovel; it is nurtured on bleak mountains; it will flourish even under\nthe weary training of indigence and wasting toil: like air, light, and\nbeauty, it is the free, the unbought gift of God.\n\nWe have already in a former chapter described the scriptorium, or room\nadjoining the library, where books were copied and multiplied by monks\nchosen for that work. We will only add to that description what we\nglean from the rule of St. Victor--that no visitors were allowed to\ngo into the scriptorium except the abbot, the prior, the sub-prior,\nand the precentor--that the abbot ordered what books were to be\ntranscribed, and that the writers were appointed by him. At all\nperiods it was a great ambition amongst the monks to be a {304} good\ntranscriber and decorator of manuscripts. Not only was it a matter of\ndistinction but a sure path to promotion; many who have worked well in\nthe scriptorium were rewarded for their services with abbacies and\nbishoprics. In the thirteenth century a monk of the monastery of St.\nSwithin, at Winchester, was recommended for the vacant abbacy of Hyde,\nas being well versed in the glosses of the sacred text, a skilful\nwriter, a good artist, and clever at painting initial letters.\n\nIn this scriptorium was cultivated and brought to perfection an art\nwhich has been the admiration of all subsequent ages, but which\nprinting completely swept away, and failed to supply anything adequate\nin its place--that art is called illumination. It has a career of its\nown, and a value as a beautiful eloquent monument in the history of\nthe church, and under these two phases we shall proceed to investigate\nthis first part of the literary labor of monasticism.\n\nThe art of illuminating manuscripts was not, as has been supposed,\noriginated by Christianity, though it was brought to perfection under\nits sway. There are two periods in its history, the first goes far\nback into the remote past, to the times of the Egyptian papyri,\nsixteen centuries before Christ, and the second period commences with\nthe chrysography or writing in gold of the Greek manuscripts, between\nthe fifth and eighth centuries after Christ. The more ancient rolls of\nEgyptian papyri are written in red, with a reed, decorated by rude\ndrawings similarly traced, representing mystical scenes of the\nEgyptian mythology--some of these papyri, however, are of higher\nfinish, being elaborately painted, gilded, and extending to the length\nof sixty feet. There is preserved in the museum of the Louvre a\nspecimen of the plain style of papyrus, ornamented with illustrations,\ndrawn in outline. It is said to be one of those rituals which are\noften found enclosed in mummy coffins; it is about forty feet in\nlength, and is in a good state of preservation. There are directions\non it for the illuminator, such as were adopted also by the Christian\npenmen. In the corner of the space left for illumination there was\ninserted a small sketch of the subject to guide the artist. The French\nrecovered also a specimen of the superior kind of papyri at Thebes, in\n1798.  [Footnote 65]\n\n  [Footnote 65: Published entire by the Imperial Government, in a work\n  called Description de l'Egypte, 1812.]\n\nIt consists of a number of religious scenes, comprising many figures\nof human beings and animals, drawn with a pen, and brilliantly\ncolored. It is about forty-four feet in length, though imperfect. It\nis more than probable also that the Romans had some knowledge of the\nart of illustrating manuscripts. The passage usually quoted in support\nof this theory occurs in the Natural History of Pliny,  [Footnote 66]\nwhere we are told that Varro wrote the lives of 700 Romans, which he\nillustrated with their portraits.\n\n  [Footnote 66: Marcus Varro benignissimo invento, insertis, voluminum\n  suorum fecunditati non nominibus tantum septingentorum illustrium\n  sed et aliquo modo imaginibus non passus intercidere figuras aut\n  vetustatem aevi contra homines valere, inventor muneris etiam diis\n  invidiosi, quando immortalitatem non solum dedit verum etiam in\n  omnes terras misit ut presectes esse ubique et claudi\n  possent.--PLINII: Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv., c. 2.]\n\nBut there is also an account of a similar work by Pomponius Atticus,\nrecorded by Cornelius Nepos, who tells us that Atticus wrote about the\nactions of the great men of Rome, which descriptions he ornamented\nwith their portraits.  [Footnote 67]\n\n  [Footnote 67: Namque versibus qui honores rerumque gestarum\n  amplitudine ceteros Romane populi praestiterunt exposuit: ita ut sub\n  singulorum imaginibus facta magistratus qui eorum non amplius\n  quaternis quinisve versibus discripserit.--CORN. NEP.: Atticus.]\n\nIt is impossible to fix the time when the art of Christian\nillumination sprung up, but most probably it occurred when the ancient\nfashion of rolled manuscripts gave way to something more like the\npresent book form; that is, instead of one long narrow sheet of some\nforty or sixty feet, a number of square sheets placed upon each other,\nand sewn together at the back. The ancient manuscripts were rolled\neither {305} upon one or two rollers. The second roller was adopted\nfor the convenience of the reader, who might roll off his manuscript\nas he read it from one to the other; thus one roller was placed at the\nend of the MS. round which it was rolled first, then a second roller\nwas attached to the commencement of the MS., and upon this the reader\nrolled it off as he read; it was the duty of the librarians to roll it\nback again for the convenience of the next reader. As long as this\nmode prevailed there could be no elaborate painting or gilding of\nMSS., such as we are familiar with, and this is attested by the fact\nthat the MSS. of this rolled form which were dug up from Herculaneum\nand Pompeii have no trace of decoration. But in the very earliest\nspecimens of the book form which came into vogue early in the second\ncentury of the Christian era, there were decorations of various\ndegrees of richness. The Discorides in the Vienna Library, and the\ncelebrated Virgil of the Vatican, said to have been executed in the\nfourth century, are among the earliest specimens of illuminated MSS.\nStill the miniature prevailed in these, the decorations in the\nDiscorides being very simple, but absent altogether in the Virgil,\nwhilst the miniatures are large and clear. Decoration, however, was\nprevalent in that early time, for St. Jerome, who lived in the fourth\ncentury, complains of the abuse of this art of filling up books with\nornamented capital letters of an enormous size. It is there for in\nthis fourth century that we find a marked advance in the art of\nillumination. The most valuable books were written in gold and silver\ninks by scribes who were called chrysographi; the vellum was stained\nwith rose colored or purple dye, to throw up the gold and silver\nletters. One of the most valued authorities on the text of the New\nTestament is the version by Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop, who lived in\nthe early part of the fourth century. A copy of this in letters of\nsilver, with the initials in gold, was executed in the fifth century,\nand is now preserved in the royal library at Upsal, under the\nwell-known title of the Codex Atgenteus. Some of the MSS. of this\nperiod were written on a blue ground in silver, with the name of God\nin gold. This magnificent form of copying was devoted principally to\nthe Gospels and Scriptures generally. To this succeeded as an\ninfluence of Byzantine luxury the style of writing on a gilded ground\nin letters of black. During these early periods miniatures formed the\nprincipal features of the ornamentation, but toward the seventh\ncentury, two centuries after the fall of Rome, a change came over the\nstyle of art, and miniatures gradually gave way to more elaborate\ndecoration. In this age, too, the initial letter sprang up. In the\nmost ancient manuscripts it was not distinguished from the text, but\nfrom the seventh to the eleventh century separate capital letters of a\nlarge size were the characteristics of the volumes most decorated. It\nis to this period that the origin of the various schools of\nillumination may be traced. Rome had succumbed to barbarian violence,\nand her arts, though decaying, still exerted an influence upon this\nnew style of painting, then in its infancy. That influence was\nnaturally stronger in Italy, and therefore the early illuminations of\nthe Italian school bear traces of the old Roman style. In France the\nsame influence was manifest, mixed up with national peculiarities, and\nthis school was consequently called the Franco-Roman. Miniatures now\nwere gradually displaced by intricate ornamentation, interlaced\nfretwork, or twining branches of white or gold, on a background of\nvariegated colors. But far away in the distant west, in a country\nwhich had never been under Roman domination, and was therefore free\nfrom Roman influence, a style of art rose up of a purely original\ncharacter. Historical research has placed it beyond question that in\nthese remote times Ireland was far in advance of other nations in the\nscale of civilization. Her fame had extended over Europe, her\nmonasteries were adorned {306} with men of great piety and learning,\nwho were the trainers of the leading spirits of the age. She was the\nfirst to break through the dense darkness of the times, and as she\ngave Christianity to Scotland, so she also imparted to the Saxons the\nart of illumination. The very earliest mention we have in the history\nof our country of an illuminator is of Dagaeus, abbot of Iniskeltra,\nwho lived in the early part of the sixth century, and died about 587.\nAdamnanus, the Saxon abbot of Iona, retained Genereus, who had taught\nillumination in the Irish monasteries, to impart that knowledge to the\nSaxons; and in the eighth century another Irish monk, Ultan, is\nmentioned as having a great reputation as an illuminator of MSS. Bede\nalso confirms this fact of Irish civilization, for he asserts that it\nwas the custom to send youths out of England into Ireland to study at\nher monasteries. It was from Ireland, then, that the Anglo-Saxons\nlearned the art of illumination.  [Footnote 68] Later in the tenth\ncentury, a style, peculiar and original, was started, it is said by\nDunstan, who was a great illuminator, which consisted in a novel use\nof the foliage, quite distinct from all other styles. It prevailed to\nthe end of the Saxon rule, and is known by the name of Opus Anglicum.\nOne of the finest specimens of the Anglo-Saxon school is extant in the\nCottonian library, in the shape of the Durham Book, or St. Cuthbert's\nGospels; it was the work of Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, in honor\nof St. Cuthbert; its execution extended from the year 698 to 721; it\nis peculiarly a Saxon piece of art, and belongs to that species known\nas \"tesselated\" Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote in the twelfth century,\nspeaks of having seen a similar MS. at Kildare, which was called The\nEvangelisterium.  [Footnote 69]\n\n  [Footnote 68: Mr. Noel Humphreys, in is beautiful little work upon\n  the Art of Illumination and Missal Painting, has given, as a\n  specimen of this Anglo-Hibernian school, a page from the Gospels of\n  Maelbrigid Mac Durnan, the MS. of which is preserved in the Lambeth\n  MSS.]\n\n  [Footnote 69: Inter universa Kyldariae miracula nil mihi\n  miraculosius occurrit quam liber (ut alunt) Angelo dictante\n  conscriptus. Continet hic liber quatuor Evangelistarum juxta\n  Hieronymum concordantiam: ubi quot paginae fere sunt tot figurae\n  diversae variisque coloribus distinctissimae. Hic majestatis vultum\n  videas divinitus impressum, hinc mysticas Evangelistarum formas:\n  nunc senas nunc quaternas nunc binas alas habentes. Hinc acquilam,\n  inde vitulum hinc hominis faciem inde leonis ailasque figuras pene\n  infinitas. . . . Haec equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius\n  intueor semper quasi novi obstupco semperque magis ac magis\n  admiranda conspicio.--GIRALD CAMB.: Topogr. Hibern., lib., ii., c. 88.]\n\nThe finest specimen of English illumination of the tenth century is\nthe Duke of Devonshire's celebrated Benedictional, by St. AEthelwald,\nbishop of Winchester, written and painted between 963 and 984. The\nfirst page is a magnificent picture of a number of glorified\nconfessors; it was written by a monk, of whom we shall speak\nhereafter. Up to the twelfth century decorations were the peculiar\ncharacteristics of illumination, although some Saxon MSS. written\nduring those periods have pictures drawn in outline; but the great\npoint in all richly illuminated MSS. was the initial letter, and every\neffort of art was exerted to make that as rich and magnificent as\npossible. After that time we find these initial letters ornamented\nalso with drawings of the human form, animals, birds, etc, in addition\nto the foliage which had hitherto predominated. The coloring of the\nperiod was richer also, and these MSS. so decorated with pictures were\ncalled \"historiated,\" and led by degrees to the fine historical\nilluminations of subsequent centuries. Gradually these initial letters\nbecame larger and longer, until their tales reached nearly the whole\nlength of the page. They were then carried round the bottom, until out\nof this progression of the initial letter arose what is called the\n\"Gothic bracket\"--and ornamentation like a clasp which ran round three\nsides of the page. During the fourteenth century miniatures were again\nintroduced, and were improving and becoming more finished up to the\nmiddle of the sixteenth century. The Gothic bracket was also extended\ngradually, until it at last embraced the whole page, and became {307}\none of the great features of of subsequent illumination--the \"border.\"\nIn these borders all kinds of subjects were crowded--foliage,\nflowers, birds, animals, and miniatures, and toward the end of the\nfifteenth century a background was added, first in parts, and\nultimately entirely. A work which appeared in the thirteenth century\nexerted, however, a great influence over the art of illumination, even\ndown to the time of its decline, three centuries later. It was a\nseries of meditations on the life of Christ, known as St. Bonaventura,\nby John Fidenza, and the minute descriptions it gave of the various\nscenes of which it treated formed a sort of ideal, the influence of\nwhich may be traced in nearly all subsequent treatment of similar\nsubjects, and accounts for their general uniformity. During the\nByzantine period illuminating was confined to manuscripts of the\nScriptures, the works of the fathers, and books for the services in\nthe church. To these were then added volumes for private devotion,\nsuch as Horae, or prayers four hours and holy days, sometimes called\nMissals. Legends, history, and poetry followed, and in the fourteenth\ncentury the works of Chaucer and the Chronicles of Froissart opened a\nvast field to the illuminators for the delineation of battles, sieges,\nreligious ceremonies, public events, and scenes of domestic life. Some\ncopies of classical authors also were then illuminated, until by the\nend of the fifteenth century nearly every kind of formal document was\nilluminated, including charters, wills, indentures, patents of\nnobility, statutes of foundations, and mortuary registers. But the\nprinting-press was looming in the distance, and the death-knell of\nthis beautiful art began to toll. Its fall, which was inevitable, was,\nhowever, gradual. Men could not be weaned at once from these\nilluminated books, and a sort of temporary alliance between the two\narts was effected. The earliest printed books were illuminated, spaces\nwhich had been formerly left by the copyist were now reserved by the\nprinter, and the whole work when it left his hands was given over to\nthe artist; then the subjects were engraven on wood, and transferred\nto the vellum by means of ink and the press; but the manuscript style\nwas still preserved, and the closest imitation of written volumes was\nretained by the early printers, and with such dexterity that it is not\nan easy thing to detect some of the earliest printed books from\nmanuscripts. Perhaps the last effort to illuminate a book by the\nprinter's art to the extent of the older MSS., was an edition of the\nLiturgy, brought out in 1717 by John Short, entirely engraven on\ncopper plates. The pages were surrounded by borders, and embellished\nwith pictures and decorated initial letters. Even down to the early\npart of the present century books were printed with ornamental initial\nletters, and borders on the top and bottom of each page, both of which\nmay be seen occasionally in the present day, more especially in books\nissued from presses which seek to revive the antique type and style.\nIn concluding this portion of our sketch, we may mention another\ncharacteristic of early MS. writing which exists in some of our books\nin present use. If we take up an edition of a Greek classic printed\nsome forty or fifty years ago, or even less, we shall find it almost\nunintelligible, from the number of contractions used in the printing;\nand if we go further back still, we shall find these contractions more\nnumerous. It arose in the eighth or ninth century; the scribes\nintroduced in the copying of Greek MSS. a system of contraction called\ntacygraphy, by which two, three, or more letters were expressed by one\ncharacter, which was termed \"nexus litterarum.\" The editors of the\nearly period of printing adopted them in their type, and they\ncontinued in use down to the beginning of the present century.\n\n{308}\n\nAs we have thus given a condensed review of the history and\ndevelopment of that most beautiful art of illuminating MSS., we shall\nproceed to describe the details of the work as it was carried on for\ncenturies in the various monasteries in Europe. The parchment was cut\ninto sheets of the required size, and prepared for the copyist in the\nfollowing manner--They were first rubbed over with the powdered bone\nof the cuttle-fish, or with the ashes of a certain kind of bone or\nwood burned and pulverized; a wheel with sharp teeth at equal\ndistances was then run down each side of the sheet, and lines ruled\nacross from point to point between which the matter was to be written;\nit was then handed to the scribe, who began his work. In the ancient\nmanuscripts there is to be found no paging or table of contents. The\nwhole work was divided into packets of parchment sheets, each\ncontaining about four leaves; these packets were sometimes marked with\na number temporarily on the first page, which was cut off when the\nwhole was bound. At the end of each section of leaves the scribe wrote\nthe word with which the next section should commence, a practice\ncontinued by printers under the title of \"catch-words.\" If a\nmanuscript contained several treatises on different subjects, a list\nof contents was appended, the initial word of each tract, and the\nnumber of sections. As soon as the copying was finished, the work of\nillustration commenced. The outlines were traced with a pencil made of\nsilver, or brass with a silver point; then the metallic outlines were\ngone over with a fine quill pen, dipped in a preparation of lampblack\nand gum. There are many MSS. extant originally intended to be\nilluminated, but from some unknown cause have come down to us in this\nunfinished state of outline sketches. The next step was to wash in the\nshades with ink and water of three degrees of strength; at this point\nthe gilding was done, in order that the burnishing might not interfere\nwith the colors. The raised or embossed gold grounds were done first\nby laying the metal leaf on a thick smooth bed made of fine plaster,\ncarefully ground; they were then burnished, and if it were intended to\ndecorate these raised gold grounds with engravings or patterns cut in\nthe metal, that was done as the next stage. After this the large\nmasses of flat, painted gilding were added and the colors laid on with\nthe utmost care as to the tint. The last process, which was intrusted\nonly to superior hands, was that of diapering, pencilling, inserting\nbrilliant touches of gold and white, and in fact finishing the whole\nwork. These two forms of gold work, the embossed and the flat, are to\nbe found in perfection in MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth\ncenturies. They prepared their gold with great care. In the fourteenth\ncentury the gold leaf was ground with honey carefully washed, and the\npowder mixed with gum water. In a treatise written by Theophilus,\n[Footnote 70] the pulverization of gold for painting forms a difficult\nprocess; he directs that the pure gold should be filed into a cup, and\nthen washed with a pencil in the shell of a sea fish, after which it\nis to be milled in a mortar made of copper and tin, with a long pestle\nworked by a strap and wheel.\n\n  [Footnote 70: THEOP.: De Diversis Artibus.]\n\nThen the gold filings are to be milled in water for two or three hours\nand gradually poured off. The powder thus produced was to be tempered\nwith isinglass and laid on a ground of red lead, mixed with the white\nof an egg; after this it was burnished with a bloodstone, a shining\nhorn tablet being placed under the gilded picture. The Anglo-Saxons\nused to rub gold filings in a mortar with sharp vinegar, and then\ndissolve them with salt and nitre. The principle colors used,\naccording to Theophilus, were vermilion orpiment, Greek green,\ndragon's-blood, granetum carminium, saffron, folium, brunum, minium,\nwhite and black. After they had ground their colors on a slab of\nporphyry, they placed them in covered glass vessels under water, which\nnot only only preserved them from dust, but {309} kept them always\nsoft and ready for use. The old painters never touched their colors\nwith iron, but used as a palette-knife a thin blade of wood. They made\ntheir own pencils and brushes, the pencils being made of minever\ntails, set in quills, and the brushes of the bristles of the white\ndomestic pig, bound to a stick. When a manuscript had passed through\nall these stages of copying and illuminating, it had to be bound, a\nwork also done in the scriptorium. The sacred MSS. at an early period\nwere bound between two wooden boards, covered with engraved plates of\ngold and silver set off with crystals and rubies. But the usual\nbinding of volumes for the services for the church was in the skins of\ndeer, sheep, and calves, pieces of which were stretched over the\nboards, and the leaves were sewn together by the same material cut\ninto strips. The ecclesiastics were forbidden to indulge in the\npleasure of the chase, although the love of that sport was a universal\npassion, and it was with great difficulty they could be restrained\nfrom joining in such diversions; but Charlemagne granted permission to\npriests to hunt for the purpose of procuring deer-skins to bind books.\nGrants were made to monasteries by other sovereigns of a certain\nnumber of skins annually. The corners of the covers of large\nservice-books were protected by plates and bosses of metal; there was\na metal center with a large projected hemisphere on each side, and\nacross the book were too strong loops of leather for the purpose of\nlifting it when closed. The service-books of the church were\nnecessarily very large, because they were placed on a high sloping\nshelf, around which the choristers stood while the precentor, standing\nbehind them, turned over the leaves with a staff from above their\nheads. Such are a few of the details of the art of illuminating\nmanuscripts, which flourished in the monasteries from the eighth to\nthe eighteenth centuries, when it died in Europe under Louis XIV. The\nschools of this art, which sprung up from its cultivation, may be\nenumerated by six denominations, as shown in the following table:\n\nGREEK or BYZANTINE, from the eighth to the tenth century: the\n_Irish-Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Franco-Saxon_, and the painting of _Russia_\nbelong to this school.\n\nEARLY ROMAN, tenth to the fourteenth century, which includes also the\n_Anglo-Norman_.\n\nITALIAN, fourteenth to sixteenth century, including the _Spanish_ and\n_Portuguese_.\n\nEARLY FRENCH, fourteenth to seventeenth century, under which may be\nranged the _later English_.\n\nFLEMISH, GERMAN, AND DUTCH, from the close of the fifteenth century.\n\nLATER FRENCH, during the seventeenth eighteenth centuries.\n\nWe have already remarked that a genius for illumination and excellence\nin copying were at one time sure recommendations for promotion. The\nmemory of men too who had spent their lives in this occupation were\ntenderly cherished; and two incidents preserved in history attesting\nthe fact we shall mention. Baldinucci, in his History of Painting,\ngives an account of two brethren in the Camaldulan Monastery, Degli\nAngeli, at Florence, who were most indefatigable copyists. Dom Jacopo\nFiorentino made his appearance at the Monastery of Degli Angeli, in\nthe year 1340; he is described as a monk of holy manners who, when he\nwas not engaged in monastic duties, spent all his time in copying. He\nacquired an extraordinary expertness and elegance in writing the\npeculiar character used in the books of the choir. His talents were\nappreciated, and Dom Jacopo was seldom idle. He wrote twenty massive\nchoral books for his own monastery, the largest ever seen in Italy,\nand a great many others for Rome, Venice, and Murano. His fame spread\nabroad, and after his death the brethren of the order preserved {310}\nthe right hand of this scribe, which had done so much good work, as a\nlasting memorial of his name. Dom Silvestro, another monk living in\nthe monastery of Degli Angeli at the same time, excelled in miniature\npainting, and to his lot fell the decoration of those very books, as\nthey issued from the facile pen of Dom Jacopo. His work was thoroughly\nappreciated by the great artists of the best ages of Italy. Lorenzo\nthe Magnificent, and Leo X., his son, were pleased to accord their\nadmiration. When he died his right hand was also embalmed. Although\nthis work of copying and illuminating was carried on generally in the\nscriptorium of the monastery, yet occasionally a monk had a room to\nhimself for the purpose, bearing the same name. Giraldus Cambrensis,\nin his Life of St. David, tells us that the great bishop commenced\nwriting a copy of St. John's Gospel in gold and silver letters in his\nown scriptorium at Menevia:\n\n  \"Scriptorium suum locumque laboris.\"   [Footnote 71]\n\n  [Footnote 71: Anglia Sacra, vol. ii., p.635.]\n\nMany of the names of great illuminators are lost in oblivion, but some\nhave been preserved. Of these, as our investigation is more\nparticularly into the monachism of our own country, we shall dwell\nmore largely upon those men who were born on British soil. We have\nalready adverted to the peculiarly advanced state of the Irish\nmonasteries in the very earliest times. There can be no doubt that\nboth as missionaries and educators they took the lead in those remote\nperiods. Muratori, the groat Italian historian of the middle ages,\nmentions Ireland as surpassing other nations in the west in the career\nof letters,  [Footnote 72] and we have already quoted the testimony of\nBede.\n\n  [Footnote 72: Muratori--Antiq. Ital. Medii AEvi, Dissert. 43.]\n\nWe shall therefore commence our review of the English art of\nillumination with the name of the Irish abbot already alluded to, as\nthe first upon record, _Dagaeus_, abbot of Iniskeltra, who died about\nthe year 587, and excelled not only in writing, but in binding and\ndecoration. The next in order is the monk _Genereus_, an Anglo-Saxon,\nwho had both studied and taught in the Irish schools; his services\nwere retained by Adamnanus to teach the Saxon monks in the monastery\nof Iona; and the third, as we have before mentioned, is an Irish monk,\n_Ultan_, who, at the end of the eighth century, was renowned as an\nilluminator. The seed fell upon good soil, and bore abundant fruit,\nfor we next read of _Eadfrith_ and _Ethelwold_, both abbots of\nLindisfarne, and bishops of Durham, who, early in the eighth century,\nwrote and illuminated the magnificent copy of the Gospels in golden\nletters, to the honor of St. Cuthbert, which is now preserved in the\nCottonian Library at the British Museum, and known as the Durham Book.\nThere is good reason to suppose that _Dunstan_ excelled in\nillumination. In a manuscript in the Bodleian Library, there is a\ndrawing purporting to be by his hand--a figure of Christ appearing to\nthe prelate, who is prostrate at his feet. _Godeman_, whom we have\nalso mentioned, was chaplain of Ethelwold, bishop of Durham, at whose\ninstigation he undertook the task of writing and illuminating the\ncelebrated Benedictional, which is preserved in the Duke of\nDevonshire's library. In return for this work, Ethelwold made him\nabbot of Thorney. He flourished about 970. _Ervenius_, a monk of St.\nEdmonsbury Abbey, was renowned as illuminator, about ten years later.\nIn a life of Wulstan, Bishop of Winchester, written by William of\nMalmesbury, we are told that Ervenius was his tutor, and that young\nWulstan was first attracted to letters by the beautiful illustrations\nof a sacramentarium and Psalter, from which he was taught. \"Thus,\"\nsays the biographer, \"the youth Wulstan acquired, almost by miracle,\nthe chief heads of the most precious things, for while those lustrous\nbeauties entered in at the apertures of his eyes, he received the\n{311} knowledge of sacred letters into his very part.\"   [Footnote 73]\n\n  [Footnote 73: Habebat tunc (Wulstan) magistrum Ervenium nomine, in\n  scribendo et quidlibet coloribus effingendo peritum. Is libros\n  scriptos Sacramentarium et Psalterium quorum principales literas\n  auro effigiaverit puero Wulstano delegandos curabit. Ille\n  preciosorum apicum captus miraculo dum pulchritudinem intentis\n  oculis rimatur et scientiam literatum internis haurit\n  medullis.--GULIEL. MALMS.: _De Vita Wulstan, in Ang. Sacra_, vol.\n  ii., p. 224.]\n\nA similar instance is recorded in the life of Alfred, who, when a\nchild, was drawn toward books by the charm of the illustrations. In\nBrompton's Chronicle we are told that _Osmund_, the Bishop of\nSalisbury, in the year 1076, did not disregard the labor of writing,\nbinding, and illuminating of books.  [Footnote 74]\n\n  [Footnote 74: Ipse episcopus libros scribere, illuminare et ligare,\n  non fastidiret.--Brompton Chron. ann. 1076.]\n\nEadwinus, a monk of Canterbury, in the middle of the twelfth century,\nhas left a monument of his labors behind him, in the shape of an\nelaborate psalter, preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge. At the end\nof this psalter are two drawings, one of Christ Church and the\nmonastery at Canterbury, and the other a full-length portrait of\nhimself. In the same volume are many historical figures, with initial\nletters in gold, silver, and vermilion. We include in our list\n_Matthew Paris_, the historian, who, although he is supposed to have\nbeen a Frenchman, yet passed his life in St. Alban's monastery, wrote\nan English history,  [Footnote 75] and may at least be taken as a\nnaturalized, if not a born Englishman.\n\n  [Footnote 75: Or rather a continuation of one, the first part of it,\n  from 1066 to 1235, is attributed to Roger of Wendover, who was in\n  the same monastery. William of Rishanger continued it to the year\n  1273, from the point where Matthew Paris leaves off (1259), but the\n  whole is frequently quoted as by Matthew Paris. The probabilities\n  are greater in favor of his being an Englishman than the contrary.\n  His works were admired by the early Reformers, for the bold and\n  vigorous manner in which he wrote upon ecclesiastical affairs.]\n\nHe is reported to have had a good knowledge of painting, architecture,\nand the mathematics. The history which is called Historia Major, up to\nthe year 1235, was in all probability the work of another. Matthew\nParis wrote the continuation, and copied the whole as it is now in the\nBritish Museum, and illustrated it. The next English name rescued from\nthe oblivion of the past, is that of _Alan Strayler_, who was also a\nmonk of St. Alban's, about the year 1463. His work is contained in a\nvolume called the Golden Register of St. Alban's, extant in the\nCottonian library.  [Footnote 76]\n\n  [Footnote 76: Cotton MSS.--Nero, D vii.]\n\nIt is a record of the benefactors of the monastery down to the year\n1463. His own portrait is inserted as a benefactor, inasmuch as,\naccording to the text, \"he had given to the adorning of the present\nbook very much labor, and had also remitted a debt of 3s. 4d. due to\nhim for colors.\" Beneath his portrait are two lines in Latin, to the\neffect that--\n\n  \"The painter, Alan Strayler, here is given.\n  Who dwells forever with the choir of heaven.\"\n\nThere are many other portraits of royal and noble personages, holding\ntheir respective donations. About thirty years afterward died an\neccentric recluse, _John Rous_, called the hermit of Guy's Cliff. He\nwas chantry-priest at a small chapel, founded by Guy, earl of Warwick,\nat Guy's Cliff, and from the austere solitary life he led there,\nacquired the appellation of the \"hermit.\" He was an antiquary and an\nhistorian. He wrote a life of Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth earl of\nWarwick, and illustrated it with fifty-three large drawings, executed\nwith a pen, which style of sketching in those days was called\n\"tricking,\" or \"drawing in trick.\" This MS. is still to be seen in the\nCottonian collections.  [Footnote 77]\n\n  [Footnote 77: Cotton MSS.--Julius, E iv. ]\n\nRous spent his time in the study of history and genealogy, and wrote\nand ornamented several manuscripts, one of which was a roll of the\nearls of Warwick. This is the last Englishman who is recorded to have\nattained to any excellence in the art of illumination. We must not\nomit some of the most prominent of foreign artists who distinguished\nthemselves in this study, and in the thirteenth century _Orderico_,\ncanon of Sienna, is mentioned as being one of the most renowned.\nLanzi, in his History of Painting in Italy,  [Footnote 78] gives a\ndescription of one of here's MSS., which is preserved in the library\nof the academy at Florence, decorated with initials, ornaments, and\nfigures of animals, painted by him in 1213. The names of two\ncelebrated illuminators are mentioned by Dante in his Divine Comedy.\n\n  [Footnote 78: Lanzi--Hist. of Painting, book ii., Siennese School.]\n\n{312}\n\n_Oderigi d'Agubbio_, whom Dante wrote of, was born at Agubbio, near\nPerugia, and died about the year 1300; he was the friend of Giotto and\nDante at Rome. He was introduced by Giotto to Benedict VIII., for whom\nhe illuminated many volumes. _Francis of Bologna_, the other mentioned\nby the poet, was also in the employ of Benedict, and executed many\nworks for the Papal library. There is an account in Baldinucci of one\n_Cybo_, who lived in the fourteenth century, and is better known as\nthe Monk of the Golden Islands, from his custom of retiring from his\nmonastery at Lerino every spring and autumn to an island in the\nMediterranean off the coast of France, for the wise purpose of the\ncontemplation of nature. \"He would walk abroad,\" we are informed, \"not\nonly to contemplate the beautiful prospects offered by the shores of\nthose islands, the mountains, villages, and the sea itself, but also\nthe birds, the flowers, the trees, the fruits, the rarer fishes of the\nsea, and the little animals of the earth, all of which he would draw\nand imitate in a wonderful manner.\"  [Footnote 79]\n\n  [Footnote 79: Baldinucci--Notizie de' Professore del Disegno.]\n\nWould that such an inspiration might steal over the minds of some of\nour modern artists! In 1433, according to Lanzi, flourished one _Fra\nGiovanni da Fiesola_, a Dominican friar, who attained to great fame as\nan illuminator. Then from the monastery of Degli Angeli came again\nanother artist _Dom Bartolommeo_, abbot of St. Clement, who was a\npainter from youth. Vasari speaks of books and beautiful illustrations\nexecuted by him for the monks of Sante Flora and Lucilla in the Abbey\nof Arezzo, and in a missal given to Sixtus IV. Two great French\nilluminators come next up on the scene, one of whom, _Andrieu de\nBeauneveu_, is mentioned in the Chronicles of Froissart.  [Footnote\n80] One of his works, called Le Petit Psautier, was valued at eighty\nlivres, about \u00a3120 of modern English money. Another of his works was\nThe Great Hours of the Duke de Berri, fac-similes of which will be\nfound in the works of Sylvestre and Noel Humphreys.  [Footnote 81] He\ndied in the year 1416, leaving a volume of Hours behind him\nunfinished, which was bought by the French government for 13,000\nfrancs. The other French artist was _Jean Foucquet_, a native of\nTours, who is spoken of as one of the glories of the fifteenth\ncentury. His principal works were the illumination of a book called\nL'Anciennrt\u00e9 des Juifs, and the Hours of Anne of Bretagne, two\nspecimens of which may be found in Mr. Noel Humphrey's excellent work\nbefore alluded to.  [Footnote 82] The greatest artist in the Italian\nminiature was _Don Giulio Clovio_, whose advent closes the history of\nthe art in the fifteenth century. The incidents of his career may be\nfound in Vasari; they are eventful; he was driven into a monastery in\nearly life, when the Spaniards devastated Rome in 1527. He through up\nthe cowl some years after by the Pope's permission, and went into the\nservice of Cardinal Grimani, for whom he executed many of his best\nworks. An office of the Virgin occupied him nine years in painting; it\nis still extant in the Musco Borbonico at Naples. He also illuminated\na copy of Grimani's Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans:\nthis is now in the Soane Museum. In Sylvestre's Palaeography,\n[Footnote 83] is a copy of one of Clovio's miniatures from the MS. of\nDante's Vision, now in the Vatican.\n\n  [Footnote 80: Chroniques de Floissart, vol. iv., p. 71, Lyons.]\n\n  [Footnote 81: Pal\u00e9og. Univ., plate 195: Madden, ii. 544-7.\n  Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, plate xxi.]\n\n  [Footnote 82:  Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, plates xxxi.\n  and xxxii.]\n\n   [Footnote 83: Sylvester--Pal\u00e9og. Univ.. plate 162.]\n\n{313}\n\nAnother splendid relique of this artist consists of a large miniature\nof the crucifixion, executed for Gregory XIII.; it was brought from\nthe Vatican during the campaigns in Italy, in the time of the French\nRevolution, by the Abb\u00e9 Celotti. He was called the Michael Angelo of\npainters, and died in 1578, at the advanced age of eighty. His last\ndays were spent in peace, as Vasari tells us \"he does not study or do\nanything, but seek the salvation of his soul by good works, and a life\nspent wholly apart from mundane affairs.\" _Godefroy_ and _Dutillet_\nwere two distinguished French illuminators of the sixteenth century,\nand _Johan Banzel_ of Ulm, is the one with whom Vasari concludes his\nanecdotes of painting. This list is scanty enough, and there can be no\ndoubt that hundreds of names have sunk in the oblivion of the times;\ndevotees to this beautiful art, and victims to the negligence with\nwhich the art-historians of the times treated their labors; they\nslumber in their unknown graves, but their works exist to the\nadmiration and speculation of modern times. We have given a very\ncursory and rapid review of the rise and development of this most\nbeautiful art; the most beautiful thing that mediaeval Christianity\nhas bequeathed to us. We have  endeavored also to give a few names of\nsuch of our countrymen who excelled in its exercise, and it only\nremains to say a few words upon its use, as a  work of refined piety,\nbefore we proceed to glean a few historical lessons as to the\ndoctrinal development of the church, to be drawn from these art\nexpressions of different periods, for there is nothing upon which a\nnation or a community stamps the characteristics of its individuality\nmore clearly than upon its art.\n\nThese illuminations have a great historical value, as evidences of the\nlife of the times. Were it not for them the past as a life would be\nlost to us. We should be almost ignorant of the modes and manners of\nexistence of our ancestors. We might have descriptive representations\nof the deeds they did, but their customs, their habits, their\namusements, and their interior existence would have been lost to us\nforever. It is that which enables us to put as it were a soul into\nhistory, to revive a past life in our minds, to resuscitate it, and\nmake it live again before us; all this, but for the preservation of\nilluminated MSS., would have been irretrievably lost. It is from them\nalone we can see the customs of the domestic life of our ancestors,\ntheir habits at home, at table, in the field, in society, for those\npictures, though executed to represent a life of Eastern and Biblical\nincident, have this peculiarity about them, that the paraphernalia of\nthe scenes are in keeping with the times of their execution; so that\nunconsciously these monks, when decorating their psalters and their\nmissals, have handed down to us the very best illustration of the\nwritten history of their times.  [Footnote 84]\n\n  [Footnote 84: I know of no better evidence of the value of these\n  MSS. than the excellent and valuable work compiled by Mr. Thomas\n  Wright, a great authority on Saxon antiquities, called The Domestic\n  Manners and Sentiments of the Middle Ages in England. The work is\n  compiled principally from these sources, the illustrations are\n  copied from ancient MSS., and it contains a repertoire of nearly all\n  that can be gleaned from them, forming a picture of the life of\n  Saxons, Normans, and early English, as it was sketched by\n  themselves--a most valuable work, both for the historian and general\n  reader.]\n\n\nWe have hitherto reviewed this labor as a work of art, but we must not\nforget its higher and nobler motive. Art may be kindled by the fire of\nambition or the love of gain, but the motive which inspired the\nmonastic illuminator was a far higher one. Whatever we may think of\nwhat we sometimes call the folly of spending years in illustrating a\ngospel or a psalter, we must be driven to the conclusion that as these\nmonks were situated, it was a work of devotion. No other feeling could\nprompt them to give their lives to such a labor, because it was labor\nunrequited. In our times, or in fact in all times, men will accomplish\nmarvels for money, but these men were paid nothing for their labor,\nnot even the flattery of admiration. In the {314} early periods of the\nart, it is true that in one or two cases an illuminator was made an\nabbot or a bishop, but those cases were so exceptional that scarcely\nhalf a dozen instances could be found in history of such honor being\nconferred upon an obscure monastic artist. The works over which they\nspent their long days and longer nights were sent into the church for\nuse; gems of art they were, but exhibited to no public admiration, to\nno applauding critics; there they lay hidden in monastic libraries, in\nchurch vestries, in convent chests, to moulder in obscurity for the\namusement and commercial speculation of an after age, when the life\nthey embellished had died out in the world, and it should become\nimpossible to ascertain the names of the men whose busy fingers were\nplied with such magic skill. Nothing but devotion could have prompted\nsuch labor as that, and how are we to say that in the eyes of the\nAlmighty the devotion which could spend years lovingly over the\nembellishment of a gospel, to illustrate it with the choicest\nproductions of genius, and to offer up to it all that was beautiful\nand good in thought, fancy, and execution--how are we to say that such\nan offering may not have been, under the circumstances in which they\nwere placed, as acceptable in the eyes of God as the limited devotion\nof modern life, with its mechanical modes, its periodical days of\nworship, amid long intervals of sin? The devotion of modern times may\nsometimes manifest itself in the erection of hospitals and churches,\nbut we are not always sure that such deeds are free from the taint of\nostentation of wealth or jealousy of hated heirs--to flaunt the one or\nto balk the others; but the devotion which found vent in\nmissal-painting and copying the scriptures by hand in the dark ages\nmust have been pure; for we cannot, even by the most prejudiced\ninvestigation, discover any sordid or ambitious motive for it. Where\nthere is no payment we may rest assured that labor is a labor of love.\nThe best proof of the fact is the difficulty to get people to\nilluminate missals now. It was an exquisitely beautiful art, and ought\nnot to have died out so completely. Latterly however, in the church,\nto the scandal of vigilant Protestants, there has been a sort of\nattempt at a revival of mediaevalism; it has become the vogue to\nappeal to the fathers to sing mediaeval hymns, and to decorate the\ncorners of prayer-books and the interiors of churches with mediaeval\nart; but it has proved to be more a revival of mediaeval forms than\nmediaeval devotions. It has also become fashionable to study\nillumination--an elegant amusement for an idle hour--and many have\ntried it as an art, but it has failed both as an art and a work; as an\nart, even in these days of art excellence, it has failed, and as a\nwork, it has not been pursued with that avidity to bring success,\nbecause the modern stimulant is wanting--it pays not; it is lifeless,\nautomaton-like, a dead body galvanized, missal-painting without\ndevotion.  [Footnote 85] But in our admiration of the genius and piety\nof these monastic artists we must not overlook one great fact, that\nthis art is not only a representation of the interior life of the\nnation, a representation of its manners, customs, and modes of\nexistence, but it is also a reflection of the state of the church at\neach successive period. Chroniclers may differ in their accounts,\nhistorians may quarrel with each other, but the history which a church\nrights in its art and literature, in it's sculpture, painting, and\npoetry, is traced, as it were, by the events themselves, and graven by\nthe very fingers of time.\n\n  [Footnote 85: It must be borne in mind that the author of this paper\n  is a Protestant, and we believe a minister of the Church of England.\n --Ed. C. W.]\n\nWe take up a manuscript supposed to be written about the year 900.\n[Footnote 86]\n\n [Footnote 86: Cotton MSS.--Tiberius, A H. ]\n\n{315}\n\nIt is an evangeliarum. It contains a picture of St. Matthew,  with his\nleft hand resting upon a desk, and his right holding a pen. On the\nnext page is the word \"Liber,\" the beginning of the gospel written on\na crimson ground in letters outlined in vermilion and gold; at page 72\nthere is a picture of St. Mark; all the evangelists are delineated,\nbut no other figures. In a Psalter,  [Footnote 87] written in the year\n1000, the same simplicity prevails. It is written in capital letters,\nwith an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version. The title-page contains the\nfigure of Christ in the act of blessing, but the principal picture,\nwhich occupies a whole page, is a representation of David in his\nyouth, playing on a lyre-shaped psalter, accompanied by six smaller\nfigures, below which are two others dancing. In another Psalter\n[Footnote 88] of the same period there is a picture of the\ncrucifixion, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, on the one side, and St.\nJohn the Baptist on the other. A Psalter of the year 1000,  [Footnote\n89] very fully illuminated, is a fine specimen of the purely Biblical\nnature of the illustrations of that period. The calendar at the\nbeginning contains a representation of three persons at a table, and\ntwo kneeling attendants. On page 7 is a youthful Christ, holding a\nlarge scroll, upon which the word \"vita\" is written; also God the\nFather, as creator of the world, in the Mosaic type; the figure is\nhidden up to the face by a globe, and from the mouth issue two blue\nlines, representing streams of water, over one of which a dove\nhovers--one of the oldest specimens of this conception of the\nAlmighty. Another representation, on the next page, is the figure of\nDavid tearing open the lion's jaws; then the temptation of our\nSaviour--the devil is represented as having a beaked nose and claws.\nOn page 10 is the washing of the disciples' feet, with an angel\ndescending from heaven with a cloth. Page 14, Christ appearing to Mary\nMagdalene. On page 18, the Last Judgment, in which Christ is most\nprominent, holding in one hand a horn, and in the other a cross; below\nhim is the Book of Life open, and at his side are two large angels\nblowing trumpets. Page 30 contains David playing on the psalter; and\non page 114 there is a large figure of Christ, holding in his left\nhand the Book of Life, in his right a sceptre, with which he is\npiercing the jaws of a lion beneath his feet, and a dragon at his side\nis biting the lion (see Psalm xci. 13).\n\n  [Footnote 87: Cotton MSS.--Vespasian, A i.]\n\n  [Footnote 88: Harleian MSS., 2904.]\n\n  [Footnote 89: Cotton MSS.--Tiberius, C vi.]\n\nOne of the most interesting specimens of the opening of the eleventh\ncentury (1006) is a manuscript called AElfric's heptateuch, in\nAnglo-Saxon.  [Footnote 90] Its principal subjects of illumination are\nthe fall of angels, the first person in the Trinity enthroned,\nLucifer, the days of creation, the creation of Adam, the fail, and the\nexpulsion from Paradise. But we wish to call attention to the close\nresemblance of the Saxon of that period to our modern English. We\nshall quote a passage from the Anglo-Saxon text, which might almost be\ntranslated by the same words in modern English. The passage is Genesis\niv. 9, 10. The Saxon runs: \"Tha cwoeth drihten to Caine, hwoer is Abel\nthin brothor? Tha answarode he and ewoeth, ic nat. Segat thu sceolde\nic minne brothor healdon? Tha cwoeth drihten to Caine, hwoet dydest\nthu? thines brothor blod clypath up to me of eorthan.\" Which may be\nrendered in English by almost the same words, thus: \"Then quoth the\nLord to Cain, where is Abel thy brother? Then answered he and quoth, I\nknow not Sayest thou should I hold my brother? Then quoth the Lord to\nCain, What didst thou? thy brother's blood crieth up to me off the\nearth.\"\n\n  [Footnote 90: Cotton MSS.--Claudius, B iv.]\n\nIn the first half of the eleventh century, representations of the\nVirgin are multiplied in the MSS. of the period, though not yet as the\npredominant figure. In a Psalter of that date  [Footnote 91] we have a\nrepresentation of David in prayer; then Christ enthroned, with angels\naround him; below in a row are eleven heads; and below all, the Virgin\nand twelve Apostles in full-length figures.\n\n  [Footnote 91:  Cotton MSS.--Galba, A xviii.]\n\n{316}\n\nIn the representation of the ascension, Christ is the main figure\nborne up by two angels, and below are two other angels and the Virgin\nwith her hands raised in prayer. In a picture Bible   [Footnote 92] of\nthis period, she is again introduced.\n\n  [Footnote 92: Cotton MSS.--Nero, C iv.]\n\nPage 8 contains a representation of the root of Jesse--below lies\nAbraham, then David, and next the Virgin, above all is Christ; but at\npage 20, we have the death of the Virgin, and the Virgin enthroned in\nheaven. In the thirteenth century MSS., we find the Virgin taking the\nmost prominent position, and Christ represented as a child; saints,\ntoo, creep into the illuminations, more especially Thomas \u00e0 Becket,\nwhose murder appears to have been always diligently inserted by the\nmonks in their MSS., as we shall see. In a Psalter   [Footnote 93] of\nthe year 1200, among many other pictures, is a burial of a saint in\nhis episcopal mitre; and the anointing of David is followed a few\npages after by the murder of Thomas \u00e0 Becket.\n\n    [Footnote 93: Harleian MSS., 5102]\n\nIn Matthew Paris's History of the English nation (died 1259), there is\na picture of the Virgin enthroned as the queen of heaven, with Christ\nas a little child; she is bending her crowned head, with her hair\nflowing down, toward the child, pressing her cheek against his, while\nwith her right hand she gives him a fruit. In a Psalter   [Footnote\n94] of the same period we find the annunciation of the Virgin, the\nvisitation of the Virgin, and the Virgin crowned, with Christ again as\na little child.\n\n   [Footnote 94: Biblia Regia, 2 A xxii]\n\nIn a copy of the Vulgate  [Footnote 95] the fourth page is full of\npictures; there is the Virgin, with Christ as a child, St. Peter on\none side, and St. Paul on the other; below is St. Martin, above the\ncrucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John; above that are two cherubim\nand quite above all, in the position formerly accorded to Christ, is a\nrepresentation of the coronation of the Virgin.\n\n  [Footnote 95: MSS. Regia, 1 D  i.]\n\nIn the fragment of a lectionary  [Footnote 96] executed for Lord\nLovell by one John Siferwas, a Benedictine monk, there is on the\ntitle-page a portrait of Lord Lovell looking at a book, upon the cover\nof which is a picture of the coronation of the Virgin; on the inner\nborder of page 3, there is the Virgin as the queen of heaven, holding\nthe child with her robe in the left hand, and a sceptre in her right.\n\n  [Footnote 96: Harleian MSS., 7026]\n\nAfter three or four more representations of her, we meet with the\npresentation of the Virgin; in the centre is the Virgin crowned by the\nfirst person of the Trinity, who is represented as having a long white\nbeard; another with the Virgin and child upon the moon, surrounded\nwith rays; on page 23, the Virgin surrounded by the pope, bishops, and\nothers, and on page 27, the birth of the Virgin. The office of the\nVirgin was confirmed by Pope Urban II, at the Council of Clermont\nThere are several of these offices extant. In an office of the Virgin\nand prayers   [Footnote 97] of the date 1420, we find pictures of John\nthe Baptist, St. James of Compostello enthroned, St. Thomas Aquinas,\nalso enthroned, and St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata or\nwounds of Christ.\n\n  [Footnote 97: Bib. Regia 2 A xviii.]\n\nOn page 11, the Virgin and child seated on a bench with St. Anna; on\npage 13 St. Catherine, page 15 St. Margaret, and page 21 the\nannunciation. In another office of the Virgin,  [Footnote 98] we find\nthe evangelists, the annunciation and visitation of the Virgin, the\nmurder of Thomas \u00e0 Becket, St. Catherine, St. Margaret, the scourging\nof Christ, adoration of kings, and in the most prominent picture the\ncoronation of the Virgin, in which she is represented as being\nsupported by an angel while the Almighty is pointing with his right\nhand to a cherub who, accompanied by two angels is about to place the\ncrown on her head.\n\n  [Footnote 98:  Harleian MSS., 2900.]\n\n{317}\n\nAt the conclusion there is a picture of the Virgin on a throne with\nthe child Christ. There are several offices of the Virgin in the\nHarleian collection,  [Footnote 99] but we shall only notice one more,\nwhich bears date from 1490 to 1500.  [Footnote 100]\n\n  [Footnote 99:  Harleian MSS., 2646, 2884, 2858, etc.]\n\n  [Footnote 100: MSS. Addit., 17012.]\n\nOn pages 20 and 21 are autographs of Henry VII. and Henry  VIII.,\nwhich will justify the supposition that it belonged to both. Its\nillustrations include, among other things, the murder of Thomas \u00e0\nBecket, St. George and the Dragon, St. Christopher, the Virgin and\nchild, with St. Anna, St. Catherine, St. Barbara, and St. Margaret.\nThere is a religious poem, illustrated with miniatures, and bearing\ndate from 1420 to 1430,  [Footnote 101] which elaborately delineates\nthe intercessorial attributed to the Virgin.\n\n  [Footnote 101: Cotton MSS.--Faustina, B vi.]\n\nThe picture in which this is set forth is a remarkable one. In the\nlower part of it is a man dying on a bed, at the foot of which stands\ndeath, in the usual form of a skeleton, making ready to pierce the\nheart of the dying man with a spear, and there is a black demon, with\na hook reaching toward him; at the head of the bed is an angel\nreceiving his soul, which is represented as a naked infant; about is\nthe Virgin, with a crown upon her head, baring her bosom to Christ,\nand imploring him, by the breasts which nourished him, to take pity\nupon the soul of the dying man. They are both kneeling before the\nAlmighty, and Christ is represented in a red mantle as showing his\nwounds, in token of granting his mother's request. The Almighty is\nrepresented as seated upon a throne, robed in a blue mantle, and\nhaving the usual long white beard; he is lifting his hand in\nbenediction. An idea was set on foot that the Virgin had fainted at\nthe crucifixion; and in some of these later manuscripts she is\nrepresented in the act. In a Psalter   [Footnote 102] Page 256, there\nis a picture of the crucifixion, with the Virgin in the act of\nfainting.\n\n  [Footnote 102: MSS. Regia, 2 B vii.]\n\nMrs. Jamieson in noticing this fact in her History of Our Lord as\nexemplified in Art, has remarked that it was condemned by Catholic\nwriters themselves. Thomas Cajetani wrote of it as \"indecens et\nimprobabile;\" and other writers are quoted by Molanus, who inveighed\nagainst it, and stigmatized it as a thing \"temerarium, scandalosum et\npericulosum.\"\n\nBut it was at the period of the Reformation, and after then, that\nthese treasures of art suffered, and the natural iconoclasm of human\nnature broke out. Men gazed around them upon gorgeous temples,\ndecorated with splendid paintings, stained glass windows, marvellous\nsculpture, and to their zealous minds it was all idolatry; and they\ntore down frescoes, destroyed paintings, overturned altars, broke up\nstatues, and burned sacred books to exterminate error if possible, not\nby the powers of truthful preaching and godly lives, but by the\nbattle-axe and the bonfire; not by uprooting error itself, so much as\nby beating down and destroying its mere evidences.\n\nIt was in consequence of this iconoclasm that much of the art\nproductions of Christianity has been lost to us; nay, much of\nliterature and history also, for in the sack of a monastery little\ndiscrimination was used, save as to precious metals. We frequently\nread of valuable books and manuscripts being consigned to the flames,\nbut the cups, chalices, the contents of the coffers, invariably found\ntheir way to the treasury. We must always remember this, that human\nnature was not wholly confined to Roman Catholics, but that there was\na considerable amount of it among the Reformers. Still, in spite of\niconoclasm, in spite of misguided zeal, sufficient has escaped\ndestruction, and been preserved to our inspection, to convince us of\nthe beauty of those arts which sprang up in the wake of Christianity,\nthough they did ultimately become tainted with human error. And we may\nsee in all this {318} painting and sculpture, poetry and music, the\nmarvellous adaptability of Christianity as a regenerator and\nstimulant, how it takes up what is good in the world--genius, skill,\nlove, devotion, and starts them into new channels, with increased\nvigor and nobler aim. It took up philosophy, purged it of its errors,\nand of philosophers made fathers; it took up science, and bid it labor\nto alleviate human suffering, and assuage the physical condition of\nhumanity; it took up art, and not only embellished it, but gave it an\ninexhaustible realm of subjects--a realm in which it has been laboring\never since, and though improving advancing in each age, will never\nexhaust its treasures; it has been, as it's Founder declared it should\nbe, the salt of the earth; it has rescued the world in moments of\ndarkness and danger, aroused it from apathy and indifference, purged\nit, stimulated it, sent it on in the right way, and brought it back\nagain when it had peevishly wandered; and not the least evidence of\nits purifying, elevating effects upon the fine arts is this, which we\nhave been endeavoring to describe in the rise and development of\nmissal painting, that beauty of cloistered: holiness.\n\n--------\n\nFrom The Month.\n\nTHE FAIREST FAIR.\n\n(FROM ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.)\n\n\n\n  \"My beloved is the mountains,\n  The solitary wooded valleys.\"\n     --_St. John of the Cross_.\n\n\n  I.\n\n  Mountains, that upward to the clouds arise,\n    Odorous with thyme, whereon the wild bees linger,\n  Jewell'd with flowers of a thousand dyes.\n    Their petals tinted by no mortal finger;\n  How solemn in their gray-worn age they stand,\n    Hills piled on hills in silent majesty!\n  Lofty and strong, and beautiful and grand:\n    All this and more is my belov'd to me.\n\n\n  II.\n\n  Come forth into the woods,--in yonder valley.\n    Where rippling waters murmur through the glade;\n  There, 'neath the rustling boughs of some green alley,\n    We'll watch the golden light and quivering shade:\n  Or couch'd on mossy banks we'll lie and listen\n    To song-birds pouring forth their vernal glee.\n  Wave on, ye woods; ye faery fountains, glisten:\n    But more, far more is my beloved to me.\n\n{319}\n\n  III.\n\n  Know ye the land where fragrant winds awaken\n    In spicy forests hidden from the eye:\n  Where richest perfumes from the boughs are shaken,\n    And flowers unnotic'd bloom and blush and die?\n  Sweet is th' eternal spring that there reposes\n    On wondrous isles that gem the sunny sea,\n  And sweet the gales that breathe o'er beds of roses:\n    But sweeter far is my belov'd to me.\n\n  IV.\n\n  The roaring torrents from the ice-cliffs leaping--\n    I see them foaming down the mountain side,\n  Through the green dells and valleys onward sweeping,\n    They fill the hollows with their mighty tide:\n  Their voice is as the voice of many waters;\n    Onward they rush, exulting to be free;\n  But ah! their thunder fails, their music falters:\n    Far more than this is my belov'd to me.\n\n  V.\n\n  A gentler sound wakes in the hush of even.\n    The whisper of a light and cooling breeze;\n  It stirs when twilight shades are in the heaven,'\n    And bows the tufted foliage of the trees;\n  It fans my cheek; its music softly stealing\n    Speaks to my heart in loving mystery.\n  Ah, gentle breeze! full well thou art revealing\n    The joy that my beloved is to me.\n\n  VI.\n\n  Night comes at last, in mystic shadows folding\n    The nodding forest and the verdant lawn,\n  Till the day breaks, and Nature starts, beholding\n    The golden chariot of the coming dawn:\n  Then on each bough the feathered chanters, waking,\n    Pour forth their music over bush and tree.\n  Cease, cease your songs, ye birds; my heart-strings breaking\n    Lack words to say what Jesus is to me.\n\n  VII.\n\n  Yea, all the fairest forms that Nature scatters.\n    And all melodious sounds that greet the ear;\n  The murmuring music of the running waters.\n    The golden harvest-fields that crown the year,\n  The crimson morn, the calm and dewy even,\n     The tranquil moonlight on the slumbering' sea,--\n  All are but shadows, forms of beauty given\n    To tell what my beloved is to me.\n\n--------\n\n{320}\n\n\nTHE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n\nRELIGION--PHILOSOPHY: WHICH IS THE TRUTH?\n\nBut we must return to Cambridge. Eugene made inquiries respecting his\nlate visitor, M. Bertolot, and finding that he taught his own language\nas a means of subsistence, he applied to him for instruction, not\nindeed to learn the language, which he knew how to read already, but,\nas he said, for practice in speaking and so forth.\n\n\"I will come to you,\" said Eugene, \"for lessons in your philosophy;\nyou shall give them to me in French. I will write them down, you will\ncorrect the phraseology, and thus I shall improve in two departments\nat once.\"\n\n\"I will teach you French, if you desire it, my young friend,\" said M.\nBertolot, \"and by conversation, or any other mode you may desire; but\nto enter on moral or mental philosophy is quite another affair, and\nmight lead to results unexpected on your part. I am not quite prepared\nto promise formal instructions on these subjects at this early stage\nof our acquaintance; my views might shock your preconceived ideas.\"\n\n\"Fear not for that,\" said Eugene, \"my preconceived ideas, if ever they\nwere definite, are now confused; that mind acts upon mind,\nirrespectively of matter, seems the only clear thought I have on the\nsubject. Further than this all is blank. The mesmeric agencies of\nwhich we hear so much, and the appearances of spirits, in some\ninstances well attested, seem to prove mental rinses to be direct; but\nwhat more do they prove? I have sometimes fancied that the nursery\ntales may be true, and that it is possible that angels of light and\ndemons of darkness do exist, and that we are operated upon at times by\nspiritual agencies not detected by our senses.\"\n\n\"Some of the wisest of the earth, even among the pagans, have held\nthis opinion,\" replied M. Bertolot, \"and, as I told you in our first\ninterview, the traditions of the fallen angels were handed down to the\nJews, and dealings with any one of them prohibited. Sorcery and\nwitchcraft were considered 'sins' in the Mosaic law, although the\ngeneration of the present day scouts such ideas as beneath the dignity\nof the human intellect, and ascribes every discovery in knowledge to\nthe progress of human intelligence alone.\"\n\n\"Yet,\" said Eugene, \"history might teach all students that the\nbest-laid schemes have often been overset by apparently inadequate\nexterior causes. The pagan doctrine of the 'Fates,' which evidently\nexercised a vast influence over men's minds, must have originated from\ntheir perception of the fact, that human wisdom cannot absolutely\ndispose events; preordination or the counteracting influence of\ninvisible agencies, has formed more or less an ingredient in every\nrational belief, ancient as well as modern. But does it follow from\nthis that supernatural agencies are at work? may it not be a delusion\nin principle as well as in form; for that the form was erroneous in\nheathenism at least, I suppose we must acknowledge, since heathenism\nis exploded now.\n\n{321}\n\n\"I suspect,\" said M. Bertolot, \"that instead of originating, as you\nhave supposed, from human observation of facts, that the doctrine of\nthe 'Fates' is but a corruption of the doctrine of divine providence\nhanded down by primitive tradition. When paganism is considered at\nfirst sight, it seems strange to modern ideas, that we term it an\n_invention_, or a growth, or material embodiment of our abstract\ndeduction from reasoning on observation. But what if it were none of\nthese things? What if it were simply a perversion of the primitive\ntraditions? A materializing, so to speak, of spiritual doctrine? It\nhas often been asserted that beneath the veil of all myths, positive\nknowledge might  be discovered by a thinking soul. If this be true,\nas, to a certain extent, facts seem to warrant our acknowledgement,\nthen in the latent truths that are supposed to be hid beneath the\nmystic words, we may faintly trace the ancient pristine traditions,\ndefaced first by the material shape they wear, but more, much more, by\ntheir fixing the attention of the world on animalism and materialism,\nas the true ends of existence.\"\n\n\"I do not quite understand you,\" said Eugene.\n\n\"I will explain by reference to Bible history,\" said M. Bertolot.\n\"Man's first sin of disobedience appears to have disturbed the\nrelationship of his soul previously held with superior intelligences,\nnay, to have disordered his own organization, and to in the sway to\ninferior appetites rather than to the superior part of the soul, which\nprimarily subjected these inferior appetites to its control. The\nprimal order united the soul to God, and necessarily then all his\nfaculties were equipoised and his passions held in subjection. That\nunion destroyed, the passions rose, fierce and uncontrollable; first\nman having become a rebel, begot the second, who was a murderer\nthrough envy of his brother's spiritual superiority. Since then\ntradition says that only through violence done to the disordered\npassions, by humility and patience and long toil, can the pristine\norder be restored and the primal supremacy of soul regained. This is\nthe office of true spirituality. Paganism also treats of good\nlost--and of well-being to be acquired through prayer to the immortal\ngods; but the good it supposes lost, is that of bodily gratification,\nor of power, or grandeur, and its gods are propitious only when they\navert the sufferings which should discipline the soul and prepare it\nfor the reception of the regenerative truth.\"\n\n\"Something of this,\" said Eugene, \"I have heard Euphrasie say; but she\nwould not explain her words, and they came to us like enigmas which we\ncould not solve.\"\n\n\"The solution cannot be comprehended by all,\" said M. Bertolot; \"a\npreparation of mind is necessary ere we can solve the enigmas of\nhistory; and melancholy, indeed, are the facts presented. Look at the\nfirst events. Piety, which is another word for the endeavor to seek\nreunion with God, was renewed in the race of Seth, and, through them\nthe pristine traditions were preserved. But soon these sons of God\nlooked on the daughters of men and saw that they were fair, and again\nspirituality was overpowered, and the race lost itself in sensuality,\nand was destroyed by the flood. To the eight who survived, of course,\nthe traditions were known, and Noah, priest, patriarch, king of the\nnew race, lived three hundred and fitly years after the flood, to bear\na long testimony to their truth. But the perversity of the human\ninclination was too strong. Man's choice had been to know good and\nevil; evil could only be known by separation from God, and it would\nseem as if he were fated to have his choice gratified; it was\ninevitable at any rate, if he must know evil. Accordingly we find that\neven one hundred and thirty-three years before the death of Shem, who\nhad witnessed the deluge, and who lived five hundred years after it,\nin order to perpetuate the memory of it in the minds of men, it was\nnecessary to set apart Abraham, by special provision, to keep intact\nthe spiritual {322} meaning of the traditions of true religion.\nAlready had the creature again taken the first place in human\naffection, to the neglect of the Creator. Already impersonations of\nhuman passion had arisen and mixed themselves with the traditions they\nreceived from their fathers. These traditions they hid under the false\nimagery that stole into their hearts; but perverted and debased though\nthey may be, they form the basis of whatever truth may be discoverable\nunder the garb of my theology, and the peopling the world with\ninvisibly acting spirits is one of these notions which the heathens\ndid not invent, but only perverted.\"\n\n\"I think I see what you mean,\" said Eugene; \"but tell me if your\nphilosophy has discovered why man himself is such an enigma, such a\ncompound of loftiness and meanness, so grand in idea and so poor in\nexecution? Why is truth so difficult, seeing that it is so necessary\nto him?\"\n\n\"Man is a fallen being,\" mournfully responded the mentor. \"The divine\nspark once inbreathed, though dimmed and clouded, still prompts to\nhigh hopes and high deeds; but severed from God, he can effect nothing\nto satisfy himself. That reunion is in fact the sole aim and object of\nexistence. None other can satisfy the inward yearning. How that\nreunion is to be accomplished revelation comes to tell us, for human\nphilosophy was at fault, and the first step I have already pointed out\nis prayer.\"\n\n\"There are many religions,\" said Eugene, \"and how is the true one to\nbe known?\"\n\n\"Nay, that question is beyond philosophy, and philosophy was to be the\nsubject of our interviews. I will assist you in distinguishing the\nfunctions of the mental faculties, but at the present stage of the\ninquiry I will not forestall your conclusions. We have already seen\nthat the nature of man is compounded, and that his physical nature is\nthe inferior portion of that compound, his moral and spiritual nature\nthe highest. Intellect is the servant of one or the other, according\nas to which is accorded the predominance, and it is because that\npredominance is so often given to the inferior part of our being that\nwe must be so surely on our guard against an undue bias; not but that\neven our spiritual and moral qualities need also to be watched, for\npride and egotism corrupt even these. In fact, man's life here is the\nonly that of an exile consequent his being born, severed from truth,\nhis true end of being, but the consequences of that severing causes\nhis life to be one struggle to replace his faculties in their pristine\nequilibrium, and to accord to each its fitting office. As for\ninstance, when giving to the spiritual that precedence which is due to\nit we must beware lest we employ it to any other purpose than the\nworship of 'The True.' There is a spurious spirituality as well as a\nspurious morality.\"\n\n\"But why do you distinguish morality from spirituality? Will not one\nterm comprehend both?\"\n\n\"Scarcely, since morality means the relationship of man to man:\nspirituality, his relationship to God. The law of God may and does\nregulate man's morals in those persons who acknowledge that law; but\nwere man to live without God, as is too often the case, he must have\nlaws to regulate his intercourse with his kind; that is the spiritual\nman necessarily acknowledge the moral law, but the moral man does not\nnecessarily acknowledge the spiritual law.\"\n\n\"And what, then, is the sanction of the moral law?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"Apart from the spiritual law, it must be regulated by reason,\"\nreturned his friend.\n\n\"But,\" said Eugene, \"reason differs in different minds; nat, in\ndifferent localities. Turkey sanctions what England condemns, and\nancient Sparta taught her children to practice what all Europe would\nnow punish them for doing.\"\n\n{323}\n\n\"Probably; but that only proves that there is no absolute certainty\nfor man, when relying on his own unassisted light. Nevertheless, law\ndoes exists, and must exist, to keep society together, and to protect\nlife and property. To be consistent, it should propose itself a\ndefinite purpose, and frame its rules to meet that purpose. As persons\nare not agreed on spiritual matters, and as life and property can be\nprotected without their so agreeing, modern lawgivers incline to leave\nout of the question the higher law appertaining to the interior life,\nand to legislate purely on materialistic principles; provided they do\nnot by legislation contravene that higher law or compromise its\nprinciples in any degree, no mischief can come of such a course; but,\nunfortunately, a neutral position is a difficult one to uphold.\nUnconsciously, as it were, man infringes the conditions sooner or\nlater, and the anomaly of enforcing the worship of 'reason' at the\npoint of the bayonet is enacted again and again?\"\n\n\"And what part does reason take in religion?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"A most important one,\" said his friend, \"since reason is a direct\ngift of God to man, and all natural gifts, when unperverted, have a\ndirect co-relation to a spiritual gift. Man's nature is not changed by\nspiritual Grace, it is sanctified, purified, elevated, replaced in the\nposition of grace in which Adam was created, or rather in the\nsuperadded grace of the redemption. Reason, consequently, must examine\nthe evidences concerning the truth of facts presented to her--must\ndemand by what authority they are assumed to be facts--must compare\nthem with other facts--examine, prove, judge. But remember, reason\ndoes not create facts, and may not ignore them when proved, however\ncontrary in the ordinary course of our experience. The Eastern despot\ncaused the traveler to be strangled because he asserted that he had\nseen water in a solid form. So, many a man strangles the evidence of a\nfact, because he assumes the fact itself to be beyond belief.\"\n\n\"Can you give me any rules respecting the exercise of reason?\" asked\nEugene.\n\n\"Beware, in the first place, of confounding it with actual experience.\nExperience is, having personal evidence of fact, as true history is\nhaving our neighbor's evidence of the same. But the facts must be\nascertained before we can reason upon them, otherwise we may draw\nconclusions from false premises. But in sifting evidence regarding\nfacts, beware of rejecting any on the sole ground that they are not of\nordinary occurrence, or of a class within the personal experience of\nyourself or your neighbor. Incredulity is as great a folly as\ncredulity: let each question rest on its individual merits, and\nreceive the investigation due to its importance. In the second place,\nremember that the process of establishing a fact is essentially\ndifferent from reasoning on that fact when established. The latter is\ncommon to all, but the evidence which establishes facts acts\ndifferently on minds of different dispositions. Thirdly, a certain\nseries of facts already assumed to be established, often appears to\nthrow light upon and render probable, or even self-evident, another\nseries of facts which, without their precursors, would be of doubtful\nauthority. But that which it is most difficult to realize is, that\ncertain states of the mind render it easier to admit the probability\nof certain facts than certain other states; so that ere we proceed to\nthe investigation of foreign ideas, we must, as far as in us lie,\nexamine ourselves as to the impartial state of our dispositions,\ndivest ourselves of any prepossessions founded on the lower principles\nof our being.\"\n\n\"As for example?\" said Eugene.\n\n\"As for example, my young friend, we take the proposition already\ndiscussed this evening: 'Man is a fallen being!' This is either an\nhistorical fact or a falsity. Now some men persist in rejecting all\nagency that is not in accordance with the ordinary {324} consequences\nobserved to occur in the material portion of the creation,\nconsequently they deny the primary fact as matter of history, though\ncompelled by experience to admit that man often falls _de facto_.\nThis, they say, is in consequence of his non-observance of nature's\nlaws, the knowledge of which provided he acted on that knowledge would\nremedy this weakness. The knowledge of physics is, then, to these\nminds, a necessary and important ingredient in what to them\nconstitutes virtue, while physical ignorance must, by the same theory,\nbring with it vice and misery.\"\n\n\"The history of the creation given by Moses is to such persons a\nsublime myth, conveying no other idea than that it presents a splendid\nmanifestation of beauty, power, and grandeur. The aim and object of\nthese men is necessarily materialism--the contentment of animal\nexistence; and while this is their aim, their mental vision cannot see\nthe doctrine of the fall of man from spiritual life. Convince these\nmen, however, of their own inherent spiritual affinities, which,\nthough now in abeyance, are ready to be called into operation if only\nthey will that they should be so called--let them experience the\nyearning for higher life, which now lies dormant if not dead within\nthem, then will the cloudy myth become reality, and the falls _de\nfacto_ be viewed as the necessary result of the original fall from\nspiritual unity. A new vigor will be infused into the frame, and a\ndesire to re-establish the pre-existing supernatural relationships\nwill become the absorbing interest. The rationalist will become a\nChristian, not by force of human reasoning, but because a change has\ntaken place in his disposition, in his aspiration.\"\n\n\"But does the reception or apprehension of truth, then, depend on\nhuman disposition?\" asked Eugene. \"Should not truth be self-evident,\nor be at least demonstrable to those whom it concerns?\"\n\n\"To pure natures doubtless it is so,\" said M. Bertolot, \"but I need\nnot point out to you that facts of every-day occurrence show us that\nman's nature is no longer pure, and therefore is it that he is blinded\nby prejudice and five bent of his inclination. Few have been found\nwilling to lay aside the pride of rank, the demands of human comfort,\nand the conceit of human learning, and come like little children to be\ntaught by the inspired angel of truth.\"\n\n\"I, at least, would like to try,\" said Eugene. \"Would that the angel\nof truth were to be found!\"\n\n\"Pray! and you may find him yet!\" replied M. Bertolot.\n\n\"Prayer is your constant theme, I perceive,\" said Eugene, smiling.\n\n\"It is man's most constant friend, and the powerful preserver of his\nsoul,\" replied M. Bertolot. \"Man's soul is by its origin aspirative,\npanting after reunion with God, even when ignorant of the cause of his\ndisquietude. The soul has faculties which need gratification, and can\nbe gratified only in God. These faculties are nourished by prayer, and\nto prayer is annexed the promise of being heard; but then we must\naccept and fulfil the conditions.\"\n\n\"And what are those conditions?\" asked Eugene.\n\n\"The prayer must be humble,\" said his friend, \"diffident of self,\nconfident in God; and it must be accompanied by a firm resolve to let\nno private bias, no motive of interest, interfere with the\ninspirations sent in answer. The influences exercised over us by the\nexterior world, with all the empire of physical enjoyment, must be\nready to give way as soon as they interfere with the recognition of\nthe divinity speaking to our souls, as this interference is most\nfatal; for the 'fall of man' in the first place, the rise of paganism\nin the second, and in the third place the failure of the Jews in\nrecognizing the spiritual character of our Lord's kingdom, all arose\nfrom this undue empire of self-love, of private interest, latent or\npatent, in the human soul. And this empire must be subdued ere we can\nhope to regain our position as 'sons of the eternal and essentially\nspiritual God.'\"\n\n{325}\n\n\"And yet,\" said Eugene, \"we are of flesh as well as of the spirit, and\nthe demands of the flesh are loud and manifold.\"\n\n\"Yes, and to a certain extent they must be gratified, or life would\nfail. Only, let the body be the servant and not the master of the\nsoul. Let the object of existence be reunion with God, not the mere\ngratification of animalism. This aspiration, or this object--and, I\nmay say, this alone--forms the distinctive mark between paganism and\ntrue religion. It is not the outer idol that injures the soul, but the\ninward feeling that is directed to false worship; that accords to\nbeauty,  glory physical power, and animal gratification, the inward\nadoration due alone to God, the creator, redeemer, sanctifier. Have I\nmade myself understood?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said Eugene; \"and by this measure, the great mass of\npopulation must be as essentially,  pagan as they were in the days of\nMars, Jupiter, Bacchus, and Apollo.\"\n\n\"I fear many will be found so,\" said M. Bertolot. \"Men appear to be\nmore eager than ever they were for exterior improvements; they are\nfast losing hold of the aspirations of the past; they have destroyed\nold theories, and substituted new philosophies and new remedies for\nevil that our sapping the very foundations of spiritual truth in men's\nminds. Yet man cannot utterly stifle his inward yearnings, nor\nannihilate his spiritual affinities. The soul who rejects the true\nworship bows, although unconsciously, to inferior agencies, and animal\nmagnetism and spirit-rappings provide their poisoned food for the\nsickly appetite, and exercise their baneful empire ever the craving\nsouls who reject the hallowing operations of religion. Meantime the\nworld is in a miserable state of trouble and confusion.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Eugene, \"but modern philosophy ascribes this state to\nignorance, and says a proper educational development would obviate\nall. If so, what becomes of the fall of man?\"\n\n\"If so! rather a large if,\" said M. Bertolot. \"The world is nearly six\nthousand years old, and is it but now to begin to discover truth? and\nis that beginning to be the laying aside of all received traditional\nlore? Well! it is a new era, and everything will wear a new aspect\nsoon. It is as though it were in the councils of the Most High, that\nevery form of man's folly and self-seeking should have full\ndevelopment. Good, if he learn at last that from God alone, by\nsupernatural means, comes true light to the soul. Good, if when all\nother means have been tried and found to fail, he seek it there at\nlast. Good, if at length he recognizes the fact, that the soul's\nproper sphere is divine, is supernatural; that it is a consequence as\nlegitimate for the purified soul to tower above, to command matter, as\nit is for heat to melt ice. Good, if he become aware that from the\nEternal alone proceeds light and warmth and power and due action, and\nthat the human soul, the proper recipient of these graces, cannot\nexercise its own proper vitality (so to speak) without these gifts\nfrom God, which form at once its nutriment and its stimulus. Now, the\nunbeliever uses not the means, consequently feels not the divinity\nstir within him; and that positive inertia of his spiritual existence\nis the great cause of his remaining an unbeliever. It is as though a\nman were to refuse to believe that equal proportions of sulphuric acid\nand of water, being mixed together at the temperature of fifty\ndegrees, the compound will immediately acquire a temperature as high\nas boiling water, and not believing it possible, he refuses to test\nit, and so remains unconvinced. Nevertheless, the rise of temperature\nin this case is as certain a fact in chemistry as the fact in theology\nis certain, of the rise in the soul, when it approaches God by the\nmeans he himself has appointed.\"\n\n{326}\n\n\"But,\" said Eugene, \"if I understand you theologians aright, it is the\nprayer of faith that pierces the clouds. How am I to attain this\nfaith?\"\n\n\"Begin with the graces which you have already: I mean that of a\nsincere desire of truth, and that of the consciousness that you have\nnot truth in actual possession yet. These two facts of your mind are\ngifts immensely great. Follow them closely and in simplicity, and\ngreater results will follow. They contain already the germs of faith,\nand if you are true to their teachings you will be led to throw\nyourself, in child-like abandonment, into the arms of God, and\ncontentedly follow where he leads. Your yearning for truth will then\nbe gratified.\"\n\n\"And how am I to discover which historic facts are true? By divine\nlight also?\"\n\n\"Divine light will aid you even here. Yet in this case you must use\nthe best human means you can command. You must study the evidences,\nexamine the prophecies, and contemplate the manner in which these\nprophecies have been fulfilled. You must endeavor to penetrate the\nspiritual meaning of all the types, of all the allusions. You must\nmark well the connection between the old law and the new law, and\ndistinguish the essential differences between what revelation from God\n_is_, and that which is simply man's idea of what a revelation from\nGod should be. Study the developments of heathenism, modern as well as\nancient; you will find more similarity than at first appears on the\nsurface: and you will also easily trace therein, the divine truth,\nborrowed from the first traditions, and from the developments of\nrevelation, which mingled with their perversions form the basis of\ntheir system, a system which is built on a materialized version of a\nspiritual teaching, which, parted from the centre of good, went astray\nby following its own fancies, relying on its own unassisted judgment.\nFinally, meditate sedulously the truths of the religion taught at the\nfoot of the cross. Do not wait till you believe ere you do this, but\nlearn what religion is as taught by Christian apostles; then, if you\nreject Christianity, you will at least know what you reject, and if\nyou embrace it you will find many of your difficulties melt away, as\nif the very atmosphere dissolved them. But through every process,\n'pray.'\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Eugene, \"certainly I will; until I have found the truth\nit is but reasonable that I should submit to your guidance. Yes, for a\nwhile I will study, meditate, pray, and endeavor to keep my mind\nunbiassed.\" Mentally he added, \"Yes, Euphrasie, I will endeavor for a\nwhile to forget all that could bias me--even you.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nSCENE IN THE CASTLE CHAPEL\n\nSo absorbed, indeed, did Eugene continue to be in these pursuits, that\nhome influences and home affairs seemed to have passed from his mind\naltogether. The long vacation he spent at the lakes, studying works\nwhich certainly college authorities did not put into his hands, and\nwhich his father would scarcely have sanctioned. On his return to\nCambridge he found M. Bertolot absent for a considerable time, so his\nstudies continued unaided in the theological direction.  This enabled\nhim the better to elude the eyes of observation, and as his father's\nso was one of the least likely to be affected by \"superstition\" of any\nkind, his peculiar mode of passing his time passed unnoticed, only the\nsurprise seemed to be that in the classes he did attend he took so\nvery slight an interest; in fact, he passed for an indolent young man,\nwhile in fact reading hard and meditating deeply on themes forbidden\nby the University regulations. From these dreams of his own fashioning\nhe was one day unpleasantly awakened to a sense of his connection with\nthe outer world by a letter from Mr. Godfrey, detailing in a somewhat\nbitter {327} spirit, the transactions we have related in a previous\nchapter, and requesting him take an early opportunity of visiting\nAdelaide. Mr. Godfrey stated that himself, Mrs. Godfrey, Annie, and\nHester were about to return home, but that Adelaide declined to return\nwith them; she wished neither to be pitied nor wondered at, when the\nduke's absence should become publicly known. She felt equal to keeping\nup the state becoming her rank, and had invited her aunt and Euphrasie\nto domesticate themselves with her for some months to come, which\narrangement her friends deemed a very suitable one.\n\nEugene was deeply moved, for family ties had ever been strongly felt\nby him and to the transient disgust excited by his sister s conduct in\nconsenting to marry the duke, now succeeded warm sympathy for the\nannoyance and mortification she endured. Indignation against the cause\nof it was, however, useless. The duke was gone, and Eugene would have\nfelt some difficulty in reconciling a \"call of honor\" under the form\nof a duel with the new philosophy upon which he was so intent: so it\nwas well for him to be out of the way of temptation. His agitation did\nnot, however, escape the observation of his friend, who being just\nreturned from his trip, happened to call on him on the same morning on\nwhich he received Mr. Godfrey's letter. Briefly, and in strict\nconfidence, Eugene explained the cause.\n\n\"Nay, take it quietly, my young friend,\" said M. Bertolot. \"It is a\ngrievous misfortune, I grant, but let us leave the result in God's\nhands; good may come of it yet.\"\n\n\"I think I ought to go and see Adelaide.\"\n\n\"Without doubt; and your aunt, too, will welcome you.\"\n\n\"And will you not accompany me also? Your presence would be most\nacceptable to Euphrasie and to her mother.\"\n\n\"Why--if I thought I should not be intruding--\"\n\n\"I will ascertain that,\" said Eugene; and he wrote to his sister of\nhis proposed visit, and of his desire to bring a friend with him.\n\nThe return of post brought a cordial invitation to both. Accordingly,\nthey set out for the castle together, and received a most flattering\nwelcome from the inmates. For many days all went happily--very\nhappily. Eugene's natural disposition was gay and joyous, and this\never made him an agreeable companion. At all times every member of the\nfamily had been fond of this representative of a gentle house; but at\nthis particular juncture his unaffected cheerfulness rendered him\nespecially acceptable to the duchess.\n\nYet, when the first excitement was over, there were many things about\nhim which puzzled, even while they interested her. She began to feel\nuncertain as to whether she understood him. That which seemed a joke,\n_en passant_, on reflection appeared to contain some hidden meaning.\nThe castle itself was a continual theme with him. The number of its\nlarge, unoccupied chambers, which he bade her find inhabitants for\namong those whose dwellings were so scant of room that they could not\neven observe the decencies of life: the vast grounds, almost untrodden\nby human feet, among which he was always pretending to seek for\nconcealed hermitages; then the retinue of gentlemen and ladies who\nwere called servants, but whose principal occupation, Eugene insisted,\nwas to make work for others;--these were a never-failing source of\nraillery. All these things, which flattered Adelaide's pride, seemed\nto him but subjects of mere banter, and certainly did not excite that\nreverence for the \"state\" in which she lived which she expected and\ndesired. Then there was M. Bertolot, a poor French teacher, nowise\nelated by the condescension with which she, one of the greatest ladies\nin the land, entertained him. Calm, self-possessed, he received her\nattentions with as much {328} quiet dignity as if he were her equal.\nCertainly he did not pay her homage; and as homage was precisely that\nfor which she had married, she could scarcely avoid feeling a little\naggrieved on the subject, or feeling as if she had been defrauded of\nsomething that was her due; though her natural good sense forbade her\nfrom showing her sensitiveness to her guests.\n\nThe castle was very large--so large, in fact, that Adelaide had never\nentered all the chambers. More than half of it had been dismantled,\nand was generally kept locked. An old steward who kept the keys alone\nknew all the intricacies of that part of the house, which he asserted\nhad, in ancient times, lodged a large body of retainers, and that it\ncould now, in case of necessity, accommodate whole regiments of\nsoldiers.\n\nOne day, in a merry mood, Eugene proposed to his sister to escort her\nthrough her own house on a tour of discovery. She assented. The house\nwas in the form of a quadrangle, enclosing a flower garden of\nconsiderable size. In the midst was a reservoir, into which a\nwater-god, exquisitely sculptured in marble, was pouring a continual\njet of water. Marble pillars supported the upper story of the mansion,\nforming beneath an arched and cloistered walk round three sides of the\ngarden. Already had Eugene spent hours here in meditation, for it was\never cool, shady, and sequestered; and it being understood that here\nthe family alone were admitted, the servants consequently kept aloof.\n\n\"Beautiful cloisters those would make,\" said Eugene. \"When you\nexchange your ducal coronet for a nun's veil, Adelaide, and your\njewelled chain for a rosary, you can come here and tell your beads.\nYour convent is provided already.\"\n\n\"What an absurd idea!\" said the duchess.\n\n\"Nay,\" said Eugene, \"such things have been, and may be again.\"\n\n\"Nonsense! this age is too wise for that\"\n\nThey passed on. Even Eugene was surprised at the extent of\naccommodation in the furnished and inhabited part of the building. The\nold duke had so divided the place that  he and his duchess had had\ntheir separate establishments under one roof, without being cognizant\neven of each other's proceedings. For the last years of their lives\nthey had met only on state days and on state occasions.\n\nAdelaide now inhabited suite of rooms occupied by the former duchess.\nUntil to-day she had never entered those set apart for the duke.\n\nA shudder ran through her veins as as she traversed them, for\nsomething seemed to whisper her, that here, to another duke would die\nlike the former--married, yet wifeless--and that the entailed\ndwelling, with its vast grounds and cherished heirlooms, would pass\naway from her altogether.\n\nEugene saw his sister turned pale, and guessing something of what was\npassing in her thoughts, led her hastily down a narrow staircase, on\nthe opposite side to which he had entered. He opened another door,\nwhich brought them into a secluded shrubbery, which he had never\nbefore observed. They walked a few yards, and then came to a low,\nvaulted archway. They entered, for the key was in the lock; and though\nthe door turned somewhat heavily on its rusty hinges, they easily\npushed it open. Another door presented itself, and that, too, was\nunlocked. Wondering, they entered. Stealthily, yet scarcely knowing\nwhy they were so hushed, they moved forward, and found themselves in a\nsmall, deserted chapel Stained glass was in the windows; the stone\naltar yet remained; fluted pillars marked the aisles; a large cross\nwas wrought in one of the walls, in stone work; but the seats and\nornaments were gone. A damp, earthy smell pervaded the place. Adelaide\nwas chilled and drew back.\n\n\"Nay, stay one moment,\" pleaded Eugene. \"I will open the window. Let\nus see what this place is.\"\n\n{329}\n\nThey approached, but suddenly they perceived Euphrasie on her knees,\nin a niche formed in the wall, while M. Bertolot, seated on a step\nbeside her, seemed in the very act of raising his and over her in\nbenediction.\n\nAdelaide started as if an adder had stung her. She suppressed a shriek\nand hastily turned away. Eugene followed and reverently closed the\ndoor.\n\nThe duchess was too much annoyed to speak. She was moody for the rest\nof the day, but made no remark on the subject which occupied her\nthoughts. The day after, Eugene was reading near her, while Euphrasie\nwas seated by the window, employed in working embroidery, when the\nduchess began, in a somewhat bitter tone:\n\n\"Well, Eugene, in one thing you have disappointed me. You used to the\nso fond of art; and your visits to the Pantheon have have been so very\nfew, and so very short, that I wonder what is the matter with you.\nWhat objection can you have to what all the world terms\nmaster-pieces?\"\n\n\"None at all--indeed none, my dear sister. Your statuary is\nmagnificent, unrivaled.\" This was said in a deprecating tone, for\nEugene earnestly wished to avoid discussion. \"There can be no fault to\nfind with the Pantheon. It is I who am to blame. I am out of taste\njust now. Jupiter and Mars have ceased to interest me. My taste for\npaganism has had its day, I presume. We cannot always be wrapt up in\nthe same things.\"\n\nBut the duchess was not satisfied with this answer. It rather\nincreased her annoyance, and she replied in the same bitter tone:\n\n\"I marvel to hear you and Euphrasie condemn idolatry, while she is on\nher knees before an image for hours together, and you see no idolatry\nin that.\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle de Meglior does not worship images that I am aware of,\"\nsaid Eugene, somewhat startled at this burst, \"though to keep her mind\nconcentrated on one idea, she may possibly make use of them.\"\n\n\"And what is that but idolatry?\" said his sister; \"how many of the\npagans, think you, would mistake a statue of Minerva for Minerva\nherself? Their statues were but types to recall ideas.\"\n\n\"Yes, but the ideas themselves were false; Paganism was the worship of\nphysical power, the deification of materialism. True religion is the\ndirect converse of this. It is the elevation of the soul to\nspirituality, the recognition of a spiritual God, who created man for\nhis own glory, endowed him with spiritual life, for the express\npurpose of keeping him strictly united to himself. The centre of the\none system is self or concupiscence. The worship rendered is the\nworship of fear, or for the promotion of self-gratification. The\ncentre of the other system is God, by whom all things are made, in\nwhom they still exist, and for whom they should exist in will, as well\nas in act. One is paganism, the other is Christianity.\"\n\n\"And what may you mean by concupiscence, most learned Theban?\" asked\nthe duchess.\n\n\"Concupiscence is such a love of self as prevents us from making God\nthe first object of our love,\" responded Eugene.\n\n\"And you, in sober earnest, profess to think it possible to love God\nmore than yourself?\"\n\n\"I think men have done so,\" said Eugene, \"though they have been but\nfew, when compared to the world's masses.\"\n\n\"Men have loved their whims and fancies to an astonishing degree, I\nknow,\" said the duchess; \"fanaticism has abounded on the earth, but\nfanaticism is, after all, only a species of madness; I know not\nwhether it be curable or not.\"\n\n\"Do you, then, think it a sort of madness to endeavor to find the true\nand living God, and having found, to worship him? That, surely, is not\nyour grace's meaning?\" There was a slight contempt in Eugene's tone as\nhe said this; his sister was nettled and answered coldly:\n\n{330}\n\n\"Man's spirit is naturally superstitious, I think: that is the secret\nof all this nonsense about worship. He is ignorant, and fears and\ntrembles. Enlighten him, and he will walk upright and rely on himself\nalone.\"\n\n\"And what is man, that he should rely on himself alone?\" responded\nEugene; \"a being weaker than the lower animals, needing even more\nprotection than they do to defend him from the inclemency of the\nweather, and obliged to labor to provide food sufficient for himself,\nwhile the food of calves and goats grows beneath their feet. When\nyoung, man is powerless; when sick, powerless; when old, powerless;\nnay, without aid he is usually powerless.\"\n\n\"But man generic,\" said the duchess, \"can aid this greatly.\nCombinations might be formed which would remedy this individual\npowerlessness. Such, they tell me, are in contemplation; and when\nformed, superstition will be crushed under the chariot-wheels of\nimprovement in man's physical condition.\"\n\n\"It might,\" said Eugene, \"if any degree of mere animal enjoyment could\ncontent man, but it cannot. Let man surround himself with luxury to\nthe highest possible degree, there will still be the feeling that a\nhigher life exists for him. Man's soul, the divine spark inbreathed by\nGod, can rest only in God. Glimpses of high destinies still float\naround us, and in our unsatisfied longings--unsatisfied when most\nprovided for--we find the pledge that we were made for higher\nthings.\"\n\n\"Mere Platonic crudities these, my dear brother,\" said the duchess,\nwith a smile. \"Beware! you are on a dangerous path; themes like these\nhave misled many a noble mind. And look! Euphrasie is smiling an\nassent to your mysticisms; she thinks you are already half-way on the\nroad to Catholicity.\"\n\n\"No matter by what road we are led, provided we arrive at truth,\"\nresponded Eugene. \"But you are mistaken in your conjecture; I have not\nbeen studying Platonism but Christianity.\"\n\n\"It may be Christianity is but a form of Platonism,\" said the duchess:\n\"at least many learned men have so asserted. What Christianity was\nintended to be by its founder I can hardly make out; but it seems to\nhave borrowed largely from the mystics as it travelled through\nphilosophy.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Eugene, \"to me that appears a gratuitous assumption. That\nto a superficial observer there may be some grounds of resemblance\nbetween the ideas of spirituality, abstractly considered, entertained\nby the mystics and by the Christians. I grant--as also that, to a\ncertain extent, man may be capable of deducing these abstract ideas\nfrom observation of nature's workings. Nature is a manifestation of\nthe spirit of God, consequently there always must exist a certain\ncorrelative teaching in nature corresponding to a higher spiritual\nteaching, though man's blindness will not always perceive it; but this\nis only an exterior relationship. The spirit of Christianity enfolds a\nprinciple which natural philosophy does not touch.\"\n\n\"A principle which is the mere creature of human imagination.\" said\nthe duchess; \"nay, I might say it is the offspring of discontent. Man\nis dissatisfied with his lot, and frames a heaven for the future. He\nwere more wisely employed in remedying the present evil.\"\n\n\"If it were possible, you should say, sister. How many evils can man\navert? Do we not suffer, from natural predisposition, diseases of\nvarious kinds? Do we not suffer in our affections from the misconduct\nof others? And do not the majority suffer an enforced toil, which\nabsorbs their time, and leaves them neither energy nor leisure for\nspeculative thoughts? They must work or die. Now, philosophy would but\nrender a man discontented with this state of things--a state which\nleaves the toil to one, and the enjoyment, supposititious perhaps, but\nstill {331} apparent enjoyment to another. Force can compel it--the\nforce of unsatisfied nature; but Christianity hallows it--sanctifies\nit--by teaching how all apparent hardships may nourish virtue and\nunite the soul to God.\"\n\n\"Nay, I do not dispute that religion is necessary for the vulgar,\"\nsaid Adelaide.\n\n\"And are the vulgar to have the highest portion? Christianity is the\nexaltation of the soul--paganism, the worship of the body. In that\ncase, I would rather cast in my lot with the vulgar.\"\n\n\"If it were but true,\" said Adelaide.\n\n\"Become poor, lofty lady, and you will feel its truth. Perchance\nluxury is a kind of anodyne to a human being, so that he does not feel\nhis soul when under its influence. Become poor; toil, day after day,\nfor a scanty pittance, and you will find yourself asking if man is\nonly a laboring animal. Become poor, and the soul will speak to you of\npower and aspiration, and ask why is this sense of loftiness unused.\nIt will ask you why every faculty has its legitimate sphere in which\nto act, and the soul alone remain without a sphere. Perhaps we need\nsomething of this experience before we can feel the stirrings of the\ndivinity within us--before we are prepared to comprehend the truths\nof religion. Certain it is that the gospel was sent peculiarly to the\npoor, and that the refined trifles which occupy the minds of the rich,\nprevent their attending to the inward voice of the spirit.\"\n\n\"Why, Eugene! you are qualified be a Methodist preacher. This is mere\nrant and cant. Religion takes no such exalted standing in the minds of\nthe vulgar. The Methodist has some pet theory to save his soul,\nwithout troubling himself about good works at all; and the Catholic\ntells his beads and sets up his images in the very style of paganism.\nThey say that at Rome the adoration of the Virgin Mary has taken the\nplace of the worship of the goddess Venus--where is the gain there?\"\n\n\"The patroness of purity in exchange for the goddess of\nlasciviousness! Nay, surely, sister, that exchange must be a blessed\none. What I have been trying to express all along is, that all that\nmakes us do homage to the animal nature--all that worships the merely\nphysical--is paganism; while all that represses carnality, promotes\npurity, and leads us out of ourselves to unite us to God, is Christ's.\nThe union of the saints in Christ is not idolatry; it is but an\nadditional means of glorifying God by showing forth, in united prayer,\nthe triumph of Christianity over death itself.\"\n\n\"Do hold your tongue, Eugene. Let us have no more of this. Sometimes\nyou are a Catholic, sometimes a Methodist; but in either character you\nwill be disowned as my father's son. The idea of your disgracing a\nline of philosophers by such stale trumpery!\"\n\nEugene laughed; and as he saw no other way of closing the debate he\nquitted the room, which Madame de Meglior was just then entering. But\nthe duchess, seriously annoyed, turned sharply round upon Euphrasie.\n\n\"I suppose,\" said she, \"you have been putting these foolish notions\ninto the boy's head. Beware, if you make a Catholic of him you will\ndestroy the peace of a whole family; but that, I suppose, is a\nsecondary consideration to making a convert.\"\n\n\"Indeed, your grace--\" replied Euphrasie.\n\n\"Nay, do not deny it, whether by words or looks or acts, 'tis all the\nsame; there was no Catholicity in the family until you came into it,\nand now I clearly see some means must be used to prevent its\nspreading.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Madame de Meglior, \"in this instance you have forgotten\nthat Eugene is almost always at Cambridge; how does my daughter's\nreligion influence him there?\"\n\n\"I do not know, but you see it has; the boy was well brought up, was\nrational and intelligent; and now to adopt these follies! He, the\nrepresentative of my father's house, too!\"\n\n{332}\n\nMadame de Meglior was now vexed, but she ventured no reply; it was\nimpolitic to offend the duchess. She liked Durimond Castle better than\nEstcourt Hall; secretly she hoped that Euphrasie had made an\nimpression on Eugene's heart. She would like to have seen them\nmarried, and she well knew that Euphrasie would not marry one out of\nthe pale of the church. Religion was, to madame herself, nothing. She\nwas a no-thinker, not an unbeliever: she had lived nearly all her life\nin France, among people who sometimes went to mass for form's sake,\nand who called themselves Catholics, and she could not comprehend the\nbitter feeling with which her countrymen regarded the Catholic Church.\nShe thought children should be taught religion; it made them dutiful,\nand for her part she did not see that her husband's daughter was\ninferior to her nieces. She, however, smothered her vexation, as she\nsaid:\n\n\"You think too much of these vagaries, my dear niece. This is the age\nof tolerance; we must be lenient to youthful folly.\"\n\n\"This is a serious folly, aunt,\" replied the duchess. \"It would make a\ncommotion throughout the kingdom, were my father's heir to turn\nCatholic.\"\n\n\"Yet the wars of the Pretender are long since at an end. Europe\nscarcely knows whether a representative of the Stuart line is living.\nIt is time these feuds should cease. I thought 'freedom of thought'\nwas the watchword of the Godfrey family.\"\n\n\"What freedom of thought is there in Catholicity?\" asked the duchess.\n\n\"Nay, that I know not; but I think freedom of thought means that each\none may be of the religion he thinks best.\"\n\n\"He must not be a Catholic,\" said the duchess; \"at least, not\noutwardly. He may think as he likes, of course; no one can hinder\nthat.\"\n\n\"Is that the toleration of England, may it please your grace?\" said\nMadame de Meglior, banteringly.\n\n\"It is. Why should he be allowed to destroy the political influence of\nthe family, to mar the marriage of my sister, to bring a slur on a\nrespectable name?\"\n\n\"I had not thought of that,\" answered madame; and for the first time\nshe pondered whether it was really an evil that Euphrasie should be a\nCatholic.\n\nAfter this conversation, slight as it was, Euphrasie became more and\nmore resolved; till then, though scarcely to be called intimate, she\nhad been at least friendly with Eugene Godfrey. Now she avoided him\nwhen she could do so without positive rudeness. The Countess de\nMeglior, who began to watch her closely, could only perceive that her\npassion for solitude was ever on the increase, but her obedience to\nherself never faltered. Madame de Meglior, though but little given to\nreflection, now discovered that this was a very convenient disposition\nfor her step-daughter to cherish; for, had she wished to be brought\nforward in the great world of fashion, like other girls of her age,\nmadame's pride would have been wounded at not being able to do this in\nthe proper form for her, as the daughter of a French nobleman. She\nfelt glad, then, that, considering how matters stood, the girl had not\nforgotten her convent education, and resolved for the present to let\nher pray and meditate unmolested, feeling sure that, when their\nestates were restored to them, Euphrasie would become like the rest of\nthe world among whom they moved. As for Eugene, she had penetration\nenough to discover that Euphrasie's bashfulness rather tended to fan\nhis flame than to extinguish it.\n\nM. Bertolot, who was also watching the young people with much\ninterest, did his best, on the contrary, to induce Euphrasie to open\nher mind to Eugene; but in this he experienced so much difficulty at\nfirst, that he began to think he must abandon the design, when\naccident came most unexpectedly to his aid.\n\n{333}\n\nThe period drew near when their visit was to conclude, and on the day\nprevious to the one fixed for their departure, the duchess, who had\nrecovered her good humor, proposed a pleasant party to a ruined\nmonastery some few miles distant. There were many Young people of the\nparty, and they dispersed themselves in groups about the grounds. M.\nBertolot gave his arm to Euphrasie, and began to explore the ruins\nafter a methodical fashion. The walls were of great extends, many of\nthe rooms remained entire, and much of the plan could be trace; they\nmade out the site of the community room, the chapel, refectory,\nbakehouse and so forth, and were descanting on the probable locality\nof other apartments when Eugene joined them. \"This must have been a\nmagnificent place,\" said he.\n\n\"History says it was large and well endowed,\" said his friend. \"What\nsay you Euphrasie,\" he continued, \"shall we rebuild it for your\nfriends?\"\n\n\"It is too large,\" said Euphrasie.\n\n\"Nay, we will suppose an indefinite number of nuns, and the enclosure\nwall shall be placed wherever you direct.\"\n\n\"Even then it would be too grand, too magnificent for the votaries of\nSt. Clare.\"\n\n\"You will not accept it, then?\"\n\n\"No; unless I might build on another scale. Our holy foundress loved\nto seem poor as well as to be poor.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said Eugene, \"there are some magnificent convents in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"Yes\", said Euphrasie; \"some orders have them exteriorly grand, but\nSt. Clare loved everything to be plain and poor, even the church.\"\n\n\"And why?\" asked Eugene, \"surely a magnificent church is a great\nadjunct to religion. St. Peter's at Rome is the glory of the world.\"\n\nEuphrasie looked as if about to reply, but she checked herself.\n\nM. Bertolot,  however, observed the movement, and said, \"Nay, tell as\nyour thoughts, Euphrasie.\"\n\n\"I am not sure they are correct,\" she replied.\n\n\"Leave us to judge of that. Speak them as they are.\"\n\n\"If I should scandalize you,\" said Euphrasie.\n\n\"Scandalize? Nonsense! Tell us your idea.\"\n\n\"Well, then,\" said the young lady, \"although splendid edifices have\noften been erected by the piety of the faithful, and though in all\nages it has been accounted a good work to adorn the House of God, I\nbelieve that our holy foundress, who was ever watchful over the\ninterior spirit, thought there might be danger of exciting vanity even\nin that respect, and on that account desired poverty for her daughters\nin every arrangement. Our own dear reverend mother often inculcated\nupon us the remembrance of the words of God, 'I will not give my glory\nto another,' and it seems as if there were a special temptation to man\nto indulge vain-glory when undertaking any vast exterior work for\nreligion. The most splendid temple that the world ever saw, that of\nSolomon, lasted barely four hundred years; its founder fell into\nidolatry, and the worshippers were carried into captivity in\npunishment for their sins. The second temple had been built scarcely\nsix hundred years when the frequenters of that temple, urged on by the\npriests, crucified the Lord of Life. It seems dangerous for man, in\nthis his fallen state, to deal personally with magnificence of his own\ncreation; he is too easily puffed up to render it safe for his soul.\nTherefore is the first beatitude for the poor in spirit, who desire no\ngrandeur.\"\n\n\"Thus thinking, you disapprove of St. Peter's at Rome!\" add M.\nBertolot.\n\n\"Disapprove! nay, reverend father, you well know I should not dare to\ndisapprove of aught that the church has sanctioned. The church has\nevery kind of disposition to deal with, and {334} in her wisdom\nfollows St. Paul's advice, in becoming innocently all things to all\nmen, that she may gain some to Christ. I was merely referring to our\nown dear community, who strive after the spirit of our great\nfoundress. Among these, I have seen some weep when the desecrations\nhave been described to them of heretics taking luncheon baskets within\nthe very walls of St. Peter's, and using the place as a lounging\napartment or gossiping room. Again, I have seen others to whom that\nmagnificent church of Rome would bring most saddening thoughts, to\nwhom it appeared as a monument of the great schism which rent the\nseamless garb of Christ into nameless divisions; where not only the\nshade of Luther haunts the fancy, but that of the monk Tetzel also,\nwho paltered with the doctrine he was sent to preach.\"\n\nM. Bertolot shook his head. \"You view these matters too strictly,\" he\nsaid; \"all men are not like the good nuns, accustomed to practise\ninterior recollection so perfectly they can dispense in a measure with\nexterior aids; to most souls, exterior appliances are useful and\nnecessary accessories to devotion. The mass of mankind must not be\njudged of by likening them to the inmates of a convent; there is a\nwider gulf between than you have any idea of.\"\n\n\"Nay, I remember my father's death,\" said Euphrasie, mournfully; \"but,\nreverend father, was it not you who told me that, in those terrible\ndisturbances, the _riches_ of the church attracted the wolves to the\nsheepfold, and that the _treasures_ of the religious houses occasioned\nthe thieves to enter and take possession?\"\n\n\"True! Too true! my child; yet will the piety of the worshipper ever\nseek to adorn the house of God, and the richness of the shrine be an\nindication of the fervor of that piety. It is alike the pleasure and\nthe duty of the votary thus to enrich the house of God.\"\n\n\"But,\" interrupted Eugene; \"Mademoiselle Euphrasie speaks of herself\nas if belonging in a convent already. If not indiscrete, may I be\nallowed to say that I presume we are not to take that supposition '_au\npied de la lettre?_'\"\n\nEuphrasie blushed and looked at M. Bertolot, as if asking him to speak\nfor her; but he only said, in and kind of half-whisper:\n\n\"Speak for yourself, my child; it is necessary to be explicit.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Euphrasie, \"I believe you may receive the in fact\nliterally. I was brought up with the dear nuns, and have always\nbelieved myself called to be one of them. I still cling to the hope of\nseeing them again.\"\n\n\"But in this country,\" said Eugene, \"how can you be a nun?\"\n\n\"I do not know; but when it was certain our convent was to the broken\nup, the superioress said to us: 'As the habit does not make the none,\nso dear children, neither does the abode. For his own wise purposes\nDivine Providence now separates us; but the spirit of prayer, the\nspirit of recollection, of obedience, of meekness, of chastity and\npoverty, you all can sedulously cherish still; and if it seems to you\nthat the circumstances are unfavorable, remember that God seeth not as\nman seeth, and he knows best what will most contribute to his glory\nand our sanctification. Remember, too, that, to a soul living in God,\nexterior circumstances are has nothing; so, still, wherever you are,\nbe faithful to God and to St. Clare.'\"\n\n\"But you surely are not a vowed nun, mademoiselle?\"\n\n\"No, but my resolution is taken, and I feel that it will never\nchange.\"\n\nEugene's brow clouded, and he felt a heaviness at the heart which\noppressed him greatly. Moodily he walked by their side until they\njoined the rest of the party, but for the rest of the day he was as\nsilent as Euphrasie herself was wont to be.\n\nThe duchess wondered what had come over him, but no remark was made on\nthe subject. The next day he and M. Bertolot returned to Cambridge.\n\n{335}\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n\nTHE DUKE AND DUCHESS BEFORE THE WORLD.\n\n\nThe Godfrey family had returned home depressed and saddened. Over Mrs.\nGodfrey's spirit, in particular, a shade seemed cast, which but\ndeepened as time passed on. She was a true mother, and worldly as were\nher ideas, her affections were very deep. Attached to her husband,\nattached to her children, she felt Adelaide's position even more than\nAdelaide herself appeared to do, for the affections of the young bride\nwere by no means of so fervent a character as were those of her\nmother, and her pride and haughtiness were incomparably greater.\nIndeed, it were difficult to prove that the young duchess was a great\nsufferer at the present time. She exercised despotic way over the\nvassals (as she proudly termed them) of her lord's domains, was\ngenerous, and in return was much beloved and gladly greeted with that\nhomage which was dearer to her than aught else.\n\nAt the end of six months the duke returned. He resided chiefly in\ntown, but when in the country he occupied the suite of apartments\nfitted up for the former duke. He presented his wife at court, stayed\nwith her, and assisted her in doing the honors during the festivities\nof a London season; behaved to her in public with the most respectful\nattention, listened to every suggestion, and gratified to the best of\nhis power every wish she expressed. Nothing, in fact, could be better\nthan his conduct to his wife before the world; and whatever that world\nmight conjecture, the polite and dignified behavior of both the\nparties concerned gave it little to talk about. To Mr. Godfrey the\nduke gave full authority in the settlement of all matters in which his\ndaughter was concerned; and as she appeared contented, who could have\na right to find fault? After remaining a few months at home, the duke\nagain departed on the business of the embassy, and this time he stayed\nmuch longer abroad. But as Adelaide did not complain, the remarks made\nwere soon hushed into silence.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL EQUALITY PUT TO THE TEST.\n\n\nMadame de Meglior continued to reside with her niece, and made herself\nso agreeable, that the arrangement promised to become permanent.\n\nEuphrasie continued to exhibit the same impassive exterior; in\nappearance she was but the slave of her mother's will. The duchess\nregarded her as almost a nonentity, at least after the fears excited\nby Eugene's religious tendencies had in some measure subsided.\n\nBut Annie! \"a change had come o'er the spirit of her dream.\" She,\nalways disposed to romance, was unguarded now. Formerly, Adelaide had\nacted as a check upon Annie's fondness for equality, fraternity,\nliberty. Now that that restraint was withdrawn, she imprudently\nallowed Alfred Brookbank to treat her more and more as an equal. It is\ndoubtful whether, even if she had reflected, she would have foreseen\nthe consequences, for in her most republican moods, she never forgot\nthat she was a Miss Godfrey of Estcourt Hall; and though to amuse\nherself and pass away the time, she was willing enough to discuss\nequality and the \"rights of man,\" she certainly expected to receive\nfull credit for the condescension in allowing to an inferior the\nprivilege of such \"free discussion\" with herself. Home was dull, her\nsister gone, and her cousin gone too: her mother was always ailing\nnow, and her father, ever newly absorbed by some pet plan, kept his\ndarling Hester {336} constantly at his side. Annie was alone, and\nsomewhat desolate: Alfred Brookbank always on the look out for an\nexcuse to bear her company and amuse her. Annie was becoming\naccustomed to his attentions, without attaching any more definite\nmeaning to them than she would to the attentions of any one of the\nnumerous dependents of her father's house, when, one day, he took\nadvantage of a private interview to make a formal profession of love.\nThis was indeed a surprise; for, though any one else might have\nexpected it, Annie had never once thought of such a probability.\nMarriages in her family had always been conducted so differently.\nBesides, she had never looked on Alfred as other than patronized. She\nhad not dreamt of such presumption, though she had allowed him freely\nto broach in her presence his doctrine of the \"inherent equality\" of\nsuch individuals as are of equal calibre of intellect, and of the\nright of all mankind at large to freedom and equality. Her manner of\nreceiving this declaration was certainly not very flattering; for she\ndrew herself up in a somewhat haughty manner, and replied that the\nproceeding was so unexpected, so uncalled for, that she did not know\nhow to answer it, for Mr. Alfred must be aware that the difference in\ntheir social position rendered such a proposal unanswerable.\n\n\"To one of ordinary mind, perhaps,\" said Alfred, somewhat chafed; \"but\nto one like yourself, endowed with an understanding above the petty\nconventionalities--\"\n\n\"I am not above recognizing my duty to my family, Mr. Alfred, and you\nmust be aware that no one member of it would consent to this.\"\n\n\"Nay, if you only allowed me to hope I had any interest in you, I am\nsure Mr. Godfrey would not refuse your wishes.\"\n\n\"I have no wish to trouble him on the subject,\" was the cold\nrejoinder, somewhat haughtily expressed.\n\n\"I may not hope then--\"\n\n\"You may hope nothing on this subject whatever. Let it be dropped now\nand forever. If I can aid your prospects--\"\n\n\"You will patronize me. Thank you, Miss Annie, but patronage from you\nwould suit my temper badly. I had thought there was one being in the\nworld superior to the influences of prejudice, of conventional\ndistinctions; but you, too, deem me an inferior, because I boast not\nof paltry wealth or of gentle descent. Inferior as you deem me, you\nshall yet feel my power--yes, my power!\"\n\nHis language and his told were those of a madman, and his flashing\neyes gave him a frenzied appearance. Trembling with rage, the quondam\nlover left the presence of his adored, meditating in bitterness the\nmost direful revenge.\n\nHad Annie put any faith in his professions of love to herself, she\nwould have been undeceived by this burst of rage. Love had not\nanimated him--that was apparent enough; his disappointment was but a\nfoiled ambition; yet after permitting upward of two years' attentions,\nconscience told her he should have met with a less haughty rebuff. The\nretrospect showed her she had encouraged him. She had then partly\ndrawn upon herself a merited rebuke. She could but acknowledge this,\nand, humiliated, Annie would willingly have done her part in repairing\nthe evil she had occasioned by promoting his advancement in life but\nthis was beyond her power. The next news she heard was that Alfred\nBrookbank had prevailed on his father to advance him a large sum of\nmoney, and had set sail for America.\n\nTime passed on. Estcourt Hall became duller every day, and beyond the\narrival of a new family in the neighborhood there was nothing of\ninterest outside. This family consistent of a dowager Lady Conway,\nher son and daughter. They had purchased \"a place\" near the sea for\nthe benefit of Lady Conway's health. Their own estates, or rather the\nson's estates, were in a neighboring shire.  They {337} were not\nintellectual, but they were wealthy and of good family, and in time an\nintimacy sprang up between them and the Godfreys, none knew how or\nwhy, and in a few months after, to the surprise of every one, \"The\nMorning Post\" announced that Sir Philip Conway, Bart., had led to the\naltar Miss Annie Godfrey, second daughter of E. Godfrey, Esq., of\nEstcourt Hall.\n\nThe marriage was strictly private. Eugene left Cambridge for a day or\ntwo to be present at it, but he soon returned to college. Of the\nnature of his studies no one guessed. He did go in for honors, as his\nfather would have wished. Nevertheless his tutors made a good report\nof him, and the  secluded life he led made many suppose that he was\npursuing very deeply some pet hobby of his own.\n\nIndeed, this was partly true; for although at his first return to\nCambridge he was much dejected, he soon began to reflect that\nEuphrasie was very young; that she not only was now completely\ndependent, but that she was likely to continue so; and that the most\nunlikely thing that could happen, was the gratification of her wish to\nenter a convent. He trusted to time to teach her this, and a new hope\nsprang up within him, and that, too, at the very moment that his\nfriend M. Bertolot, began to hope he had mastered his feelings for\nEuphrasie, and become reconciled to the inevitable separation.\n\nEugene spoke not of his love, but with renewed ardor he addressed\nhimself to study the most important relationships that can exist for\nman. Guided by the counsels of M. Bertolot, he mastered the evidences\nof Revelation and then assured himself that that revelation, _once\ngiven_, was divinely protected: that that which was intended to shed\nlight on the human soul, darkened by sin, was not a dubious _ignis\nfatuis_, subject to human vagaries, but an unerring guide and an\nunfailing lamp. We will not follow him through his arguments now, as\nwe shall have occasion to make him speak for himself on a future\noccasion.\n\nTime passed on. Annie had been married a year or more. Truth to say,\nshe was somewhat _ennuy\u00e9e_ at present. Her husband resided chiefly on\nhis estate, and this was at some distance from Estcourt Hall. There\nwas little society in the neighborhood, and Sir Philip's tastes\ncorresponded very little with her own.\n\nThe young baronet was perfectly well-intentioned, but neither refined\nnor cultivated. The society of his farm-bailiff, the walk to the\nfatting-stalls, the talk about the respective fattening qualities of\nturnips and mangold-wurzels, the speculations on the relative value of\nfarm-yard manure, of guano, or of soot, and dissertations whether each\nor all should be applied as top-dressing or should be worked into the\nsoil; such were his occupations, and sooth to say, he excelled in the\npursuits he had adopted. No beasts at Smithfield could show finer\npoints than Sir Philip's: no farm was in finer model order: his tanks,\nhis barns, his under-drainings, and his irrigations, together with his\nprize cattle of every description, were the admiration of the\nagricultural world. He was truly a \"lord of the animal creation,\" and\nhe prided himself on being so. Of intellectual culture he had small\nappreciation; but as he had great ideas of order, and deemed himself\nmaster by right of \"the masculine being the most worthy gender,\"\n(which was the only idea he retained from his Latin grammar, that had\nbeen vainly endeavored to be flogged into him at school,) he would ill\nhave brooked interference with his rights. To him, a wife was a\nnecessary appendage, nothing more; as to allowing a woman to dictate\nto him, the thing was absurd. He was \"a lord of creation,\" and though\nhe wished the world to pay due respect to Lady Conway, because she was\nhis wife, yet it is questionable whether he himself would have allowed\na woman a voice on any {338} subject beyond those connected with\ndomestic economy, and even here he reserved to himself the power of\nveto. He loved his wife, certainly, because he thought it was a part\nof his duty to do so; besides, he really had some sort of animal\naffection for her. Annie was well-made, of good birth, well-educated;\nto say the least, he was as proud of her as he had been of the animal\nwhich had won him the first prize at the Smithfield cattle-show. It\nwas part of his system to have the best specimens of animal existence\ndomesticated on his estate, and Annie did not disgrace his other\nstock.\n\nBut Annie; poor Annie! She was alone in the world, though surrounded\nby everything that could procure bodily ease or bodily enjoyment. She\nhad horses to ride, she had a carriage to ride in, she had gardens and\nhot houses, plantations and shrubberies; but to her cultivated mind\nwhere was the response? To the poetry that strove within her for\nexpression, where was the listener?\n\n   \"The thought that cannot speak Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and\n   bids it break!\"\n\nBut Annie's was not a spirit to be easily broken. Naturally\nexpressive, she would have sought interest even among the cottagers,\nhad not her husband's jealousy forbidden it. He was a _magnifico_, and\nhe liked not that his wife should be more popular than himself. He\nwished to gain the name of being a liberal benefactor to his laborers\nand cottagers, and would not share his reputation even with the being\nto whom he had plighted his faith for life. Annie was thus thrown on\nher own resources. Brought up intellectually, she found a resource in\nbooks; and though at times cast down, she rallied again, for youth is\nbuoyant, elastic, hopeful, and a literary taste carries in itself a\nwonderful power of compensation. But Annie was no dreamer, and the\nideas that suggested themselves demanded action, which as yet they\nwere denied: yet Annie read on, and thought on. The time for action\nwill one day surely come, she thought.\n\n\"Lady Conway,\" said Sir Philip one day at the breakfast table, \"do you\nknow any thing of a Mr. Alfred Brookbank?\"\n\nAnnie almost started; she certainly changed color, but Sir Philip was\nnot observing her; so she answered, \"Yes--no--yes; that is, Sir\nPhilip, the family lived at Estcourt, and sometimes visited at the\nHall.\"\n\n\"He has bought old Gordon's land, and is about to become our dear\nneighbor.\"\n\n\"Indeed! How did he get the money? He was poor when I knew him.\"\n\n\"He has made very fortunate speculations in America; besides which he\nsucceeds to his father's property\".\n\n\"Is Dr. Brookbank dead?\"\n\n\"He is, and has left a considerable sum behind him; he economize\nunknown to his family, it seems.\"\n\n\"But even so, there is an Elder brother.\"\n\n\"No, he died in America; of this there is certain news.\"\n\n\"In America!\" said Annie. \"I did not know he was ever there\".\n\n\"No? Well, it seems he ran off with a neighbor's wife, took her to\nAmerica, got tired of her, left her, and went off to the woods. There\nhe lived some time, but one day was found at the foot of some rapids,\ndrowned.\"\n\n\"But how did his family know this?\"\n\n\"Some stranger to that district identified the body and gave evidence\nbefore the presiding magistrate, after which they searched the shanty\nin which the man had lived, and found papers corroborative of his\nbeing Walter Brookbank, and these papers, with sundry articles, they\nsent home to his family, according to the address given by the\nstranger, and they were found to have belonged to Walter.\"\n\n\"Strange concurrence of events! Who was the stranger?\"\n\n\"He gave his name as William Jones.\"\n\n{339}\n\n\"Jones! I suppose Smith, Brown, or White would have served his purpose\nequally as well?\"\n\n\"Why do you suppose that Jones was not the man's name, my lady?\"\n\n\"I do not know, only it seems to me a most improbable tale.\"\n\n\"Improbable! Why, the family believe it, at any rate.\"\n\n\"And the second son is to be established in the neighborhood?\"\n\n\"Yes; he intends to occupy himself in superintending land. I have some\nthoughts of employing him myself.\"\n\n\"I thought you said he inherited considerable property.\"\n\n\"Yes, but he has determined to let his mother enjoy the income arising\nfrom the paternal estate, and has also promised to care for his\nsisters' fortunes. Dr. Brookbank died intestate, it seems, but this\nyoung man says that shall make no difference. He appears to be\nactuated by very high principle\".\n\nAnnie did not answer. She was uneasy; especially at the idea of\nAlfred's managing her husband's affairs. She feared some sinister\nmotive. Her husband noticed the discontented expression of her\ncountenance.\n\n\"Do you not like Mr. Alfred Brookbank?\" He asked.\n\n\"Well, I hardly know,\" said Annie; \"but at least I do not consider him\na man of business. He was not when I knew him; besides, he is young\nfor an agent; an older man might suit you better, Sir Philip.\"\n\n\"I am not sure of that; old men are apt to be obstinate and to have\nplans of their own; I choose to look into my affairs myself, and to\nmake my own arrangements; so that his inexperience signifies but\nlittle, provided he is industrious, and that his American success\nproves him to be.\"\n\nAnnie knew not what objection to offer, and a dark foreboding came\nover; was this in any way diminished when, some few weeks afterward,\nMr. Brookbank was announced, and Sir Philip, instead of receiving him\nin his library according to his wont with gentlemen visitors, directed\nhim to be shown into the parlor, in which he and Lady Conway were\nsitting. Annie would have escaped had it been practicable, but as her\ndeparture would have attracted Sir Philip's observation, she thought\nit more prudent to remain.\n\nAlfred entered, and his bearing was so respectful, so distant, that\nAnnie would have been reassured, had she not felt that at intervals,\nwhen Sir Philip was not looking, Alfred fixed his eyes upon her with\nthe gaze of a basilisk; and once when she chanced to look at him she\nthought the expression of his features perfectly demoniacal. What she\nhad to fear she knew not, but that she did fear something was certain.\n\nIt was not only Alfred that had come to reside in the neighborhood;\nhis mother and two sisters accompanied him. The rectory of Estcourt\nhad passed to another, and there was no mansion on the paternal acres\nsuited for the refined tastes of the family, so they had come to\nreside with Alfred in his newly purchased dwelling. A certain degree\nof visiting between the families would have been necessary for old\nacquaintance sake, but more soon became inevitable from the ascendency\nwhich Alfred shortly obtained over the mind of Sir Philip. He\nflattered himself into the baronet's good graces, and made himself so\nagreeable that Sir Philip began to think it impossible to live without\nhim. Annie tried in vain to stem the torrent of intimacy, that\nthreatened almost to domesticate Alfred in her house. Sir Philip was\nfar too wise a man to be governed by his wife, so he listened to none\nof her remonstrances; and at times there was a look of triumph, as\nwell as of hatred, in Alfred's features, that made her almost tremble\nin his presence. Annie was naturally strong-minded, yet she could not\novercome this sensation, which was almost a martyrdom, particularly as\nshe suspected Alfred was aware of the torment she underwent. She wrote\nto {340} her aunt, who was still at Durimond Castle, to request that\nshe and Euphrasie would come and spend some time with her, hoping to\ngain courage in their society, and perhaps protection; but the answer\nwas unpropitious:\n\n\"The Duke of Durimond had returned home seriously unwell, and at that\nmoment it would be improper and unkind to leave the duchess without\nsociety.\"\n\nAnnie must, then, endure life as best she could. Alfred found himself\nvisiting at Sir Philip's on terms of apparent equality, and often a\nparty was made up of such society as the neighborhood afforded,\nexpressly for the purpose of introducing the family so obnoxious to\nAnnie. Nay, she was in a manner compelled to take her turn in visiting\nthem, repugnant as it was to her feelings.\n\nOn these occasions Annie behaved with condescension and politeness,\nbut with nothing more. She received Alfred with the most formal\ncourtesy; he returned her salute with one of apparently the most\nprofound respect. Few more words were interchanged than were\nabsolutely necessary.\n\nIt was the current opinion that Lady Conway liked not the society of\nher inferiors, and Sir Philip, participating in the idea, strove to\ncombat it, although he was no leveller in general; but in Alfred's\ncase he thought the prejudice she entertained ought to yield to such\nsuperior merit.\n\nOne evening a social party met at Sir Philip's. Singing and dancing\nwere going on; but Alfred was unusually dull, he could not be\nprevailed upon to join in any amusement. The baronet, fancying his\nwife's coldness might have had some influence in producing this\neffect, said to her in the hearing of all the party:\n\n\"My lady, was Mr. Brookbank so dull when he visited at Estcourt Hall?\nDid he never sing to you there?\"\n\n\"Mr. Brookbank has a very fine voice,\" was the reply; \"I have often\nheard him sing beautiful melodies.\"\n\n\"Nay, then, call upon him, in memory of 'Auld lang syne,' to sing for\nyou, my lady; no other has the power to arouse him to-night.\"\n\nAnnie turned to Alfred and said in a dignified manner, \"You here Sir\nPhilip's request, Mr. Brookbank; will you consider it mine?\"\n\nAlfred started, looked at her, and bowed. He answered in a tone so low\nthat only she could hear its purport:\n\n\"You have asked for a madman's song, my lady; what else can memory\nproduce?\"\n\nDeclining the offer of an accompaniment, he seated himself at the\npiano, and drew forth notes so wild, so terrific, that the whole party\nwere electrified; then assuming the mien and gesture of one crazed in\nhis intellect, his loud and clear voice gave full force to the\nfollowing:\n\n  Oh! bid me not recall the past,\n    Though calm appear my features now\n  Hid though from sight the fevered blast,\n    That caused the spirit's overthrow.\n\n  'Tis not in mortal power again\n    Youth's buoyant transport to recall;\n  'Tis hushed--forever hushed--the strain\n    That could with Schilling the heart enthral.\n\n  Visions of truth  have passed me by,\n    Mocking the sense, with shapes unreal,\n  Filling each pulse with melody,\n    Thrilling the heart with joys ideal.\n\n  And freedom, independence, love.\n    In dreams have risen to my sight--\n  In dreams essayed my heart to prove.\n    They vanished at return of light.\n\n  And earth is all unholy now.\n    Venal its joys!--its highest bliss\n  To lay that false ideal low--\n    To crush the hope of happiness.\n\n  Love gone! one wish doth yet remain--\n    One thought the maddened brain to whet:\n  Joy vanished! Its fell rival--pain--\n    Forbids the spirit to forget.\n\n  Pain, pain triumphant, speaks of power\n    To seize the serpent's foulest sting.\n  Therewith to bid the tyrant cower.\n    Back to return the poisoned spring.\n\n  Yes! I'll unveil those mocking forms,\n    Those shapes of grace, all seat from hell;\n  I will reveal the latent storms\n    That 'neath the placid surface dwell.\n\n  Thus proudly I'll unveil deceit;\n    Thus fearfully I'll stifle pain--\n  The mask torn off--made known the cheat--\n    Ne'er shall the false one rest again!\n\n  With trust destroyed, with pleasure gone,\n    Earth yields the soul no fitting mate;\n  But  standing fearless and alone\n    The vengeful spirit lives--_to hate_.\n\n{341}\n\nThe emphasis that was given to this wild song struck terror to the\nhearts of the hearers, especially as the singer himself seemed frantic\nwith excitement When it was finished a pause ensued, as if all present\nwanted to take breath; and Sir Philip found voice to say:\n\n\"Why, where on earth, Brookbank, did you learn such a ditty as that?\nYou have absolutely frightened the young ladies; they think you half\nmad, yourself.\"\n\n\"It is the lay of a madman in good earnest,\" said Alfred, \"he who\ncomposed it was crazed by disappointed love; I sing it now and then as\na warning to young ladies not to be too cruel.\"\n\nHe looked round the room for Annie as he spoke; but Annie was no\nlonger there; every line of that song had spoken volumes to her, in\ntelling her what a bitter enemy she had raised, and as the last word\nvibrated on the singer's lips, she left the apartment. When she\nreturned she was very pale. She felt conscious that Alfred was\nwatching her every movement, and that feeling made her miserable.\n\n\nTO BE CONTINUED.\n\n------\n\nFrom Chambers's Journal.\n\nAUTUMN.\n\n\n  Autumn is dying, alas! Sweet Autumn is near to her death;\n  All through the night may be felt her languid scented breath\n  Coming and going in gasps long-drawn by the shivering trees,\n  Out on the misty moors, and down by the dew-drenched leas.\n\n  Autumn is dying, alas! Her face grows pallid and gray;\n  The healthy flush of her prime is momently fading away;\n  And her sunken cheeks are streaked with a feverish hectic red,\n  As she gathers the falling leaves, and piles them about her bed.\n\n  Autumn is dying, alas! Her bosom is rifled and bare;\n  Gone is the grain and the fruit, and the flowers out of her hair,\n  Whilst her faded garment of green is blown about in the lanes,\n  And her ancient lover, the Sun, looks coldly down on her pains.\n\n  Autumn is dying, alas! She lies forlorn and alone;\n  The little chorusing birds have a broken, unhappy tone\n  As they fly in a crowd to the hedge when the evening mists arise,\n  To curtain the bed of death, and shadow the closing eyes.\n\n  Autumn is dying, alas! But to-night the silent cloud,\n  Dropping great tears of rain, will come and make her a shroud,\n  Winding it this way and that, tenderly round and around,\n  Then catch her away in its arms from the damp, unwholesome ground.\n\n  Autumn is dead, alas! Why alas? All her labor is done,\n  Perfected, finished, complete, 'neath the wind and the rain and the sun;\n  All the earth is enriched--the garners of men run o'er;\n  There is food for man and beast, and the stranger that begs at the door.\n\n  Look to thy life, O man! Swiftly approaches the night;\n  Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might.\n  Labor right on to the end: let thy works go forth abroad;\n  Then turn thy face to the sky, and enter the \"joy of thy Lord.\"\n\n\n------\n\n{342}\n\n\nFrom The Dublin Review.\n\n\nPROTESTANT PROSELYTISM IN EASTERN LANDS   [Footnote 103]\n\n  [Footnote 103:\n  1. The Gospel in Turkey, being \"the Tenth and Eleventh Annual\n  Reports of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society.\" Published at the\n  Society's Office, 7 Adam Street, W.C.; at Nisbet's; and Hatchard's,\n  London. 1864-5\n\n  2. The Lebanon: a History and a Diary. By David Urquhart. London;\n  Newby. 1860.\n\n  3. Journal of a Tour in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece. By\n  James Laird Patterson. M.A. London: Dolman. 1852.\n\n  4. Prospectus of \"the Syrian Protestant College.\" Issued by \"The\n  Turkish Missions-Aid Society.\" London. 1865.]\n\n\nThere are few impartial and well-informed Protestants who will not\nconfess that their missions throughout the world have invariably\nproved to be utter failures. No matter to what sect or denomination\nthey belong, or from what country or association their funds are\nderived, Protestant missionaries, as preachers of that gospel about\nwhich they speak so much, never have converted, and we believe never\nwill, convert the heathen save by units and driblets, hardly worthy of\nmention. In India, in Turkey, in Africa, among the South-Sea\nIslanders, and the Red Indians of America, the result of Protestant\nmissionary labor is the same wherever it has been tried. The people to\nwhom their missionaries are sent may, and often do, become more or\nless civilized from intercourse with educated men, and often learn\nfrom those who wish to teach them higher matters, some of the arts and\nappliances of European life. Some few certainly embrace what their\npreachers deem to be Christianity; and occasionally, but very seldom,\nsmall communities of nominal Christians are formed by them. But to\nbring whole regions of the inhabitants to the foot of the cross--to\nconvert whole nations to Christianity--to prove that their converts\nhave embraced a system in which a man must do what is right as well as\nbelieve what is true--are triumphs which have hitherto been reserved\nfor the Catholic Church, and for her alone.\n\nBut, even humanly speaking--and quite apart from all considerations of\nthe truth as existing only in the ark which our Lord himself\nbuilt--can we wonder at these results? Are there any who have\nsojourned in, or even past through the lands where missionaries of\nboth religions work, and have not compared the Catholic priest with\nthe Protestant minister who has come out to preach the gospel in those\ncountries? Take, for instance, and up-country station in British\nIndia. Is there a Protestant missionary in the place? If so, he is a\nman with considerably more than the mere script and staff of apostolic\ndays in his possession. As wealth goes among Englishmen in the East,\nhe is perhaps not rich; but he is nevertheless quite at his ease, and\ncertainly wanting for nothing. He has his comfortable bungalow; his\nwife and children are with him; the modest one-horse carriage is not\nwanting for the evening drive of himself and family; nor is the\nfurniture of his house such as any man of moderate means need despise.\nHe has a regular income from the society he represents; and his\nallowances are generally such as, with a little care, will allow of\nhis living in great comfort. And, finally, if he falls sick, too sick\nto remain in the country, the means of taking him home again to\nEngland or America are forthcoming at a moment's notice. He is\ngenerally a good linguist; for having nothing else to do daring six\ndays of the week, he devotes much of his time to the study of the\nvernacular. {343} He is respected by the European officers of the\nstation; for he is often the only person they ever see in the shape of\na clergyman. He is almost always an honest, upright man, with little\nor no knowledge of the world, and, if possible, less of the natives to\nwhom he is sent to preach. This, however, does not matter; for, except\namong his own personal servants, he makes no converts, and has but few\nhearers. There is no positive harm in him, but as little active good.\nHe is a fair sample of a pious-minded Calvinist, but is certainly no\nmissionary, as Catholics understand the word. So far from having given\nup anything to come out to India, both he, his wife, and\nhis--generally very numerous--offspring are much better off than if he\nhad remained in his native Lanarkshire or Pennsylvania. If he belongs\nto the Church of England, he is very often a German by birth, and\nappears to have \"taken orders\" in the establishment without having for\na moment abandoned his own peculiar theological views. Some few\nEnglishmen--literates, hardly ever University men--are to be found\nhere and there, as English Church missionaries; but these are and far\nbetween, nor do their labors often show greater results than those of\ntheir Presbyterian fellow-laborers. Even Dr. Littledale  [Footnote\n104] speaks of \"_the pitiful history of Anglican missions to the\nheathen_;\" and he might with great truth have extended his verdict to\nthe missions of every other denomination of Protestantism.\n\n  [Footnote 104: See The Missionary Aspect of Ritualism, in the Church\n  and the World. (London: Longmans.)]\n\nIn contrast to the Protestant, take the European Catholic missionary\nin the East, as apart from the native-born priest. He is invariably a\nvolunteer for the work, either a monk or a secular priest, who\naspiring to more severe labor in his Master's vineyard, has chosen the\nhard and rugged path of a preacher of the gospel in pagan lands. As a\ngeneral rule, you will probably find him living in an humble room in\nthe native bazaar, and depending for his daily bread upon the charity\nof his flock, or the contributions of any English Catholic officer or\ncivilian who may happen to be in the neighborhood. He is Catholic in\nhis nation as in his creed; for you may find him French, Belgian,\nItalian, Spanish, Irish, or English. The present writer has met a\nFrench nobleman and the son of a wealthy Yorkshire squire laboring and\npreaching as Jesuit Missionaries to the natives of India and the poor\nIrish soldiers who form so large a portion of every garrison in that\ncountry. Is it, then, to be wondered at if, notwithstanding their\nsuperior means and far greater worldly \"respectability,\" the\nProtestant missionaries do not succeed as ours do; or rather, that\nwhereas our missions are never without fruit, theirs seldom show forth\neven a few sickly leaves? But the simple fact is, the missionary\nspirit--or rather the spirit which leads a man, if he believes that\nduty to God calls him to abandon family, wealth, comfort, health, nay,\nlife itself--never has, and never can be, understood by Protestants,\nwhether climbing the heights of ritualism, or sunk in the depths of\nSocinianism. Catholics are often angry with Protestants, because the\nlatter are uncharitable respecting monks, priests, and nuns. Catholics\nare wrong in being angry. Hardly any person who is not a Catholic can\nunderstand the spirit which moves men and women to make such\nsacrifices for the love of God, and counts the loss as so much gain.\nThe very idea of these acts is to him as color to one who has been\nblind from his birth: he not only cannot understand it, but you cannot\nexplain it to him. This is a truth to which every convert will bear\ntestimony, after his eyes have been opened to the truths of God's one\nand only Church, and which even few of those who have been Catholic\nfrom their youth upward can realize.\n\nBut notwithstanding \"the pitiful history\" of Protestant missions to\nthe heathen, the work of these gentlemen in that direction is not\ndeserving of {344} other sentiment than that of pity. If men will\nlabor in fields where they can bring forth no harvest, and if others\nwill pay them for doing no good, the affair is theirs, not ours. They\nnever can do harm to the Church in those regions, for they achieve\nneither good nor evil to any one, further than by giving the natives\nin places where there are no Catholic missionaries a very erroneous\nidea as to what the duties of a Christian teacher ought to be. Not so,\nhowever, in those countries where Protestantism has sent its\nemissaries to undermine the faith which flourished among the\ninhabitants centuries before the very name of Protestant was known or\nheard of. To help such undertakings, \"The Turkish Missions-Aid\nSociety\" was established and is kept up, and it is to the two reports\nof that society at the head of the list of works under notice, that we\nwould call the especial attention of Protestants, even more than\nCatholics, throughout England.\n\nThe \"Laws and Regulations\" of \"The Turkish Missions-Aid Society\" are\ndivided into nine clauses, and in the second of these we are told\nthat--\n\n  \"The object of this society is not to originate a new mission, but\n  to aid existing evangelical missions in the Turkish empire,\n  especially the American.\"\n\nWhat these \"evangelicals\" missions are, and to whom the \"American\"\nmissionaries are sent, we shall see presently. As a matter of course,\nthe society is supported by the very cream of \"evangelical\"\nProtestantism, having Lord Shaftesbury for its President, Lord Ebury\nas Vice-President, and Mr. Kinnaird as Treasurer. The subscriptions\nare very large indeed, and from the \"statement\" furnished by the\nreport for 1864-65, we find that no less a sum than \u00a324,672 5_s_, has\nbeen sent out to the East for \"native agencies\" alone, since the\ncommencement of the society, now about eleven years ago; this, of\ncourse, being all in addition to the very heavy sums and comfortable\nsalaries furnished by the American society, called the Board of\nForeign Missions, by which these missions and missionaries are\nmaintained.\n\nIt would appear that the \"fields\" occupied by these American missions\nare five in number, and the present condition of them is thus\nsummarized in the eleventh, the latest, annual report, now before us:\n\n  [Transcriber's note: The column titles are\n  abbreviated as follows:\n  MS.--Missionaries\n  NA.--Native assistance\n  SAOS.--Stations and Outstations\n  CH.--Churches\n  CM.--Church Members\n  SCH.--Schools\n  ASA.--Average Sabbath Attendance\n  SMF.--Scholars male and female]\n\nFields       MS.  NA.   SAOS.  CH.    CM.  SCH.   ASA.    SMF.\n\nWestern      45   73     45    19    512    37    1569   1615\nTurkey\n\nCentral      19   54     27    14    998    26    3125   1717\nTurkey\n\nEastern      21   74     50    14    403    51    2201   1889\nTurkey\n\nSyrian       24   37     22     8    200    25     650    548\n\nNestorian    16   81     36     0    529     0    3000      0\n\nTotal       125  320    120    55   2642   139   10545   5100\n\n\nThese \"missions\" have been at work, some more, some less time; but a\nfair average for the whole would be about twenty-five years. It will\nbe observed that in the five \"fields\" there are but 2,642 \"church\nmembers,\"  or what, among Catholics, would be termed communicants. The\nindividuals who come under the head of  \"Average Sabbath Attendance,\"\ncan no more be termed Protestant then his grace the duke of Sutherland\ncan be called a Catholic because he was present at the funeral of\nCardinal Wiseman. But we will grant, for the sake of argument, that\nthe 2,642 \"church members\" are earnest, consistent Protestants. If so,\nand taking into calculation only the funds furnished by the Turkish\nMissions-Aid Society, as quoted above, these converts I'm not very\nvaluable, for they have only cost something less than ten pounds each.\nBut if to the \u00a324,672 5_s_., we add all that the American Board of\nMissions has paid in the same period as salaries for missionaries, for\n\"native assistants,\" for schoolmasters, rents, building of churches,\nprinting, books, and the passage-money of missionaries and their\nfamilies to and from the East, we shall find that there is not one of\nthese individuals whose conversion has not one way and another cost\naround three thousand pounds. At this price {345} they ought to be\nstaunch anti-papists, for their religion has been a very high-priced\narticle.\n\nLet us turn for a moment to the second book on the list at the head of\nthis article. No one who has read a line of the well-known Mr.\nUrquhart's many writings on political questions, will ever accuse him\nof Catholic tendency on any subject. He is not a bigot, indeed; nor,\nagain, does he ever defendant the past history of Protestantism, for\nhe is too well read to uphold what every honest man, with the\nknowledge of an ordinary school-boy, must condemn. In oriental\nmatters, moreover, Mr. Urquhart has his peculiar views; but as these\nhave nothing whatever to do with the questions of Protestant and\nCatholic, missionary or non-missionary, we may fairly accept what he\nsays on the subject as the testimony of an impartial witness. Here,\nthen, is what he writes respecting the Catholic clergy and the\nsectarian missionaries in Syria and Mount Lebanon:\n\n  \"The Roman Catholic regular and secular clergy are established here\n  as in any other Roman Catholic country; that is to say, they are\n  pastors of flocks, and not missionaries, The Protestants have no\n  flocks, and _they are sent with a view to creating them_.\n  TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS are yearly subscribed in the United\n  States for that object, and the missionaries come here having to\n  justify the salaries they receive.\"--_The Lebanon_, vol. ii. p. 78.\n\nThe italics in the above quotation are our own, and we have thus\nmarked the words in order to draw attention to what every traveller in\nthe East, not that with the \"pure gospel\" media, has borne testimony.\nBut let us return once more to the \"statement\" of the five missionary\n\"fields\" occupied by the Americans in the East. Mr. Urquhart would\nnever make an assertion like the above without chapter and verse for\nwhat he says; and when the writes that TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDS POUNDS\nare yearly subscribed in the United States to support their\nmissionaries in the East, we may very safely consider the statement to\nbe true. We cannot, however, suppose that for this enormous sum the\nmissions in Syria only are meant, for then each one of the two hundred\n\"church members\" with which that land is blessed would cost a small\nfortune in himself. But at the same time it is impossible not to allow\nthat he must mean the American missionary establishments in the East\ngenerally--the five \"fields,\" of which a \"statement\" has been copied\nabove, and the total of whose \"church members\" amounts to 2,642. And\neven with this calculation it will be seen that every Protestant\ncommunicant costs the pretty little _annual_ sum of about \u00a39 10_s_.\nfor his conversion, and subsequent religious instruction. We are given\nto finding fault, and not unnaturally so, with the cost of the\nEstablished Church in Ireland; but what is this when compared with the\nprice of the \"Gospel in Turkey\"? It is doubtful whether--apart,\nperhaps, from some other Protestant missionary \"field\" of which we are\nyet ignorant--the religious instruction of any people in the known\nworld costs as much. It is as if each ten individuals had a curate\nentirely to themselves, and each hundred \"church members\" a very\nwell-paid private Anglican rector of their own. No wonder that we are\ntold the Syrian Protestant converts think highly of their new creed,\n\"the Gospel of Christ,\" as it is modestly called. In a country where\neverything is more or less measured by a monetary standard, a convert\nfor whose spiritual well-being \u00a39 10_s_. per annum is paid must\nbelieve himself to be in a state of exaltation, considering that had\nhe remained in his own church, his Maronite, Greek, Greek Catholic, or\nArmenian priest--having to say mass every day, to attend to some one\nor two thousand parishioners probably scattered over a large\ndistrict--would consider himself very fortunate indeed if he had a\nstipend of two thousand piastres a year, or about \u00a320, of which more\nthan half would be paid in corn, oil, or fruits. {346} The fathers of\nthe Jesuit mission in Syria are allowed a thousand francs, \u00a340, for\nthe travelling expenses, clothing, table, etc., of each priest when\nengaged on missionary work away from the house of his community; how,\nthen, is it that the American missionaries cost so very much more? We\nwill take up our quotation from Mr. Urquhart again, at the point where\nwe left off:\n\n  \"They (the American missionaries) have town-house and country-house,\n  horses to ride and an establishment and a table which speaks well\n  for the taste of the citizens of the United States. These are\n  results obtained by exertion and combination, and which, affording\n  enjoyment in their possession, prompt to efforts for their\n  retention. The persons thus raised to affluence and consideration in\n  a fine and luxurious climate would have to sink back to hard\n  conditions of life, if not to want and destitution. This relapse\n  presents itself as the consequence of failing in the creating of\n  congregations, or at least of supplying to those who subscribe the\n  funds plausible grounds for expecting that the consummation was\n  near. Looking at the country, nothing can be more painful and more\n  hopeless than the contest: nowhere is an ear open. As to converting\n  the Turks, they might just as well try to convert the Archbishop of\n  Canterbury.\n\n* * * * * *\n\n  \"As to converting the Jews, it would be much better for the United\n  States to send missionaries to Monmouth-street. There remain, then,\n  but the Maronite, the Greek, the Greek Catholic, Armenian, and\n  Nestorian churches, that is to say Christians, to convert. From the\n  pre-existing animosities among the Christians, the missionaries\n  could not so much as open their mouths to any of the members of\n  these communities on the subject of religion, and therefore it is a\n  totally different course that they have adopted. They have offered\n  themselves as schoolmasters; not as persons depending for\n  remuneration on their claims to the confidence of parents, and on\n  their proficiency; but supplying instruction gratuitously, and\n  adding thereto remuneration to the scholars in various shapes. Their\n  admission in this form has been forced upon the people by the\n  Turkish government. The condition, however, has been appended to it,\n  that they should not attempt to interfere with the religious belief\n  of the pupils. This has been going on for years; the money\n  continuing to be supplied on the grounds that Protestant\n  congregations are being created, and the proceeds enjoyed by the\n  missionaries on their undertaking that they shall not create them.\n\n  \"The statistical under-current is, however, veiled or disguised from\n  the men (the missionaries) themselves. The one generation has, so to\n  say, succeeded the other. The new men come out occupied with their\n  zeal, not caring critically to examine the position in which they\n  stand, in entering at once on a contest already engaged. They are\n  filled with contempt for everything around them; and to religious\n  zeal, itself a sufficiently active impulse, is superadded the\n  necessity of furnishing reports for public meetings and periodicals\n  in America--reports which, failing to contain statements proselytes\n  secured, have at last to supply narratives of contests undertaken\n  and martyrdom endured.\"--_The Lebanon_, vol. ii. pp. 79, 80.\n\nOur author has, in the foregoing paragraph, certainly touch most of\nthe weak points of Protestant missionary working. Even a cursory\nanalysis of the reports before thus confirm every word of this\nquotation from his book. Like every Protestant account of missionary\nwork, the Turkish Missions-Aid Society's Reports are interlarded with\nscriptural quotations, having always the same significance--that the\ntime for seeing the results of the labor has not yet come, but soon\nwill be; or, as Mr. Urquhart puts it, they supply to those who\nsubscribe the funds, plausible grounds for expecting that the\nconsummation is near.\n\nSome years ago, a grand case of _quasi_ martyrdom was reported that\nExeter Hall, and must have been worth much money to the societies who\nfurnish missionary funds for the East, both in England and America. It\nwas the cause of many questions being asked, and much correspondence\nbeing furnished, in both Houses of Parliament. Dispatches were\nwritten, the Turkish Government threatened, and the life of Lord\nStratford de Redcliffe, who was then our representative at the Porte,\nmade a burden to him for a time with extra work. The story was that\nsome American Protestant missionaries, when \"preaching the Gospel\" on\nMount Lebanon, were stoned and otherwise ill-treated, being finally\nturned out of the village in which they resided; some of them being\nbadly wounded. The tale was well told, but, like other histories of\nthe kind, was allowed to the forgotten {347} as soon as it had served\nits purpose. Here is Mr. Urquhart's version of the affair, gathered as\nit was in the country itself, is not unlikely to prove the true\nversion of the story:\n\n  \"The missionaries arriving at Eden (a village not far from the\n  celebrated cedars of Lebanon, the inhabitants consisting entirely of\n  Maronite Catholics) entered a house, and disposed themselves to\n  occupy it. The master of  the house told them that he would not and\n  could not receive them. They persisted, threatening him in the name\n  of the Turkish authorities. A great commotion ensued, and the\n  people, with the fear of the Turkish authorities before their eyes,\n  devised a plan for dislodging the missionaries by unroofing the\n  house. A roof in the Lebanon is not composed of tiles and rafters;\n  to touch a roof is a very serious affair, not to be undertaken in\n  wantonness. The people had the satisfaction of seeing the\n  missionaries mount and depart without any act on their part which\n  would expose them to after-retribution.\"--_The Lebanon_, vol ii. p.\n  82.\n\nI said before, Mr. Urquhart is one of the very last men who could be\naccused of any leaning toward Catholicism, still less of any affection\ntoward the native Christian population of Syria and Lebanon. Of this\nhis volumes bear witness in every chapter. But in a dozen instances he\nproves what we have so often heard asserted by travellers returned\nfrom these regions, that the people do not want, and do not wish for,\nthe American missionaries, and would far rather be without them. Also\nthat wherever these Protestant apostles are located, their presence is\na continual source of trouble and annoyance, by causing quarrels among\nthe people, and that their sojourn in the land is most certainly not\nconducive either to the glory of God on high, or of peace on earth to\nmen of good will. That their so-called mission has been a most\ncomplete religious _fiasco_, is pretty well proved by the returns\nwhich at page 308 we copy from these reports. If the reader will but\nturn back to it, he will find that with twenty-four missionaries and\nthirty-seven native assistants, the number of \"church members\" in the\nSyrian \"field\" amounts to no more than two hundred, and this after the\nAmericans have worked as missionaries in this \"field\" for the last\nquarter of a century or more. Surely no clearer proof than this is\nwanting for endorsing what Mr. Urquhart has said above respecting the\nway and the reason why these religious undertakings are puffed up, and\n\"plausible grounds\" given for expecting that the consummation of\n\"gospel\" triumph is at hand.\n\nThere is, perhaps, no Christian population in the world more united as\na body, more attached to their clergy, more faithful in their holding\nto the See of Peter, or more orthodox in every particle of their\nfaith, than the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. To illustrate, even in the\nmost superficial manner, the history and ritual of this singular\npeople would extend this paper far beyond our limits. Suffice it to\nsay that upward of ONE THOUSAND years before the discovery of America,\nthe holy sacrifice of the mass was offered up in their churches, and\nmatins, lauds, vespers, and complins sung every morning and evening in\ntheir sanctuaries, just as at the present day. Their name is derived\nfrom that of St. Maroun, a holy hermit, who, in the fourth century,\nwhen the heresies of Eutyches and the errors of Monothelism were so\ncommon throughout the East, preserved the inhabitants of Lebanon and\nthe adjacent parts from those influences. \"The Maronites,\" says Mgr.\nPatterson, in his work, which is the third on our list at the head of\nthis paper,--\n\n  \"The Maronites maintain that they have never swerved from the\n  Catholic faith, and love to assert that their Patriarch is the only\n  one whose spiritual lineage from St. Peter, in the see of Antioch,\n  has been unbroken by the taint of heresy or schism.\" (P. 389.)\n\nTheir secular clergy number about 1,200, and the regulars, inhabiting\nsixty-seven monasteries, comprise some 1,400 monks, priests, and lay\nbrothers. They have besides fifteen convents, in which there are about\n300 nuns.\n\n{348}\n\n  \"The blessings of education (continues the same author) are widely\n  diffused among the Maronites. Almost all are able to read and write;\n  and though few even of the clergy can be called learned, they are\n  all sufficiently instructed in the most necessary things, and\n  especially in the practical knowledge of their faith. Offences are\n  rare among them, crimes almost unknown. The number of the Maronites\n  of Lebanon appears to be about 250,000. In 1180, William of Tyre\n  estimated them at more than 40,000; in 1784 Volney placed them at\n  115,000; and Perrier, in 1840, at 220,000. Elsewhere they are hardly\n  to be found; the largest number I know of is at Cyprus, where there\n  are about 1,500. A few also are found at Aleppo and Damascus, and\n  some at Cyprus.\n\n* * * * *\n\n  \"There are (among the Maronites of Lebanon) four principal colleges\n  for the education of the clergy. The most ancient is that of Ain\n  Warka, in which between thirty and forty pupils are educated. They\n  are taught Arabic (their vernacular), Syriac, which is the\n  liturgical language of this rite; logic, moral theology, Italian,\n  and Latin. Six exhibitions for the maintenance of as many scholars\n  at the College of Propaganda were attached to this college. At the\n  time of the first French occupation of Rome, the funds which\n  provided for them were seized, and have never been restored; but the\n  pupils still go to Rome, and many of them are to be met with in the\n  higher ranks of the Maronite clergy.\" (P. 388.)\n\nIt is then to turn this people, and these priests, from the faith\nwhich they have so long and so honestly held, and from the spiritual\npaths in which they have walked for at least fifteen hundred years,\nthat respectable black-coated American gentlemen, whose experience of\nlife has been confined to Boston or New York, are sent over and\nmaintained by the funds furnished by the zealous evangelicals of\nEngland and the United States. No wonder if those to whom they come\nwould rather be without them. With the people whom they are sent to\n\"convert\" they have not a single idea in common. The very vernacular\nof the country has to be studied and learnt by them (an undertaking of\nat least two or three years, as Arabic is perhaps the most difficult\nlanguage in the world for an adult to acquire a proficiency in),\nbefore they can preach or even converse with those whom they wish to\nteach what they themselves deem, the truths of eternal life. Without\nthe most remote approach to a thing like a ritual, and without even\nthe barest liturgy to recommend them, they come among a people who\nfrom very very infancy are perhaps more familiar with the meaning and\nteaching of earnest ritualism than any nation on earth. Mr. Urquhart,\nin the quotation we have given elsewhere, says of  the American\nmissionaries, that \"as to converting the Turks, they might just as\nwell try to convert the Archbishop of Canterbury;\" might he not have\nsaid the same as to the converting of the Maronites? From the 200\n\"church members,\" which the returns of the Turkish Missions-Aid\nSociety state as the result of the \"missionary\" labor on the Syrian\n\"field\" during the quarter of a century and more which the work has\nbeen going on, if we deduct the personal servants of the twenty-four\nmissionaries, and of thirty-seven native assistants, how many will\nthen be left as real, true, and earnest converts from their own faith\nto that which the American missionaries would teach them? \"It has to\nbe observed,\" says Mr. Urquhart, \"that the proselytism carried on is\nnot, as is supposed in Europe, against  unbelievers, but between\nChristians;\"   [Footnote 105] and surely here is proselytism of the\nkind forced upon a people against their will, by the inhabitants of\nanother far-off country, who would do very much better if they spent\ntheir yearly \u00a325,000 among themselves, in \"converting\" the thousands\nof worse than pagans to be seen daily in the streets of every great\ntown of England and America, and whose \"faith\" is from time to time\nshown in their \"works.\"\n\n  [Footnote 105: The Lebanon, vol ii. p.79.]\n\nWe have no desire to hold up to the ridicule they deserve the absurd\ncanting sentences and so-called scriptural ejaculations with which the\nof the Turkish Missions-Aid Society is interlarded. All who have\nperused similar documents must be well acquainted with the way in\nwhich {349} verses from Holy Writ are made to serve _\u00a3. s. d._ by  the\nwriter. Nor do we wish to make our readers laugh I reproduce some of\nthe \"pious\" anecdotes which are to be met with in these pages. Thus it\nmay, or may not, be true that at Nicomedia \"a few years ago all was\ndarkness and bigotry;\" but it can hardly be taken what the French\nwould call \"_au s\u00e9rieux_\" that two Armenian priests in this locality\nwere \"awakened\" by reading an Armeno-Turkish translation of The\nDairyman's Daughter, and that, since the conversion of these\ngentlemen, a flourishing church, with a large congregation, has been\ngathered together, and a home mission formed to carry the Gospel to\nthe towns and villages around.   [Footnote 106] Also, from a personal\nknowledge of the facts, we permit ourselves to doubt whether the\nso-called \"missionary\" work in Constantinople has been, to say the\nleast of it, judiciously carried on; and whether, about two years ago,\nthe zeal without knowledge on the part of the missionaries did not\nvery nearly cause a rising of the whole Mahometan population, and a\ngeneral massacre of all the Christian population in that city. Nor--on\nthe testimony of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and other Protestants--can\nwe subscribe to the eulogium sung in praise of \"the excellent Bishop\nGobat.\" We have far more serious matters to deal with as regards the\nAmerican missions in Syria and the East, and of which, if they are in\nthe least degree consistent, Protestants more than Catholics whom it\nreally does does not concern, would do well to take heed.\n\n  [Footnote 106: See Tenth Annual Report of the Turkish Missions-Aid\n  Society. p. 10.]\n\nIn the appendix to his \"Tour,\" Mgr. Patterson has, with a fairness and\nimpartiality of judgment which cannot the too highly praised,\ninvestigated the question as to what it is that the native Protestants\nin the East really believe with the process of their so-called\n\"conversion\" is complete. And it may not be out of place here to that\nmention that the present writer, who has lately returned from a\nresidence of nearly ten years in those countries, entirely and to the\nletter agrees with what this author has stated. Were it allowable to\nmention names, he could also adduce the authority of many Englishmen\nwho have resided in Smyrna, Constantinople, Beyrout, Damascus, the\nLebanon, and other parts of the East, all of them Protestants, most of\nthem attending every Sunday the English ministrations of the American\nmissionaries, and some of them even communicants in their churches.\nThe evidence of these is varied in different points, but, as a whole,\ncertain pages of Dr. Patterson's appendix might serve as a precis of\nthe various opinions which these gentlemen have spoken, and which the\nwriter himself has formed during his prolonged residence in the East.\nBe it, however, noted, that the objections here raised are not against\nthe American missionaries themselves, but against the result of their\nlabors, as well as against those of other Protestant missionaries--\nwherever throughout these lands their labors have produced any fruit\nwhatever in the shape of \"converts.\"\n\n  \"Most true it is,\" says Mgr. Patterson, \"that though large sums are\n  expended yearly by Protestants for their missions, the result is\n  nevertheless small indeed; but yet a great work is being done (I\n  sincerely think unintentionally) by those establishments. _The faith\n  of hundreds and thousands in their own religion is being shaken,\n  without any other faith being substituted for it_.  [Footnote 107]\n  The missionaries' reports are full of expressions to the effect that\n  many persons come to them, declaring their readiness to hear what\n  they had to say, and their disbelief of their own national or common\n  faith; and yet the 'converts' registered by themselves may be told\n  in units, or at most by tens. Accordingly, I never came in contact\n  with 'liberals' in politics or religion, whether Jew, Christian, or\n  Gentile, who did not commence the conversation (on the supposition\n  that I was a Protestant) by declaring their disbelief of this or\n  that current dogma of their faith; and in all such cases I found I\n  was expected, at a _Protestant_ to applaud {350} and admire their\n  lamentable condition of mind. I repeat, most emphatically, that I\n  never saw a single person of this description who had one doctrine\n  to _affirm_. The work of the Protestant missions is simply\n  descriptive. In Turkey it is detaching Mohammedan subjects from\n  their allegiance to their spiritual and temporal head; in Greece it\n  is introducing the mind of youth to the conceit of private judgment;\n  in Egypt it does the same for the Copts; and in Mesopotamia for the\n  Nestorians. The missionaries report that, among the Jews, they\n  prefer to have to do with the rationalists rather than with the\n  Talmudists; and acting on that principle everywhere, they first make\n  a _tabula rasa_ of minds, on which they never afterward succeed in\n  inscribing the laws of sincere faith or consistent practice.\" (P.\n  456.)\n\n  [Footnote 107: The italics an our own, and we give them to mark the\n  pith of the whole question, with which nearly all Protestants, as\n  well as every Catholic we have met, that have inhabited Syria,\n  Palestine, or the Holy Land for any time, most fully concur.]\n\nHere, then, we have, in a few words, an account of what the teachings\nof the Protestant missionaries in the East result in. They take away\nthe faith that is in these people, and give them nothing in return.\n[Footnote 108] In other and plainer words, the end of all this\nteaching, and preaching, and denouncing of \"popish\" doctrines, is\nsimple unbelief or infidelity, embellished with Scriptural verses and\nthe current cant of the evangelical school. Do the subscribers to the\nTurkish Missions-Aid Society contemplate this as one of the results of\ntheir liberal donations? Is _this_ what the society put forth so\nboldly as the \"Gospel in Turkey?\" Is it for such a change that the\ntraditions mounting to within less than four hundred years of our\nLord's sojourn on earth, preserved as they are by a people living in\nthe land which he inhabited, are to be cast off? Surely, even from the\nmost enthusiastic of the evangelical school, these questions can have\nbut one answer.  [Footnote 109]\n\n  [Footnote 108: An English official who had resided upward of\n  twenty-five years in Syria, and who is a very earnest Protestant,\n  told the present writer exactly the same. \"The American\n  missionaries,\" he said, \"destroy the faith these native Christians\n  had, but give them no other in return. The consequence is, that they\n  invariably become more rationalists.\"]\n\n  [Footnote 109: About four years ago, a party of English travelers\n  were journeying over Mount Lebanon. While halting at a roadside\n  \"khan,\" they were accosted by a native who spoke English very well.\n  They asked him who he was, and where he had learnt their language.\n  He said he was, or had been, servant to one of the American\n  missionaries, naming the gentleman, and that he was \"a good\n  Protestant.\" One of the ladies present put a few questions to him,\n  and among others, asked him what he now believed of the Virgin Mary?\n  \"_That_ for the Virgin Mary,\" said the miscreant, spitting at the\n  same time, and using an Arabic gesture indicating the utmost\n  contempt. The lady--an Anglican, not a Catholic--of course dropped\n  the conversation, feeling too disgusted to continue it. Some days\n  afterward she related that anecdote to the wife of an American\n  missionary; but the latter was not at all shocked, merely making the\n  remark. \"I guess the the man had got rid of his old superstitions.\"\n  Is this what they call evangelizing the native Christians?]\n\nAnd let not the subject be either misunderstood or blinked. Take any\ndozen Englishmen really conversant with the ways of the country and\nthe ideas of the inhabitants; let them all the Protestants, and even\nbe of those who, finding no other Protestant ministration, attend the\nchapels of the American missionaries. Of the twelve, certainly nine\nwill tell you that, although well-meaning and honest made in their\nway, the preaching of the Protestant missionaries in the East holes\ndown but never builds up belief, and that in sober truth the native\nProtestant \"converts\" are but so many free-thinkers--theoretical\nChristians, but practical infidels. There is, with respect to this\npart of our subject, one more extract from Mgr. Patterson's book,\n[Footnote 110] which, although somewhat lengthy, we find so much to\nthe purpose, with respect to some of the questions of the day, that we\ncopy it entire:--\n\n    [Footnote 110: No one interested in the present spiritual state of\n    the East should be without this volume, and every traveller to\n    Palestine--Catholic or Protestant--should take it with him.]\n\n  \"The Protestant sects of the West (says our author) are represented\n  in the East by missions of several denominations; but since they all\n  represent but one principle, namely the denegation of spiritual\n  authority as the basis of belief, it is unnecessary to to\n  distinguish them here. At first sight it might appear that the\n  Episcopalians, or representatives of the Anglican establishment,\n  should command a distinct notice, since they have one point (that of\n  episcopal superintendence) in common with the Eastern sects; but\n  when is considered, not merely that the fact of their having real\n  bishops is denied by all sects of the East,  [Footnote 111] as well\n  as by the Catholic Church, {351} but that they themselves entirely\n  repudiate any claims which might be founded on their supposed\n  possession of an apostolic commission and authority through the\n  episcopate; and when, moreover, it is remembered that a few persons\n  who think differently on these points are wholly unrepresented in\n  the East, it seems evident that the distinction would be unreal.\n  Further, the Protestant missions in the East are mainly supplied by\n  ministers in the communion of the Establishment in England, but\n  often not episcopally appointed or ordained, and in all cases a\n  perfect the equality is admitted between such as are so appointed\n  and those who are not. Hence the Anglo-Lutheran 'Episcopalians,' the\n  independents, the American Congregationalists, etc., act in unison,\n  and on one principle. They teach that the belief they advocate in\n  certain doctrines is to be acquired by each individual through a\n  perusal of certain writings, and must be held by him as the result\n  of convictions proceeding from his own investigation of those\n  writings, which they assert to be the inspired word of God. This\n  procedure they call 'the right of private judgment.'\n\n    [Footnote 111: This, be it remembered, was written in 1852, ten\n    years before the recent attempt at union on the part of certain\n    Anglicans with the Greek Church. What Mgr. Patterson says is the\n    simple truth, and is confirmed by numerous conversations which the\n    present writer had, during a ten years' residence with several\n    patriarchs and numerous bishops, priests, and deacons of the\n    Greek, Armenian, Nestorian, Copt, and Jacobite sects. All these\n    clergy hate the very name of Rome, but they acknowledge she has\n    real bishops and a real priesthood; while one and all deny that\n    the Anglican Church as neither. The English Book of Common Prayer,\n    translated into Arabic, is very often met with throughout the\n    East, but it does not appear to have impressed the Oriental\n    Churches, whether in communion with the See of Peter or not, very\n    favorably respecting the Established Church of this country. The\n    Thirty-nine Articles they regard with especial horror, as showing\n    the church to be heretical at core. Nor have the members of the\n    Anglican Church and Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem done much to\n    remove this impression, but rather the contrary.]\n\n  \"But the very terms of the Protestant principle, thus represented,\n  involve, not merely a disregard of existing authorities, but also of\n  that which presents that system for the acceptance of Eastern\n  Christians. Those, however, who advocate its claims are not usually\n  to be bound by the laws of consistency in logic. Though they will\n  have every man to read the Sacred Scriptures (that is, _their_\n  version of them) and to judge for himself, they have also a few\n  doctrines, built on them, as they suppose, to which they attach an\n  importance equal to that ascribed by Catholics to the dogmas of\n  faith. Of these, the chief is what they term 'justification by faith\n  only' the doctrine which teaches that man is accounted (but not\n  made) fit for eternal life in the divine presence, by a _subjective_\n  act or sentiment of the mind, called by them 'faith.' This 'faith'\n  is not the 'faith' of theological writers, but a persuasion, or\n  enthusiastic feeling, on the part of the individual, that he is\n  saved from eternal death by sacrifice of the cross. Laying such\n  stress as this view does on a persuasion, or feeling of the mind, it\n  might be expected that other acts of the mind would be regarded by\n  those teachers as of cognate importance. With singular\n  inconsistency, however, they regard all such acts, whether of love,\n  hope, or fear, or the like, as not only unimportant or indifferent,\n  but even sinful in fact or tendency. The one operation of the soul\n  to which they attach salvation is that of persuasion that itself is\n  saved. To account for so arbitrary a distinction, they allege that\n  this persuasion is not a natural gift, but a divine grace--or,\n  rather, the divine grace; for in it are contained, and from it flow,\n  all those good results which Catholic writers call 'graces;' such as\n  humility, charity, hope, etc. This extraordinary and almost\n  inexplicable doctrine, they consider not only conveyed in Holy\n  Scripture, but the whole sum and substance of its teachings; and\n  they allege portions of the epistles of St. Paul, in which he\n  declares that man is not justified by works, done irrespectively of\n  the divine sacrifice of the cross, to prove that all works or acts\n  of the mind (saving always the one act of persuasion, which they\n  call 'faith') are valueless and ineffectual to work out salvation.\n  The teachers of this view among us are often pious persons, who act\n  morally from natural good feelings; but the Eastern mind is too\n  consistent and too voluptuous to imitate them. If it is possible,\n  they say, to attain salvation by means of a sentiment so pleasant,\n  we regard it as quite unnecessary to add to it supererogatory\n  performances disagreeable to our inclinations.\" (P. 453.)\n\nHere, in sober fact, and if we will only give things their right\nnames, is one of the chief reasons of such \"conversions\" as take place\nin the East to Protestantism. An oriental mind is difficult to fathom\nat once; but take any of the professed Protestants in Syria or other\nparts of Turkey, clear away all the rubbish they have learnt to talk\nin imitation of their new teachers--separate if you can (and it is\nmerely a matter of time and patience) all the prating about \"the Lord\nJesus,\" and \"the blessed Scriptures,\" the \"teaching of the Spirit,\"\nand suchlike spiritual mouthings, from what are the actual thoughts of\nthe individual and the real reasons for his change, and you will\ninvariably find at the bottom of his mind the all-prevailing idea,\nthat of what use are confession, penance, private prayer, fasting,\ngiving alms, and other good works, when salvation can be accomplished\nby the far more easy and pleasant process of a mere sentiment of the\nmind, which any man can train his understanding into believing when he\nwishes to do so. And these, be it understood, are the best of the\nconverts. As Mgr. Patterson says of them:--\n\n{352}\n\n \"Such persons as I am alluding to have really embraced the principle\n on which Protestantism rests. They have thrown off the authority of\n their own belief, not to accept the formula of another, but to reject\n all authority. They are like the German 'philosophic' Protestants, or\n the French universitaries of the West--their conduct is often\n irreproachable, but their belief is a blank, and their principles\n distinctly Antinomian, even when they themselves do not put them in\n practice. I maintain that to one class or other of these all the\n proselytes made to Protestanism in the East belong. They are either\n worthless persons, who are happy to substitute an easy-simulated\n sentiment for whatever amount of discipline their communion imposed,\n or they are 'philosophers,' sceptics, and infidels. The reports of\n these allegations, and the existing state of religious and political\n parties in the East, give scope for these results.\" (P. 453.)\n\nThere are, however, two other reasons, which also act powerfully upon\nsuch natives of the East as come under the influence of Protestant\nmissionary teaching, and of which when they have abandoned their own\ncreed, they take especial pride in the possession. The one is the\nnotion which they imbibe from certain misquotations of Holy Writ, as\nwell as from ill-judged (even looking at it from a Protestant point of\nview) teaching on the part of their new pastors; namely, that every\nman is \"a priest unto God,\" and that once a Protestant and a\n\"church-member,\" they are as high in spiritual rank, and far superior\nin \"saving faith\" to those whom they formerly regarded and respected\nas their clergy. The idea is, of course, utterly false, and childish\nin the extreme, to our views. But the native mind can only be judged\nby its own standards of worth, and the fact remains as we have said.\nThat the Protestant missionaries would knowingly foster such notions\nit would be uncharitable to believe; but that such is another result\nof their teaching there can be no doubt whatever. The missionaries\nthemselves, however, see very little indeed of their congregations,\nsmall as they are, save at prayer-meetings and preachings once or\ntwice in that week. It is a curious fact, but one which has struck\nmany even of those who have not yet found courage to knock and ask for\nadmittance into the Catholic Church, that in proportion has a sect, or\npeople, or nation, stray far from unity of the one true fold, so to\ntheir pastors and teachers neglect and despise that visiting and\nlooking after their flocks, which forms with us such a prominent part\nof every parish priest's or missionary's duty. The High-Church\nAnglican Protestant clergymen--although still very far short of what\nis done by our clergy--come next to the Catholic priest in this work;\nand as we descend the scale of Protestantism, we find the practice\nmore and more rare, until I the Socinians such acts of supererogation\non the part of their preachers are never heard of. With Protestant\nmissionaries in the East the practice is exceedingly rare: perhaps it\nis regarded as an infringement upon true religious liberty?\n\nThe third reason which has often--very generally, if not\nalways--influence in making the native of Syria, Palestine, or other\nEastern lands embrace Protestantism, is that when he has done so, the\nfact of his being a proselyte puts him indirectly under the\n\"protection\" of the English or American consul, if such an official\nthere is--and there generally is one--within even a couple of days'\njourney from the convert's place of abode. Not that the individual is\nat once put on the rolls of the English or American subjects. Such was\nsome years ago the practice; but now for very shame's sake this has\nbeen altered. But, as the English consuls-general, consuls, and\nvice-consuls have a sort of standing order to \"protect\" all\nProtestants against the tyranny or ill-usage of the local authorities;\nand as every native Protestant has nearly always some grievance which\nhe makes out to be an injustice committed on him _because he is_ a\nProtestant, so his complaint invariably finds its way to the English\nconsulate, and either the chief of the office or one of his native\ndragomen deems it imperative upon him to interfere, if not officially,\nat any rate officiously, with the pasha or other authority of the\nplace. {353} As a matter of course the complaint is listened to,\nand--justice or not justice--the \"protected\" of the consul gets what\nhe calls justice, but which his opponent often deems the very reverse.\nFor, be it remarked, that, as a general rule in the East, \"justice\"\nmeans obtaining what you want, not what is yours by law or equity.\nYour complaint, and what in Europe we call justice, _may_ be on the\nsame side. If so, all the better; but if not, you will term your view\nof the affair \"justice\" all the same; and, if you don't get what you\nwant, you are unjustly treated. This sort of administration is but too\noften ruled by the consuls, and the \"converts\" know full well how to\nmake use of it. No one who has not lived in the Turkish dominions can\nimagine the power which an European consul or vice-consul has in those\ncountries. Mr. Urquhart has done good service in exposing this evil,\nwhich is, in point of fact, one of the chief reasons why the Ottoman\nEmpire has been gradually but surely verging toward ruin since the\nforeign consular power became virtually far greater than that of the\nlocal authority. Of this interference of one country in the affairs of\nanother, Mr. Urquhart says, it presents \"a terrible prospect for the\nhuman race; for it involves the extinction of each people, and the\nabsorption ultimately of the whole in some one government more\ndexterous than the rest.\" All the chief governments of Europe have\nbeen more or less guilty of this meddling with the executive of\nTurkey, but notably England, France, and Russia, in whose hands every\nlocal pasha is a plaything, to be tossed here and there at will.\nEngland says--or, rather, each English consul says for her--that he\nmost interfere, else French influence would be too powerful in the\nprovince or district. France returns the compliment, and declares that\nEngland--that is, the English consul--is such a deep diplomat that,\nunless she uses her influence, England would be paramount in the\nplace. Russia, on the other hand, declares that she must maintain her\n_prestige_, else the Turks would say of their old enemy that she had\nfallen in the scale of nations. This interference in the\nadministration of the Ottoman empire is thus described by Mr.\nUrquhart:\n\n  \"In other countries it has been known as diplomatic representations\n  made in regard to principles; here (that is, in Turkey) it is\n  administrative. It bears upon the taxes, the customs, the limitation\n  of districts, the administrative functions, the parish business, the\n  selection and displacement of functionaries, the operations of the\n  courts of law--whatever is included under the word 'government'\n  belongs here to 'interference.' This operation is exercised with\n  authority, without control, without responsibility. The discussions\n  in reference thereto are carried on between the functionaries of a\n  foreign government; and as that foreign government can enter upon\n  the field only by an act of usurpation, its position is that of an\n  enemy. Every act is directed to subvert and to disturb; the object\n  of each individual is of necessity to supersede the legitimate\n  authority of the native functionary with whom he is in contact.\n\n  \"Thus it is that the administrative interference, which has in Syria\n  replaced the diplomatic, is carried on through consuls.\" (Vol ii.\n  pp. 349, 360.)\n\nHitherto this work of \"interference\" has been carried on by our\nEnglish consuls in Syria in very much the same way as it has by their\nRussian and French colleagues, no better, but no worse. At any rate,\nin all matters of influencing religious affairs, directly or\nindirectly, they have held perfectly aloof. But if we are to judge\nfrom a document lately put forth by the Turkish Missions-Aid Society,\nthe title of which stands at the end of the list of books and\npamphlets that heads this paper, either an entire change has in this\nrespect come over our policy, or else several of our Anglo-Syrian\nofficial must be acting in direct disobedience {354} of the wishes of\nthe Foreign office. We allude to an appeal for the building of \"A\nSYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE,\" together with a prospectus of the same,\nand a list of the \"_Local Board of Managers_,\" among which, to their\nshame be it said, appear the names of Mr. Geo. J. Eldridge, her\nmajesty's consul-general in Syria; Mr. W. H. Wrench, her majesty's\nvice-consul at Beyrout; Mr. Noel Temple Moore, her majesty's consul at\nJerusalem; and Mr. E. T. Rogers, her majesty's consul at Damascus.\nThat there can be no real desire or want for such an institution in\nthe country, and that the very appeal for help to found it is about\nthe most outrageous piece of pious impudence that has ever been\npublished, even in the name of sectarian so-called religion, will\nappear upon a further examination of this document. We will do the\nAmerican missionaries the justice of saying that no Englishman would,\nor could, ever have had the _toup\u00e9_ to ask for money for such a\npurpose; the whole document bears the unmistakable impress of \"smart\"\nNew-England. As we have shown before, from the \"summary\" of American\nMissions Statement given elsewhere, copied from the report of the\nTurkish Missions-Aid Society, the number of Protestant \"church\nmembers\" on the Syrian field is two hundred; this, too, after nearly\nthirty years of missionary \"labor\" in the country. And now these same\nmissionaries come forward and modestly tell us that \"more than \u00a320,000\nhave already been secured and invested in the United States\" for the\nbuilding of this proposed \"institution,\" and that \"it is proposed to\nraise an equal amount in England, the income annually going to the\nsupport of the College.\" The president of the proposed college, and\n_ex-officio_ president of the board of managers, is an American\nmissionary, the Reverend Dr. Bliss, and among the members of the board\nare the names of some thirteen or fourteen other missionaries of all\nsorts. The trustees, who \"are to have the general supervision of the\ninstitution,\" reside in New York, where we should imagine they will be\nable, from their proximity to the college in Syria, to supervise the\nwhole affairs exceedingly well. With these, or with such persons as\nhave parted with their money for such a pious folly, we have nothing\nto do. But as regards the English officials, it is another matter and\nProtestants, as well as Catholics must agree that men holding the\npositions they do in a country where religious discord is the bane and\ncurse of the land, have no business to mix themselves up with an\nundertaking which is purely and wholly got up for the purpose of\nproselytism. Had the subscription been to build a Protestant chapel or\nchurch, or to endow any such establishment for the use of the English\nresidents in Syria, it would have been a very different matter. To\nlend their names to any such undertaking these gentlemen would you a\nperfect right; but to give their official sanction to a scheme which\nis but a renewed campaign on the religion of the country, and as\nEnglish government officers to say that they--and consequently the\ngovernment they represent--approved as consul-general and consuls of a\nwholesale sectarian converting shop, is nothing less than a\nprostitution of the name of this country in Syria. The \"dodge\" is a\ngood one; the American missionaries, notwithstanding their \"tall\"\npious talk in missionary newspapers, have actually done nothing toward\nperverting the native Christians of Syria. Two hundred \"church\nmembers\" in nearly thirty years is at the rate of seven converts a\nyear less than the third of a convert every twelve months for each the\ntwenty-four missionaries. This pay. Even American subscribing\n\"Christians\" will, after a time, cease to contribute for what brings\nforth so little fruit. Something must be done; and therefore they have\nstarted the idea of this \"Syrian Protestant college,\" having got the\npromises of these {355} consular gentlemen to countenance it as they\nhave done.\n\nDid these proselytizing consuls, before they allowed their names to be\nmade use of in this prospectus, read the third paragraph of the\ndocument, in which we are coolly told that \"THE ENEMIES OF\nCHRISTIANITY, PROFESSED INFIDELS AS WELL AS PAPISTS, FULLY ALIVE TO\nTHE ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINED FROM THE PRESENT STATE OF THE COUNTRY, ARE\nADOPTING BOLD AND ENERGETIC MEASURES TO FORESTALL PROTESTANTISM IN\nBECOMING THE EDUCATORS OF THIS VAST POPULATION\"?\n\nOr, if they _did_ read it, did it not strike them that there was an\ninsolence, as well as an amount of sickening cant and implied\nfalsehood, throughout these words which ought to have prevented them,\nas _English gentlemen,_ to say nothing of their official character,\nfrom countenancing such a concern? Have English consuls in Eastern\nlands so far lost whatever teaching they may have had as to forget\nthat, taking all her majesty's subjects throughout the world, the\n\"Papists\" are very nearly as numerous as the Protestants; and that to\nclass them \"infidels,\" and call them \"the enemies of Christianity,\" is\nan insult--to say nothing of the loud vulgarity and the utter untruth\nof the assertion, which there can be no excuse for any English\ngentleman, far less any English official, to lend his name to? In\nthis, every person with the slightest pretension to the name of\ngentleman or an educated man, no matter what may be his religious\npersuasion, must agree with us. And to talk of \"Syrian Protestantism,\"\nwith its two hundred \"church members\" amidst a population of half a\nmillion native Christians, and three times that number of Moslems,\nbeing \"forestalled\" in \"becoming the educators of this vast\npopulation,\" is much as if the Mormons in London were to complain that\nthe English Church was \"forestalling\" them in being the educators of\nthe capital of England. The Latter-day Saints of the metropolis bear a\nmuch larger and not at all less respectable proportion to the rest of\nthe population of London, than the Protestant \"converts\" of Syria do\nto the rest of their fellow-countrymen.\n\nThree excuses may be put forth in defence of these consular gentlemen\nwho have thus disgraced the country they serve. It may be\nasserted--1st, That if French, Russian, and Austrian consuls give\nofficial protection to Catholic and Greek religious establishments, it\nis quite lawful for English authorities to do the same to Protestant\nundertakings. 2dly, That \"the Syrian Protestant college\" is to be got\nup for literature, the sciences, jurisprudence, and medicine, and not\nfor religious purposes. And, 3dly, That they have allowed their names\nto be made use of without reading over the prospectus. Of these the\nthird and last excuse is the only one that will hold water for an\ninstant; and for their sakes we hope it may be true, poor and lame as\nsuch a plea would be for official men. As regards the first of these\npleas, which we have put into the mouths of the defendants, it is\nquite true that the French, Russian, and Austrian consuls have and do\nafford official protection to Catholic and Greek religious\nestablishments, but the cases are by no means parallel.\n\nTo quote again the words of Mr. Urquhart:--\"The Roman Catholic regular\nand secular clergy are established here (in Syria) as in any other\nRoman Catholic countries;  [Footnote 112] that is to say, they are\npastors of flocks, and not missionaries. The Protestants have no\nflocks, and they are sent with a view of creating them.\"\n\n  [Footnote 112: The same may be said of the Greek clergy, who have\n  many and very large congregations--in the country--in some parts\n  much more numerous than the Maronites or other Catholic churches.]\n\nWe wonder what this writer would have said could he have seen a\n\"Syrian Protestant college\" proposed as a means toward this\nmuch-desired end, or could he have foreseen that four {356} English\nconsuls could ever have went their names--officially, too--to such a\ncombination of Little Bethel and \"smart\" American doings. Nor will it\nsuffice to say that this institution is not being got on foot for the\nexpress purpose of proselytism, more or less direct. In paragraph\nnumber eight we are told that--\n\n  \"The college will be conducted on strictly protestant and\n  evangelical principles.\"\n\nWhat _that_ means, we all know; also--\n\n  \"It will be open for students from any of the Oriental sects or\n  nationalities who will conform to its laws and regulations.\"\n\nThat is to say, any student belonging to the Latin,  [Footnote 113]\nMaronite, Greek Schismatical, Greek Catholic, Armenian Catholic,\nArmenian Schismatical, or other Eastern church, will be admitted to\nthis college, provided he attends \"Protestant\" and \"evangelical\"\npreachings and prayers, and is humble-minded enough to hear the faith\nof his fathers denounced every day as one line of \"the enemies\nChristianity,\" and \"Papists\" lovingly asked with \"professed infidels.\"\nAnd in the very next sentence we are further informed that--\n\n    [Footnote 113: In the East, European Catholics, and all others who\n    use the European or Roman Ritual, are called \"Latins;\" while the other\n    Oriental churches in communion with the See of Peter are\n    distinguished by their respective names--Maronites, Greek\n    Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Chaldeans, and\n    others. The whole are termed \"Catholics,\" and there is nothing of\n    which they are so proud as their intercourse with Rome and the\n    centre of unity. Of the various schismatical and heretical sects,\n    there is not one that assumes the name of \"Catholic\" except\n    certain of the \"advanced\" school English Established Church.]\n\n  \"It is hoped that a strong Christian influence will always centre in\n  and go forth from this institution; and that it will be instrumental\n  in raising up a body of men who will fill the ranks of a\n  well-trained and vigorous 'native ministry;' become the authors of a\n  native Christian literature; supply the educational wants of the\n  land; encourage its industrial interests; develop its resources;\n  occupy stations of authority, and in a large degree aid in carrying\n  the Gospel and its attendant blessings wherever the Arabic language\n  is spoken.\"\n\nWith the help of one English consul-general, two English consuls, and\none English vice-consul, this may be in a certain measure be done:\nyes, and _will_ be done; for consular influence in those lands is all\npowerful. But without it, no: without this English state-help the\n\"Syrian Protestant college\" will wither, and only bear fruit in such\nproportion as have done the \"Protectant churches\" in Syria, with their\ntwenty-four missionaries, their thirty-seven native assistants, and\ntheir two hundred communicants, after nearly thirty years labor in the\nSyrian \"field.\"\n\nAfter the extracts we have given from the prospectus, can there be any\ndoubt as to the proselytizing intentions of this\nAmerican-Syrian-Protestant-evangelical institution? or can there be\ntwo opinions as to the propriety of English gentlemen and English\nofficials degrading themselves and their office by becoming connected\nwith such an undertaking? We observe, by the way, as a curious\ncoincidence in the prospectus, that the name of the New-York Treasurer\nto the board of trustees of this proposed college is William E. Dodge;\nand that the Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, of New York, has been appointed one\nof the professors. Would it not have been better and more appropriate\nif her majesty's consuls at Beyrout, Damascus, and Jerusalem had left\nall this evangelical speculation to men of like name and calling? It\nis true that when the prospectus was drawn out, and these English\nofficials allowed their name to be made use of, Lord Palmerston was\nprime minister, and Lord Russell ruled over the foreign office. That\nthe Shaftesbury power with the first, and the well-known tendencies of\nthe author of the Durham letter, may have had some influence with\nthese individuals in their official character is possible, nay,\nprobable; but should gentlemen, English gentlemen, ever have allowed\ntheir names to go forth as patrons and directors of this unholy\nhumbug? A private individual may lend his influence to whatever scheme\nhe likes to patronize; but a public servant and above all an English\npublic servant in Turkey--has no right whatever to be so liberal with\nhis patronage.\n\n{357}\n\nOne word more ere we have done with the \"Syrian Protestant college.\"\n\nAt the head of the list of subscribers to this proposed institution is\n\u00a31,000 from \"The late Syrian asylums' committee.\" If we are rightly\ninformed, that money was subscribed from the residue of a fund which\nwas instituted in 1860 to afford assistance to the sufferers from the\nSyrian massacres. To this fund Catholics, Protestants, Greeks, and\nJews subscribed, with the express stipulation and understanding that\nno part or portion of it was to be used for any religious purpose\nwhatever. The fact was, that the chief managers of the fund in Syria\nwere American missionaries, and subscribers to it were afraid that the\nmoney would be used for proselytizing purposes. After a time the great\nmisery of the Syrian Christians came to an end, and no further relief\nwas required: but there still remained an unused balance of about\n\u00a31,200 of this fund in the banker's hands. If what is reported in\nLondon be correct--and we have very good reason for believing it to be\nso--who was it that gave authority for this \u00a31,000 to be given as a\ndonation to the Syrian Protestant college? To question regards not\nonly the Catholics, Greeks, and Jews of London, Manchester, Liverpool,\nand other towns in England that subscribed to this fund, but also\nthose belonging to a large--and we are thankful to say a very\nlarge--class of our Protestant fellow-countrymen, who, however much\nthey may differ from us in matters of faith, are enemies to religion\nbeing made a cloak for fraud, and are honest and honorable in their\ndealings between man and man. If this \u00a31,000 which heads the list of\nsubscriptions in the Syrian Protestant college was really given from\nthe money which in 1860-61 was gathered together as \"the Syrian relief\nfund,\" a gross and most infamous breach of trust has been committed,\nand all men should beware how they in future contribute to anything in\nwhich the American Oriental missionaries have any influence.\n\nBut where have the projectors of this college learned geography? They\ntell us that the establishment will be \"LOCATED IN BEYROUT, the\nseaport of Syria, a city rapidly growing in size and importance, and\nOCCUPYING A CENTRAL POSITION IN RESPECT TO ALL THE ARABIC-SPEAKING\nRACES.\"\n\nThe capitals are our own, for we would note these words as bringing a\nnew light in geographical discovery. That Beyrout is by far the most\npleasant, nay the only pleasant, town in Syria to reside in--that\nthere is more society, and particularly what the promoters of this\nundertaking would call more \"Christian\" society, we fully admit. That,\non account of its proximity to the sea, it is far more healthy than\nmost towns in Syria, and that from the number of its European and\nnative Christian inhabitants it is far safer to reside in, and much\nmore exempt from the chance of any Moslem outbreak taking place,\ncannot be denied. But that it occupies \"a central position in respect\nto all the Arabic-speaking races,\" is simply, and very grossly untrue,\nas a glance at any school-boy's atlas would show. It would be about as\ncorrect to assert that Plymouth or Falmouth held \"a central position\nin respect to\" the rest of England. If the promoters of \"The Syrian\nProtestant college\" are so very anxious to diffuse the great blessings\nof their faith and literature \"wherever the Arabic language is\nspoken,\" would not Damascus, Mosul, Aleppo, Antioch, or even Bagdad,\nbe more central than Beyrout? To reside in any of these places would\nnot be so pleasant, but it would be more missionary-like, and would\ncertainly save the money of the subscribers, Beyrout being by far the\nmost expensive town in all Syria to live in.\n\nBut men of American sectarian preacher stamp never knew and never will\nknow what a missionary spirit is. It is foreign to their habits as\nwell as to their creed. When we hear of {358} American Protestant\nmissionaries going forth with barely a change of clothes; when we\nlearn that they abandon father, mother, family, house and home to\npreach the Gospel; when we read of half a score of them undergoing\nmartyrdom, as did two Catholic bishops and eight priests in Corea, an\naccount of which was published in the Times of the 27th August\nlast--when, in fine, we hear of their taking lessons in their work\nfrom the Jesuits, the Lazarists, the Capuchins, the Dominicans, or any\nother of those religious orders which have shed such lustre upon the\nchurch in all ages--it may then become a matter of discussion whether,\nnotwithstanding their gross errors in faith, they have not something\nof the missionary spirit among them. At present we can only look upon\nthem as do all the Moslems, the native Christians, the Jews, and\nnineteen-twentieths of the European population in the East, namely,\nthat they drive a very flourishing trade, and enjoy very comfortable\nincomes: but that the work they are paid for doing has neither the\nself-denial of man nor the blessing of God to make it prosper.\nProtestant missions throughout the world have ever been, are, and ever\nwill be, most miserable failures. Dr. Littledale was, at any rate,\ncandid when he spoke of \"the pitiful history of Anglican missions to\nthe heathen;\" but he might with equal truth make mention of the\nwretched results of Protestant missions throughout the world. That\nunison of mawkish sentiment and Biblical phrases selected at random,\nwhich commonly goes by the name of \"cant,\" may certainly influence\nweak-minded persons to subscribe to visionary schemes of a Protestant\nconversion of Oriental Christians. But exposure must come sooner or\nlater, and with it the beginning of the end of subscriptions. Some\nyears ago the American missionaries gave up the \"field\" they occupied\nat Jerusalem; would it not be as well if they conferred a similar boon\non the Syrian and Lebanon districts? The churches against which they\nare chiefly engaged in preaching have their own bishops, their own\nclergy, and their own missionary preachers from Europe. These latter\nare not engaged in perverting men from another quarter, but--at the\nrequest, and with the full concurrence of the native bishops and\nclergy--they build up and repair the breaches in the sheep-fold, and\nhelp in driving away the wolves that would enter. There may be--there\nare--sheep that go astray from time to time, but considering all\nthings--and particularly now that the sectarian influence of English\nconsuls in Syria has been brought to bear on the \"work\"--these are few\nindeed. The Maronites and other sects in communion with St. Peter's\nsuccessor, form part and parcel of God's one only true and holy\nCatholic Church, against which, we have His word, the gates of hell\nshall never prevail.  [Footnote 114]\n\n  [Footnote 114: The fact of four English consuls allowing their names\n  to go forth as patrons of a Protestant College, which is to be got\n  up for the perversion of native Christians, is so utterly at\n  variance with the general practice of our government, that we must\n  express our surprise it has been overlooked at the Foreign Office.\n  We cannot imagine Lord Stanley lending even a tacit sanction to such\n  an outrage of the feelings of the native Syrian Christians.]\n\nIn his work upon \"Mount Lebanon,\" from which we have already quoted,\nMr. Urquhart relates a conversation which he had with a certain\nMaronite bishop, which seems so _apropos_ that we give it entire:--\n\n  \"I wish you to know [said the bishop] that we are not attached to\n  France. France is to us on oppression from which we would be most\n  happy to escape; we have proved this by acts, but no account is\n  taken of them. How France came to be considered our protector is an\n  old story, into which it is needless to enter. The connection\n  awakened against us the hatred of the Turks and of the Greeks, and\n  to it may be attributed the past suffering of our people from both.\n  Here and in the other parts of Syria, in Egypt and in Cyprus, from\n  the middle of the last century to the close of the campaign of\n  Napoleon, we reckon that the blood of 40,000 Maronites has been shed\n  by the Turks or the Greeks. This is the debt we owe to French\n  protection. When, in 1840, the French government sent to us to\n  require us to support Ibrahim Pasha and Emir Beshir, we gave a flat\n  refusal. {359} M. ---- came to Saida, and sent a message to the\n  Patriarch (of the house of Habesh), who sent his own secretary to\n  give him the answer, which had been decided on by the bishops and\n  chiefs, which was, 'The Maronites have heard much of, but have never\n  seen, the fruit of the protection of France, and could not, in the\n  hope of it, expose themselves to the risks they were now required to\n  run.' Then the English government sent to us an agent (Mr. Wood),\n  accompanied by M. Stendel, on the part of the Austrian government,\n  proposing to us to accept the protection of Austria in lieu of that\n  of France. We declined to make any application for such protection;\n  _and we complained to Mr. Wood of the interference in our religion\n  of the Protestant missionaries which made us look with suspicion on\n  the intentions toward us of the English government. He assured us\n  that the English government was opposed to all missionary schemes,\n  and suggested that we should draw up a petition to the Turkish\n  government, requesting the missionaries to be prohibited from\n  entering the country, promising that the English ambassador would\n  obtain from the Porte an order to that effect. Satisfied with these\n  assurances, we aided in the expulsion of Mehemet Ali, although he\n  had every way favored the Maronites._\n\n  _\"The promised order respecting the missionaries never came, England\n  set up a Protestant bishop (in Jerusalem), and obtained from the Porte\n  the formal recognition of the Protestants as a body.\"_(Vol. ii pp.\n  261, 262.)\n\nThe italics in this quotation are our own. They show pretty plainly\nwhether or not the missionaries are welcome to the natives of Syria.\nBut what will these same natives say now, when they see our\nconsuls-general and consuls coming forth as the official patrons and\npromoters of Protestant missionary proselytism? If it be true--and we\nhave certainly always looked upon it as one of the rules of our\ngovernment--that the English government \"_is opposed to all missionary\nschemes,_\" how is it that the consul-general in Syria, the consul at\nJerusalem, and the consul at Damascus, are allowed to take upon\nthemselves the office of \"managers\" or \"local directors\" of the\nProtestant Syrian college?\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nDELIA.\n\n\n\n  There is a darkness which is still not gloom,\n  And thou, poor child, whose young but sightless eyes\n  Catch no glad radiance from the summer skies--\n  Worse, still, neglected in thy blindness, whom\n  Those nurtured like thee in the self-same womb\n  Have cast on strangers, strangers truly wise,\n  Since more than waif of gold such charge they prize--\n  Hast found a joy what others find a doom.\n  Thou knowest the way unto the chapel door,\n  And, kneeling softly on its blessed floor.\n  Thou art no longer blind; the _Presence_ there\n  Reveals itself to thy adoring prayer;\n  Hours fly with thee that altar's Guest before,\n  Till, cowards, we envy what we would not share.\n\n------\n\n{360}\n\nOriginal.\n\nMADEMOISELLE DE MONTPENSIER.\n\n\nHow shall we tell in a few words the story of one whose career\nextended over sixty-six years? Our heroine's name calls up a picture\nof the most brilliant period in French history. A thousand images\narise of pageantry, of genuine magnificence, of jewelled and gilded\nwretchedness. Life seemed like a great magic lantern exhibited for her\nprivate amusement; scene after scene passed before her eyes with a\npomp unknown in these days of tinsel splendor; but most welcome of\nall, ever returning, never palling, was the slide that presented to\nher view La Grande Mademoiselle, the contemplated bride of half the\nsovereigns in Europe.\n\nAnne Marie Louise d'Orl\u00e9ans was born in the palace of the Louvre, May\n29th, 1627. Fairies met her on the threshold of the world and endowed\nher with all earthly goods--boundless wealth, a cheerful temper, keen\nwit, excellent health, and a fair share of beauty. Was it a kindly or\na spiteful fairy who crowned these gifts with a vanity that nothing\ncould undermine or overthrow? This self-love afforded the only\nunfailing enjoyment of her long life; but as it made her throw aside\nas unworthy of her every scheme of happiness suited to her rank, and\ncarve out a destiny for herself in defiance of all authority, the\nfairies must decide the question, not we.\n\n\"The misfortunes of my house,\" she says, \"began soon after my birth,\nfor it was followed by the death of my mother, which greatly\ndiminished the good fortune that the rank I hold would have led me to\nexpect. The great wealth which my mother left, and of which I am sole\nheiress, might well, in the opinion of most people have consoled me\nfor losing her. But to me, who feel now of what advantage her\nsuperintendence of my education would have been to me, and her credit\nin my establishment, added to her tenderness, it seems impossible\nsufficiently to regret her death.\"\n\nThis passage from her \"M\u00e9moires\" exhibits several of Mademoiselle's\npeculiarities: a certain blunt, abrupt mode of expressing her exact\nmeaning, an egotism that makes her lose or gain a test of the\nimportance of events, and a right-minded honesty which saved her from\nthe worst errors of her time.\n\nNo unmarried daughter of France had ever enjoyed so magnificent an\nestablishment as was now accorded to the heiress of the house of\nMontpensier. The Tuileries, where she lodged, being connected by a\ngallery with the Louvre, the little motherless child was under the\nsupervision of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, as well as of Marie de\nMedicis, who expended more tenderness upon this grand-daughter than\nshe had ever on her own children. Mademoiselle regarded her royal\ngrandmother with great partiality. She used to say when the Duchess of\nGuise was quoted: \"She is only a distant grandmother, she is not\nqueen.\"\n\nMarie de Medicis left France in disgrace in 1633, followed by\nMonsieur, whose career was a series of petty intrigues, from which he\ninvariably emerged unscathed, leaving his accomplices to bear the\nconsequences of their folly. Very different was the spirit of his\ndaughter. At six years old she was taken to see the degradation of Duc\nd'Elb\u00f4euf and Marquis de {361} la Vienville from the order. On being\ntold that their disgrace was owing to devotion to her father, she wept\nbitterly, and wished to retire, saying that she could not with\npropriety witness the ceremony. Ten years later Monsieur supped with\nher, enlivened by the music of the twenty-four royal violins. She\nwrites: \"He was as gay as if MM. de Cinq Mars and de Thou had not been\nleft behind on the road. I confess I could not look at him without\nthinking of them, and amid my own joy the sight of his contentment\npained me.\" Is not a certain reverence due to this generous daughter\nof a mean-spirited intriguer, and to one who, with untrammelled\nliberty, remained virtuous in the court of Louis XIV.? That her\nunspotted character was not the result of coldness, is proved by her\nfoolish devotion to Lauzun. If pride was her safeguard, at least some\nhuman praise should be given to so high an estimate of royal\ngreatness.\n\nThe king and queen were untiring in tender attentions to Mademoiselle.\nShe writes: \"I was so accustomed to their caresses, that I called the\nking _petit papa_, and the queen _petit mama_, really believing her to\nbe so, because I had never seen my own mother.\" After enumerating the\nvarious little girls of quality who came to play with her, she adds:\n\"I was never so occupied with any game as to be inattentive if a\nreconciliation with Monsieur was mentioned. Cardinal Richelieu, who\nwas prime minister and master of affairs, was determined to control\nthis matter; and with proposals so degrading to Monsieur that I could\nnot listen to them without despair. He said that to make Monsieur's\npeace with the king, his engagement to Princess Marguerite de Lorraine\nmust be broken, that he might marry Mademoiselle de Combalet, the\ncardinal's niece, now Madame d'Aiguillon. I could not help crying when\nit was mentioned to me, and in my anger sang, in revenge, all the\nsongs I knew against the cardinal and his niece. It even redoubled my\nfriendship for Princess Marguerite, and made me talk of her\nincessantly.\"\n\nGaston d'Orleans returned to France October 8th, 1634, and his\ndaughter went to Limours to receive him. Wishing to test her filial\nmemory, for he had left her at the age of four or five years, he\nappeared before her without the _cordon bleu_ which distinguished him\nfrom the members of his suite. \"Which of these gentlemen is Monsieur?\"\nshe was asked, and without hesitation sprung to her father's arms; a\nproof of fidelity which touched him deeply, that being of all\nqualities the one most likely to excite his surprise. Nothing was\nspared for her amusement, even to the gratification of her desire to\ndance in a _ballet_. A band of little girls of high rank was composed,\nwith a selection of lords of corresponding stature. The magnificent\ndresses and appointments satisfied even Mademoiselle's ambition. In\none figure birds were introduced in cages, and set free in the dancing\nroom. One unlucky songster became entangled in the dress trimmings of\nMademoiselle de Br\u00e9z\u00e9, Cardinal Richelieu's niece, who began to cry\nand scream so vehemently as to introduce a new element of amusement\namong the assembly. The accident recalls a similar one which occurred\nat the time of this lady's marriage with the Duc d'Enghien, afterward\nthe great Cond\u00e9. There was a ball afterward, where Mademoiselle de\nBr\u00e9z\u00e9, who was very small, fell down while dancing a _courante_,\nbecause, in order to make her look tall, they had put such high-heeled\nshoes upon her feet that she could not walk. Clearly her sphere of\nsuccess was not destined to be the ball-room. Poor little soul! she\nplayed doll for more than two years after her marriage, and was sent\nto a Carmelite convent to learn to read and write during her husband's\nabsence in Roussillon with the king.\n\nMademoiselle gives a graphic account of a journey which she took in\n1637. The events recalled, with the {362} emotions they excited in her\nat the time, show an acuteness of perception far beyond that of most\nchildren of ten years old. Her sentiments are too virtuous not to\ndemand a brief notice. \"Arrived at Champigny, I went first to the Holy\nChapel, as a place to which the memory of my predecessors, who had\nbuilt and founded it, seemed to summon me, that I might pray to God\nfor the repose of their souls.\" A little later we hear of her at the\nConvent of Fontevrault. The abbess was a natural daughter of Henri\nIV., and the nuns lavished every attention upon their guest,\ndelighting to honor her with the title of \"Madame's niece.\" Their\ndevotion bored our princess greatly, and would have made her ill but\nfor a grain of amusement to be derived from the simplicity of the poor\nladies. But fortune, Mademoiselle's unfailing friend, soon relieved\nher from this monotony. Two ladies-in-waiting, Beaumont and\nSaint-Louis, instead of going into the church, explored the convent\ncourt-yards. Terrible cries attracted their notice, and were found to\nproceed from a poor maniac, confined in a dungeon, according to the\nill-judged practice of those days. After amusing themselves with her\nextravagances, they went to find their little mistress, that she might\nshare the enjoyment. \"I broke off a conversation with the abbess and\nbetook myself in all haste to the dungeon, which I did not leave until\nsupper-time. The table was wretched, and for fear of suffering the\nsame treatment the next day, I begged my aunt to let my officers\nprepare my meals elsewhere. She made use of them after that day, so\nthat we fared better during the rest of our visit. Madame de\nFontevrault treated me the next day to a second maniac. As there was\nnot a third, ennui seized upon me, and I went away in spite of my\naunt's entreaties.\" And this was the child who, at five years old,\nwept over the degradation of two of her father's followers. Through\nlife, her best impulses seem to have had root rather in a sense of her\nown dignity than in compassion for others.\n\nMore easily understood is her enjoyment of the royal hunts, during the\ndays of Louis XIII.'s attachment to the virtuous Madame de Hautefort.\n\"We were all dressed in colors, mounted upon hackneys richly\ncomparisoned, and each lady protected from the sun's rays by a hat\ncovered with plumes. The chase led past several handsome houses, where\ngrand collations were prepared for us, and on our return the king sat\nin my coach between Madame de Hautefort and me. When in a good humor,\nhe entertained us very pleasantly with many topics. At such times he\nallowed us to speak freely of Cardinal Richelieu, and proved himself\nnot displeased by joining in the conversation.\"\n\nHis eminence was destined to fall more deeply than ever into disgrace\nwith Mademoiselle in 1638. The dauphin was born at the ch\u00e2teau of\nSaint-Germain-en-Laye, September 5th of that year; and his cousin,\nwho, like any other little girl, enjoyed being in the royal nursery,\nused to call him \"her little husband.\" This amused the king\nexceedingly, but Cardinal Richelieu viewed the matter more seriously.\nMademoiselle was sent home to Paris. On the way, she was taken to Ruel\nto see the minister, and there received a grave reprimand for the\nindiscretion of her language. \"He said I was too old to use such\nterms; that it was unbecoming in me to speak thus. He said so\nseriously to me things that might have been addressed to  a reasonable\nperson, that, without answering a word, I began to cry; to comfort me,\nhe gave me a collation. None the less did I go away very angry at his\nwords.\"\n\nIf this rebuke had made a deeper impression upon Louise de Bourbon,\nher biographer's task would be a more grateful one. The na\u00efvet\u00e9 with\nwhich she reveals all her matrimonial castles in the air would be\nincomprehensible if these schemes had not been purely ambitious; as\nfree {363} from sentiment as a military stratagem or a commercial\nspeculation.\n\nAt fifteen Mademoiselle met with a great loss in the death of her\nexcellent _gouvernante_, the Marchioness of Saint-Georges. She speaks\nof this trial with more tenderness and less egotism than one might\nhave anticipated. \"I learned, on awaking in the morning, how ill she\nwas, and rose in haste that I might go to her and show by various\nattentions my gratitude for her noble performance of her duties toward\nme ever since I came into the world. I arrived while they were\napplying every possible remedy to revive her, in which they succeeded\nafter repeated efforts. The viaticum and extreme unction were brought,\nand she received them with every evidence of a truly Christian soul.\nShe responded with admirable devotion to each prayer: no subject of\nsurprise to those who knew bow piously she had lived. This over, she\ncalled her children to her, that she might bless them, and asked\npermission to give me, also, her benediction, saying that the honor\nshe had enjoyed of being with me from my birth made her venture to\ntake the liberty. I felt a tenderness for her corresponding to all\nthat she had shown toward me in the care of my education. I knelt\nbeside her bed, with eyes bathed in tears; I received her sad farewell\nand kissed her. I was so touched by the thought of losing her, and by\nthe infinite number of good things she had said to me, that I did not\nwish to leave the room until her death. She begged that I might be\ntaken away, and her children too; she was too much agitated by our\ncries and tears, _and testified that I alone was the subject of any\nregrets the was capable of feeling_. I had hardly returned to my own\nroom when the agony began, and she died in fifteen minutes.\"\n\nMademoiselle retired to the Carmelite convent of Saint Denis, until\nMonsieur should select another governess. She requested that the place\nmight be given either to Mademoiselle de Fieique or Mademoiselle de\nTilli\u00e8res (both \"persons of quality, merit, and virtue, and relations\nof her own\"), hoping earnestly that the choice might fall upon\nMademoiselle de Tilli\u00e8res. Her wishes were thwarted, and the Countess\nde Fiesque entered upon the task with Spartan firmness. An illness of\nsix months' duration vanished miraculously when the news of her\nappointment was announced, we are told with sarcastic emphasis.\n\nWhether governess or pupil suffered most in this connection, it would\nbe hard to say. Mademoiselle de Fiesque had an aggravating system of\npetty supervision, and Mademoiselle a fixed determination to elude it.\nOn one occasion when our princess had been shut up in her room by the\ntyrant's orders, she managed to escape, stole the key of Mademoiselle\nde Fiesque's private apartment, and locked her in. \"She was hours in\nuneasiness before a locksmith could be found; and her discomfort was\nall the greater because I had shut up her grandson in another room,\nand he screamed as if I had maltreated him.\"\n\nBut we should soon tire of these reminiscences, did they not bring\nupon the stage personages more important than Mademoiselle\nherself--hard as it would have been for her to think so.\n\nIn 1643 we find the _dramatis personae_ much changed and extended.\nLouis XIII. has passed away, making so good an end, that we wonder at\nthe grace of God to see how noble a death may close an insignificant\ncareer. Richelieu has been succeeded in Mademoiselle's ill graces by\nCardinal Mazarin. Louis XIV. is a precocious, ignorant child of nine\nyears old. The cabal of the _Importantes_ has arisen and declined, and\ntwo seditions in Paris, founded upon slight provocation, have proved\nthe populace ripe for the Fronde. Henrietta Maria and her children are\nrefugees at the French court, and Mademoiselle, with her enormous\npossessions, is considered an eligible match for the Prince of Wales.\nAs Charles Stuart in the character of an unsuccessful suitor is a\nnovel topic, no {364} apology is needed for introducing at some length\nthe history of his courtship.\n\nThe court was at Fontainebleau when his royal highness arrived in\nFrance; and their majesties went to meet him in the forest. His mother\npresented him first to the king and then to the queen, who kissed him,\nafter which he bowed to the Princess of Cond\u00e9, and to his cousin. \"He\nwas only sixteen or seventeen years old; quite tall for his age, with\na fine head, black hair, brown complexion, and quite a good figure.\"\nOne unpardonable sin he had in Mademoiselle's eyes; that, not speaking\nFrench in the least, he could not shine in society. Clever talk she\nenjoyed keenly even in childhood, Monsieur's brilliant conversation\nhad fascinated her.\n\nThe Prince of Wales worked diligently to produce an impression upon\nhis cousin's flinty heart, which (shall we confess it?) was wasting\nitself away in an unrequited attachment for the imperial throne. Many\na suitable match did Mademoiselle reject, because the untimely death\nof two empresses kept her in a fever of hope and expectation. In vain\nwas it represented that the emperor was old enough to be her father;\nthat she would be happier in England or Savoy. She replied\ndisinterestedly that \"she wished the emperor, . . . that he was not a\nyoung and gallant man; which proved that in good truth she thought\nmore of the establishment than of the person.\" In vain did Charles\nStuart follow her about bareheaded, ministering mutely to her love of\nimportance. In vain did he hold the flambeau this side and that, while\nthe Queen of England dressed her for Mademoiselle de Choisy's ball.\nHis _petite or\u00e9_, as they called the dainty appointments of a\ngentleman's dress in those days, were red, black, and white, because\nMademoiselle's plume and the ribbons fastening her jewels were red,\nblack, and white. He made himself torchbearer again while she arranged\nher dress before entering the ball-room; followed her every step,\nlingered about her hotel until the door closed behind her: all in\nvain, because at nineteen our heroine had the discretion to prefer a\nmiddle-aged emperor, firmly seated on his throne, to an exiled prince\nof seventeen.\n\nHis gallantry was so openly exhibited as to excite much remark. It\nlasted all winter, appearing in full force at a celebrated\nentertainment given at the Palais Royal toward the close of the\nseason. Anne of Austria herself arrayed her niece upon this location,\nand three whole days were devoted to preparing her costume. The dress\nwas covered with diamonds, and red, black, and white tufts; and she\nwore all the crown jewels of France, with the few that still belonged\nto the Queen of England. \"Nothing could have been more magnificent\nthan my dress that day,\" she assures us; \"and there were not wanting\nthose who asserted that my fine presence, fair complexion, and\ndazzling blonde hair adorned me more than all the jewels that\nglittered on my person.\"' Mademoiselle does not exaggerate her charms.\nThough not strictly handsome, her noble bearing and charming coloring\nproduced all the effect of beauty.\n\nThe dancing took place in a large theatre, illuminated with flambeaux,\nand at one end stood a thrown upon a da\u00efs, which was the scene of\nMademoiselle's triumphs. \"The king and the Prince of Wales did care to\noccupy the throne; I remained there alone; and saw at my feet these\ntwo princes and all the princesses of the court circle. I was not in\nthe least ill at ease in this position, and those who had flattered me\non entering the ballroom found matter the next day for fresh\nadulation. Every one I had never appeared less constrained than when\nseated on that throne;\" and the imperial hopes being at their height,\nshe adds: \"While I stood there with the prince at my feet, my heart as\nwell as my eyes regarded him _du haut en bas_. . . The thought of the\nempire occupied my mind so exclusively, that {365} I looked upon the\nPrince of Wales only as an object of pity.\"\n\nThe conclusion of this romance belongs really to the interval between\nthe first and second Fronde, but we insert it here for the sake of\nconvenience, pleading guilty of the anachronism. In 1649 we find\nMademoiselle again persecuted to marry her cousin, then Charles II.\n\"L'Abb\u00e9 de la Rivi\u00e8re said that I was right, but that it must be\nremembered that there was no other match for me in Europe; that the\nemperor and King of Spain were married; the King of Hungary was\nbetrothed to the Infanta of Spain; the archduke would never be\nsovereign of the Low Countries; that I would not hear of any German or\nItalian sovereign; that In France the king and Monsieur (d'Anjou) were\ntoo young to marry; and that M. la Prince (Cond\u00e9) had been married ten\nyears and _his wife was in good health_.\"\n\nA courier was sent to their majesties to announce the King of\nEngland's arrival at P\u00e9ronne, and the count went forward to meet him\nat Compi\u00e8gne. Mademoiselle had her hair curled for the occasion, and\nwas bantered by the regent gently upon the pains she had taken to\nplease her suitor. \"Those who have had admirers themselves understand\nsuch things,\" replied her royal highness tartly, referring to the\nfoibles of her majesty's youth.\n\nThe royal personages met within a league of Compi\u00e8gne and alighted\nfrom the carriages. Charles saluted their majesties, and then\nMademoiselle. \"I thought him much improved in appearance since he left\nFrance. If his wit had seemed to correspond to his person, he might\nperhaps have pleased me; but when the king questioned him in the\ncarriage concerning the dogs and horses of the Prince of Orange and\nthe hunting in that country he replied in French. The queen spoke to\nhim of his own affairs, and he made no reply; and being questioned\nseveral times about grave matters which greatly concerned himself, he\ndeclined answering on the plea of not being able to speak our\nlanguage.\n\n  \"I confess that from that moment I resolved not to consent to this\n  marriage, having conceived a very poor opinion of a king who at his\n  age could be so ignorant of his affairs. Not that I could not\n  recognize my own blood by the sign, for the Bourbons are beings\n  greatly devoted to trifles and not much to solid matters; perhaps\n  myself as well as the rest, being Bourbon on both sides of the\n  house. Soon after we arrived, dinner was served. He eat no ortolans,\n  and threw himself upon a huge piece of beef and a shoulder of\n  mutton, as if there had been nothing else on the table. His taste\n  did not seem to me very delicate, and I felt ashamed that he should\n  show so much less in this, than he had displayed in thinking of me.\n  After dinner the queen aroused herself and left me with him: he sat\n  there a quarter of an hour without uttering a syllable: I should\n  like to believe that his silence proceeded from respect rather than\n  from absence of passion. I confess frankly that in this interview I\n  wished he would show less (respect). Feeling rather bored, I called\n  M. de Comminges to be third party and make him speak; in which he\n  fortunately succeeded. M. de la Rivi\u00e8re said to me: 'He looked at\n  you all dinner time, and is still looking at you incessantly.' I\n  answered, 'He will look a long time without attracting me if he does\n  not speak.' He replied, 'Ah! you are concealing the charming things\n  he has said to you.' 'Not at all,' said I. 'Come near me when he is\n  devoting himself, and you will see how he sets about it.' The queen\n  arose; I approached him, and, to make him speak, I asked after\n  several persons of his suite whom I had seen; all which he answered,\n  but _point de douceurs_. The time came for him to go; we all went in\n  a carriage to escort him to the middle of the forest, where we\n  alighted, as we had done on his arrival. He took leave of the king\n  and came to me {366} with Germin (Lord Jermyn), saying: 'I believe\n  that M. Germin, who speaks better than I do, has explained to you my\n  wishes and intentions; I am your very obedient servant.' I replied\n  that I was his very obedient servant, Germin made me a great many\n  compliments, and then the king bowed and left me.\"\n\nAfter the battle of Worcester, Charles II. reappeared in Paris and\nmade a third trial for his cousin's hand. \"I thought him very well\nmade and decidedly more pleasing than before his departure, though his\nhair was short and his beard long, two things that change people very\nmuch. He spoke French very well.\" All went smoothly for some time:\nMademoiselle received from her royal suitor all the douceurs for which\nshe had formerly listened in vain; and frequent assemblies at her\nrooms made them very intimate. But her will was too vacillating to\nallow of her coming to any definite decision, and Charles was at\nlength wearied into giving marked evidence of his displeasure. \"The\nfirst time I saw the queen after my interview with Germin, she\nshowered reproaches upon me. When her son entered (he had always been\naccustomed to take a seat in my presence), they brought forward a\ngreat chair in which he seated himself. I suppose he thought to make\nme very angry, but I did not care in the least.\" Indeed, it would have\nbeen an ingenious tormentor who had found a vulnerable spot in\nMademoiselles vanity.\n\nAs Queen of England, Louise de Bourbon would have found room for the\nlegitimate exercise of her best faculties. As an unmarried princess of\nimmense wealth, she became the tool of men who did not scruple to use\nher courage, magnanimity, and energy for their own ends, and requite\nher generosity with neglect. Let us follow her adventures in the days\nof the second Fronde, and see to what exertions a love of bustle and\nnotoriety could urge a princess accustomed to seek her own ease in all\nthings.\n\nThe first Fronde took place in 1648, and was directed by the coadjutor\narchbishop of Paris, Monsieur M. de Retz, who acted under the\ninfluence of two motives: a desire to supplant Mazarin, and rule\nFrance himself; and an enthusiasm for constitutional liberty. Our\nspace being limited, we will not pause to reconcile these two\naspirations. The court left Paris by night for St. Germain.\nMademoiselle accompanied the queen, and made herself useful as a\nmedium of communication with the populace of Paris, who loved her for\nbeing a native of their city. She describe the royal destitution with\ngraphic frivolity, and is exceedingly merry over this siege, in which\nthe besiegers starved for want of the luxuries they had left behind\nthem in the beleaguered city.\n\nIn the second Fronde, which broke out about two years later\n(1650-1652), the position of affairs is altered. M. de Retz appears in\nthe character of mediator, and Mademoiselle casts her lot with the\nrebels.  The princes of the house of Cond\u00e9 seize the opportunity to\navenge insults offered to them by Mazarin, and Gaston d'Orleans joins\nthe Frondeurs--perhaps in order to avoid the trouble of leaving Paris.\n\nSkilful writers have left accounts so voluminous of those troubled\ntimes, that they rise before us rather in a series of living pictures\nthan as historical records. That midnight conference in the oratory,\nbetween fair, queenly Anne of Austria and the little dark, misshapen\ncoadjutor;  Mazarin threatening Cond\u00e9; and he, with curled lip and\nreverential mockery, leaving the ministerial presence with the words,\n\"Farewell, Mars!\"--the quelled populace, streaming hour after hour\nthrough the king's bedchamber, while his mother's beautiful hand holds\nback the velvet hangings, that each one may look upon the sleeping boy\nand know that he has not fled from Paris--all is before us as if it\n{367} happened yesterday. The chief actors with their talents and\nfoibles are better known to us than to their contemporaries; and the\nFrench nation is today as it was then--ready to be won over by any\nclever bit of scenic effects.\n\nMademoiselle and Cond\u00e9, who had hitherto been sworn foes, came to a\nformal reconciliation in 1651, and being bound together by their\ndetestation of Mazarin, welcomed the outbreak of the second Fronde.\nAnne of Austria declined the company of her niece on leaving Paris,\nand she was thus left to the flattery of those who well understood the\nright use of her folly and her strength.\n\nThe golden moment of her career arrived. Orleans must be secured to\nthe Frondeurs, or Cond\u00e9, coming from Guyenne, would find the line of\nthe Loire cut and the enemy master of the position. Monsieur was firm\nupon two points: that he would not leave Paris himself, and that his\nprivate troops should occupy the position best fitted to protect him\nif the royal army should attack Paris. His daughter, who had been\nlonging for an opportunity to distinguish herself, offered to go to\nOrleans in place of the duke, and on Monday, March 25th, 1652, left\nParis amid the benedictions of the people. A contemporary MS. journal\nsays: \"About noon Mademoiselle's carriages assembled in the court of\nthe Orleans palace, ready for the campaign; she wore a gray habit\ncovered with gold, to go to Orleans. She left at three o'clock,\naccompanied by the Duke de Rohan, Madame de Br\u00e9ant\u00e9, Countess de\nFiesque, and Madame de Frontenac.\" Monsieur sneered at the project,\nand said her chivalry would not be worth much without the common sense\nof Mesdames de Fiesque and Frontenac--her _mar\u00e9chales de camp_, as\nthey were called between jest and earnest.\n\nUpon the plains of Beauce the young amazon appeared before the troops\non horseback, and was received with enthusiasm. \"From that time,\" she\nsays, \"I began to give my orders;\" and a little later at Toury, where\nshe was joyfully welcomed by a crowd of officers: \"they declared that\na council of war must be held in my presence. . . .  That I must\naccustom myself to listening to matters of business and war; for\nhenceforth nothing would be done except by my orders.\"\n\nArrived before Orleans, Mademoiselle found closed gates and small\ndisposition to grant admittance. The unfortunate city government,\npressed on one side by Frondeurs and on the other by royalists, asked\nonly leave to remain neutral. The rebel army had been left at some\ndistance from Orleans for fear of alarming its inhabitants, and _M. le\ngouverneur_, learning that the attacking party was a lady, sent out a\ntribute of confectionery, \"which seemed to me amusing,\" remarks\nMademoiselle.\n\nAt last, tired of waiting upon the governors indecision, her royal\nhighness went out with her ladies for a walk, much against the\njudgment of her advisers--or ministers, as she called them. The\nrampart was edged with people, who cried, on seeing her, \"Long live\nthe king and princes, and down with Mazarin!\" And she answered, \"Go to\nthe Hotel de Ville and make them open the gates;\" with other\nexhortations of the same kind, occasionally mingled with threats, \"to\nsee if menaces would move them more than friendship.\"\n\nNow it so happened that before her departure from Paris, M. le Marquis\ndo Vilaine, a noted astrologer, had drawn the princess into Madame's\nprivate room, and imparted to her the following prophecy: \"All that\nyou shall undertake between Wednesday noon, March 27th, and Friday\nwill succeed; and you shall even at that time accomplish extraordinary\nthings.\" This prediction was in her pocket, and anxiously as she\ndisclaims all faith in it, we may believe that it encouraged her to\nmake efforts which gave no apparent promise of success. When, toward\nevening, she stood outside the {368} Porte Brul\u00e9e, did not M. de\nVilaine's horoscope rise in her estimation? The river was crossed and\nthe bank ascended by the aid of some chivalrous boatmen, an improvised\nbridge of boats, and a little more scrambling than would seem\nconsistent with royal dignity. \"I climbed like a cat, grasping at\nbrambles and thorns, and springing over hedges without hurting myself\nin the least. * * Madame de Br\u00e9ant\u00e9, who is the most cowardly creature\nin the world, began to cry out at me, and at every one who followed my\nsteps; making great sport for me.\" Outside the gate, a group of\nbargemen worked under Mademoiselle's inspiriting direction; inside\nwere citizens, urged on by the Count de Gramont, to tear down the\nplanks; while the guards looked on in armed neutrality. When the two\nmiddle planks were torn off from the transverse iron bars, Gramont\nsigned to the princess to come forward. \"As there was a great deal of\nrubbish, a footman took me up and passed me through the hole, where no\nsooner did my head appear than they began to beat the drums. I gave my\nhand to the captain and said: 'You will be glad to be able to boast\nthat you let me in.' Cries of 'Long live the king and princess, and\ndown with Mazarin!' were redoubled. Two men took me and placed me in a\nwooden chair. I don't know whether I sat in the chair or on the arms,\nthe rapture of my delight set me so completely beside myself. Every\none kissed my hands, and I was ready to die with laughter to find\nmyself in such a position.\" And so the city was taken, and\nMademoiselle earned the title of Maid of Orleans, all in an\nafternoon's frolic. If she thought to retain command of Paris in a\nfashion so amusing, the battle of Porte Saint Antoine must have\nundeceived her.\n\nThe heroine was received with rapture on her return to Paris. She was\nassured by Cond\u00e9 that the wish of his heart was to see her queen of\nFrance, and that no treaty should be concluded without especial\nconsideration for her. No one can be more uninteresting than her royal\nhighness when elated by success, we must confess; but an hour of trial\nwas approaching that should develop for the first and last time in her\nlife, truly grand and heroic qualities. Until the 2d of July, 1652,\nMademoiselle had given no signs of feminine feeling except by\nexhibiting those foibles which are popularly supposed to be especially\ncharacteristic of women. But on that day, as she hurried through the\nstreets of Paris, carrying hope to every one she met--consoling poor\nGuitant, shot through the lungs, pausing to speak a word of comfort to\nthe wretched Rochefoucauld, and putting new heart into the great Cond\u00e9\nhimself, we recognize sympathies worthy of a better development than\nthey ever received. During a pause in the battle M. le Prince came to\nher in a pitiable condition, covered with dust and blood, his hair\ntangled and his cuirass dented with blows. Giving is naked sword to an\nequerry, he flung himself down upon a seat and burst into tears\n\"Forgive my emotion,\" he exclaimed; \"you see a desperate man before\nyou. I have lost all my friends; Nemours, La Rochefoucauld and\nClinchamp are mortally wounded.\"\n\nMademoiselle was able to assure him that these reports were greatly\nexaggerated, and Cond\u00e9, restored to himself, sprang upon a fresh horse\nand galloped off to his post. The battle was at its height. Paris had\nsimultaneously attacked at the Porte Saint-Denis and the Faubourg\nSaint-Antoine. Inquiring the whereabouts of Turenne, M. le Prince\nrushed to the faubourg, knowing that where the marshal commanded there\nmust Paris be most in peril. Soon came the tidings that the barricade\nof Piepus had been forced. At the head of a hundred musketeers he\nthrew himself upon the barricade, and drove the enemy back in its own\ndust. Never had the conqueror been greater than on that useless,\nterrible 2d of July.\n\n{369}\n\nThe next meeting between Mademoiselle and Cond\u00e9 was full of triumph.\nThey parted, she to betake herself to the towers of the Bastile, he to\nthe belfry of Saint-Antoine. Toward Bagnolet in the valley the\nprincess saw the king's troops gathering for a fresh attack. Having\ncommunicated with Cond\u00e9 through a page, she left the Bastile, giving\nstringent orders that, in case of necessity, its cannon should be\nturned upon the royal army; and returned to her post near the gate to\ninvigorate the soldiers with wine and brave words.\n\nThere was indeed need for encouragement. Frondeurs were falling back\nin dire extremity--royalists pressing forward, hopeful, and\nstrengthened with reinforcements. The hours of the Fronde seemed\nnumbered--when heights of the Bastile blazed forth a flash of light;\nthe cannon thundered out in quick succession--the royal army paused,\nreeled, and retreated in amazement. Mademoiselle had saved the day,\nand \"killed her royal husband,\" as Mazarin expressed it. Henceforth\nshe was to be more than ever an object of distrust to the queen and\nminister. But though this victory lent a dignity to the last days of\nthe Fronde, there was no principle of stability in the party. Weak\npolicy, quarrels, treachery on their side--opposed to them, Mazarin,\nwhose keen perception told him that temporary withdrawal from the\nministry would insured unlimited power in the future; and Turenne,\nwith double the forces of Cond\u00e9,--nothing was fairly matched except\nthe courage of the two parties.\n\nThe Fronde came to an abrupt end, and every one was left to make his\nown terms. Mademoiselle had shown disinterestedness, courage, and\nhumanity worthy of a better cause. The fruits which she reaped were a\nnotice to leave Tuileries, and the refusal on her cowardly father's\npart to protect one whom the king had condemned. There appear to have\nbeen about eight years and a half enforced banishment from court,\nwhich she spent on her numerous estates, amusing herself with writing\nromances, portraits (then in vogue) and her M\u00e9moires, which she\ncontinued until within a few years of her death. M. Sainte-Beuve tells\nus that the style of her imagination belongs rather to the close of\nLouis XIII.'s reign, and to the H\u00f4tel Rambouillet, than to the poorer\nliterary period of Louis XIV.\n\nAnd now, having given a faint delineation of Mademoiselle during her\nprosperous and f\u00eated youth, and during the days of the Fronde, which\nwe are inclined to regard as the period at which she gave most\nevidence of kinship with her grandfather, the great Henry; we pass on\nto a time when fortune ceased to favor her, and the world began to\nhustle her about, as roughly as it does common mortals. La Grande\nMademoiselle, who had hitherto looked upon human griefs and passions\nas upon a brilliant theatrical spectacle, was destined at last to\nleave the royal box, and figure on the stage herself for the diversion\nof her fellow creatures. An amusing afterpiece this exhibition seemed\nto her contemporaries; but to us, who have not suffered from her airs\nof superiority, there is a certain pathos in this genuine devotion\nlavished upon the wrong object at an age when such blindness is simply\nabsurd. That heart of adamant which had looked above kings and princes\nto covet the imperial crown, fell prostrate in the dust before a\ncolonel of dragoons, a member of the royal household. Alas for pride\nof race!\n\nMademoiselle was forty-three years old when the conviction seized her\nthat it would be well to marry, that M. Lauzun was the most attractive\nperson in existence, and that for once it would be pleasant to receive\nthe love of some one worth loving. That M. Lauzun admired her seemed\nevident, but how to give an opportunity for expression to one whose\nsense of reverential duty always kept him at a distance?\n\nOne day they had an interview in the embrasure of a window, the first\nof many similar ones, in which she consulted him about her proposed\nalliance {370} with Prince Charles of Lorraine. The tactics of our\nmodest suitor are worthy of all praise. \"By his proud bearing he\nseemed to me like the emperor of the world,\" writes Mademoiselle,\nwhose circumstantial account must be pressed into few words. \"Why\nshould she marry,\" he reasoned, \"since she had already everything that\ncould embellish life? The position of queen or empress was little more\nexalted than her own, and would be encumbered with burthensome duties.\nTrue, in France she could raise some one to her own rank, and unite\nwith him in untiring devotion to the king, who must ever be her first\nobject in life. It was easy to build a castle in the air, but how to\nfind a companion worthy to share it with her, when no such being\nexisted? A woman of forty-three had three resources: a convent, a life\nof strict retirement apart from court and city, and finally marriage.\nMarriage would insure liberty to enjoy the world at any age, but it\nmight be at the cost of her happiness.\" Hints only plunged him into\nreverential silence. At last the secret was revealed by writing; then\ncomes incredulity met by protestations, and finally amazed conviction.\n\"What! would you marry your cousin's servant? for nothing in the world\nwould make me leave my post. I love the king too well, I am too much\nattached to my position by inclination, to leave it even for the honor\nyou would confer upon me.\" And when she assured him that his devotion\nto the king only endeared him the more to her (for loyalty appears to\nhave been the mainspring of their attachment), he answered: \"I am not\na prince; a nobleman I am assuredly, but that will not suffice for\nyou;\" and she replies, \"I am content; you are all that would become\nthe greatest lord in the kingdom, and wealth and dignities are mine to\nbestow upon you,\" etc., etc, etc.\n\nThe story is well known. Louis XIV., after much hesitation, gave his\nconsent to the marriage. Mademoiselle was to confer great wealth upon\nLauzun, together with the sovereignty of Dombes, the duchy of\nMontpensier, and the county d'Eu; always with the agreement that he\nshould not resign his post at court, but unite with her in exclusive\ndevotion to the king.\n\nThe night before the wedding day Mademoiselle was summoned to his\nmajesty's presence, with directions to pass directly to his room\nthrough the in _garde-robe_. '\"This precaution not a good omen. Madame\nde Nogent remained in the carriage. While I was in the _garde-robe_\nRochefort entered and said, 'Wait a moment.' I saw saw that some one\nwas introduced into the king's room whom I was not intended to see.\nThen he said 'Enter,' and the door was closed behind me. The king was\nalone, and looked unhappy and agitated. He said, 'I am in despair at\nwhat I have to tell you. I am told that the world says I have\nsacrificed you in order to make Monsieur de Lauzun's fortune. This\nwill injure me in the eyes of foreign powers, and I ought not to allow\nthe affair to proceed. You have good reason to complain of me; beat me\nif you like, for there is no degree of anger I will not submit to, or\ndo not deserve.' 'Ah!' I exclaimed, 'who do you mean, sire? it is too\ncruel! but whatever you do to me, I will not fail in the respect due\nto you. It is to strongly implanted in my heart, and has been too well\nnourished by Monsieur de Lauzun, who would have given me these\nfeelings if I had not already been actuated by them, for no one can\nlove him without acquiring them,' I threw myself at his feet, saying:\n'Sire, it would be kinder to kill me outright than to place me in this\nposition. When I told your majesty of the affair, if you had bade me\nforgot it. I would have done so, but think how I shall appear in\nbreaking it off now that I have gone so far! What will become of me?\nWhere is Monsieur de Lauzun?' 'Do not be uneasy; nothing will happen\nto him.' 'Ah! sire, I must fear everything {371} for him and for\nmyself, now that our enemies have prevailed over the kindness you felt\ntoward him.'\n\n\"He threw himself on his knees when I knelt, and embraced me. We\nremained thus three-quarters of an hour, his cheek pressed to mine; he\nwept as bitterly as I did: 'Oh why did you give time for these\nreflections? Why did you not hasten matters?' 'Alas! sire, who would\nhave doubted your majesty's word? You never failed any one before, and\nyou begin now with me and Monsieur de Lauzun. I shall die, and I shall\nbe glad to die. I never loved anything before in all my life, and I\nlove, and love passionately, the best and noblest man in your kingdom.\nThe joy and delight of my life was in elevating him. I had thought to\npass the rest of my days so happily with him, honoring and loving you\nas much as I do him. You gave him to me, and now you take him away,\nand it is like tearing out my heart. This shall not make me love you\nless, but it makes my grief the more cruel that it comes to me from\nhim whom I love best in the world.\"\n\nMademoiselle's suffering in this scene was heightened by the fact that\na suppressed cough outside the door revealed to her the presence of an\nunseen witness. She rightly suspected it to be the Prince de Cond\u00e9,\nand reproached the king with just indignation for subjecting her to\nsuch a humiliation.\n\nHis majesty bore her reproaches very patiently, and dismissed her with\nthe assurance that further discussion would not alter his decision.\n\"He embraced me and led me to the door, where I found I don't know\nwhom. I went home as quickly as possible, and there _je criai des\nhauts cris_.\"\n\nLauzun, sure of his hold upon her royal highness, and fearing to lose\nground with the king, yielded with admirable resignation to the royal\ndecree. His favor at court seemed for awhile greater than ever; but\nsuddenly, for reasons never made public, he was disgraced and sent to\nthe Castle of Pignerol. Mademoiselle spent the ten years of his\nimprisonment in faithful efforts to procure his release, and purchased\nit finally by an immense donation to the Duke du Maine, a son of\nMadame de Montespan. It was a success bitterly to be deplored. Any one\nmore odious than Lauzun after his release, it would be difficult to\nimagine. Peevish, grasping, slovenly, and ungrateful, he hung about\nMademoiselle's establishment; using the power which a private marriage\nhad undoubtedly given him with an insolence that turned her love to\ndisgust.\n\nThe spirit of a courtier alone remained to recall the Lauzun of former\ndays. When the princess announced to him the death of Marie Th\u00e9r\u00e8se,\nhe cried: \"'People deserve to be imprisoned who spread such\nfalsehoods; how dare they say such things of the queen?' . . . At last\nthey showed him the letters, and he had to agree that queens are\nmortal like other people.\"\n\nIn 1684 Mademoiselle and Lauzun parted in mutual displeasure. She\nrejected his efforts at conciliation, and the last entry in her\nM\u00e9moires is the following: \"M. de Lauzun was living as usual in\nobscurity, but exciting notice, and often concerning matters which\nannoyed me. When I returned from Eu in 1688, my people were dressed in\nnew liveries. One day, when I was walking in the park of----\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle knew life late,\" says M. Sainte-Beuve; \"but in the end\nshe know it well, and passed through every stage of experience. She\nfelt the slow suffering which wears out love in a heart, the contempt\nand indignation that crush it, and reached at last that indifference\nwhich finds no remedy or consolation except in God. It is a sad day\nwhen we find that the being whom we have loved to adorn with every\nperfection and load with every gift is _so poor a thing_. She had\nyears to meditate upon this bitter discovery. She died in March, 1693,\naged sixty-six years.\"\n\n{372}\n\nLauzan, with characteristic insolence, appeared at the general in the\nmourning of a widowed husband. The king sent the Duke of Saint-Aignan\nto bid him withdraw. \"At such a moment I cannot listen to the voice of\npride,\" was the reply; \"I am absorbed by my grief, and could wish to\nsee the king more occupied with his own.\" He remained to the close of\nthe ceremony.\n\nThe magnificent obsequies were interrupted by a more serious\ndisturbance. An urn, in which part of the remains were carelessly\nembalmed, exploded with a tremendous noise, frightening all the\nassistants. It was said that not even death could come to Mademoiselle\nwithout some ludicrous circumstance.\n\nThis princess began life with advantages such as fall to the lot of\nfew human beings. What did she leave behind her in the world? A\nhospital and seminary under the charge of Sisters of Charity; a very\nfair literary reputation, founded chiefly upon her M\u00e9moires, which,\nthough not elegant in style, are truthful, graphic, and clear; and a\ncharacter without spot or blemish, in an age when such characters were\nrare. Her written confessions afford ample material for cutting\ncriticism, but it would be an unkindly task to turn her own artillery\nupon herself.\n\n------\n\nPHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION.\n\n\n\nBY REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe advance of science has thrown some light on a subject of extreme\ndifficulty and abstruseness: the relation of the qualities or\naccidents of matter to its substance. It is a subject of extreme\ndifficulty, into which it seems not permitted to man to penetrate\nbeyond the surface; but in regard to which much ignorance and\nmisapprehension have been dispelled by the observations and deductions\nof modern philosophers. There are certain external marks or notes by\nwhich we recognize certain material things, as their form, their\ncolor, their hardness or softness, etc. One thing we call wood,\nanother iron, a third wax, and so on. These external notes or marks by\nwhich we distinguish bodies are called their qualities, accidents, or\nproperties. Underneath them there is the substance of the material\nthing, of which we have no means whatever of knowing anything. What it\nis that constitutes the difference between wood and iron, in their\nsubstance, must remain for ever a secret to our senses. We can\nperceive that one is harder, heavier, colder, then the other; but\nthese observations go no further than the external qualities of the\ntwo bodies; regarding their absolute substance, or internal\nconstitution, we have no possible means of forming a judgment. For all\nthat we know, it may be the same in all bodies, or it may be as\nvarious as the simple elements of matter, now limited by chemists to\nabout sixty, or it may be much more various. It is one of the\nmysteries of matter which will probably never be disclosed to the eye\nof man in this life.\n\nNot only is the nature of material substance thus unknown to us,\nexcept through the external qualities, or accidents, which represent\nit; but we are informed by science that most of these qualities are\nthe result of circumstances wholly distinct from their subject. A\ncomplete revolution in popular ideas has in part been achieved, in\nregard {373} to the permanence and immutability of these qualities of\nmatter. Nothing seems more natural than to say that a red rose must be\nalways red, a violet always blue, or that the size, shape, etc., of\nmaterial bodies are inseparable from their existence. Yet Proteus\nhimself was not more various in his shapes, than are the violet and\nthe rose in the varieties of color of which they are so susceptible.\nColor, in fact, has no existence at all in the material object which\nwe look at; it is a condition of the ray of light which enters our eye\nafter reflection from the object, or after passing through it. Some\nobjects absorb one or more parts of the three-fold visible ray of\nwhite light, and transmit or reflect to our eye only what remains of\nits constituent parts; some objects send the whole ray, undecomposed\nto the eye, and we call them white; others absorb it altogether, and\nthey are said to be black. But all bodies, whatever their original\ncolor, that is, whatever part of the white ray they send to the eye,\nafter absorbing the rest, may be made to appear of any color, by\nviewing them under the influence of variously colored light; which\nproves that their color exists not in themselves, but in the light\nwhich falls upon them, and on which their substance acts in some\nunknown way.\n\nSir John Herschel's testimony on this subject is very explicit.\n\"Nothing at first can seem a more rational, obvious, and\nincontrovertible conclusion, then that the color of an object is an\ninherent quality, like its weight, hardness, etc.; and to see the\nobject, and to see it of its own color, when nothing intervenes\nbetween our eyes and it, are one and the same thing. Yet this is only\na prejudice; and that it is so is shown by bringing forward the same\nsense of vision which led to its adoption, as evidence on the other\nside; for when the differently colored prismatic rays are thrown, in a\ndark room, in succession upon any object, whatever be the color we are\nin the habit of calling its own, it will appear of the particular hue\nof the light which falls upon it: a yellow paper, for instance, will\nappear scarlet when illuminated by red rays; yellow, when by yellow;\ngreen, by green; and blue, by blue rays; its own (so called) proper\ncolor not in the least mixing with what it so exhibits.\"   [Footnote\n115] In like manner, other qualities of matter have no absolute\nexistence, independent of circumstances. Twenty solid inches of sea\nwater, if subjected to a pressure equal to that at a distance of\ntwenty miles below the surface, would be reduced in volume to nineteen\ninches.  [Footnote 116] A globe, an inch in diameter, consisting of\nair of the ordinary density at the earth's surface, if it could be\nremoved into space one radius of the earth, say 4,000 miles, would\nexpand into a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of Saturn, as Sir\nIsaac Newton has calculated. Hence the tail of a great comet, such as\nthat observed in 1843, and which extended from its nucleus 200\nmillions of miles,  [Footnote 117] may, for aught we know, consist\nonly of a very few pounds or even ounces of matter, expanded to a\ndegree of tenuity to our minds almost inconceivable.  [Footnote 118]\nThe same agent, heat, modifies the extension and form of matter in\ntotally opposite ways; making clay contract and lose in volume, while\nexpanding water, and still more largely air. Extension, or form,\ntherefore, is subject to great modification by change of\ncircumstances; nor is weight less so. A pound weight of matter at the\nearth's equator weighs heavier at the poles; or, which is the same\nthing, a pendulum oscillates faster at the poles than at the equator.\nIf removed to the planet Mars or Mercury, a pound of matter would lose\nhalf its weight; if to the surface of Jupiter, it would weigh nearly\nthree times heavier.\n\n  [Footnote 115: Discourse, etc. \u00a771.]\n\n  [Footnote 116: Somerville's Physical Geography, I., chap. xvi. p.\n  318.]\n\n  [Footnote 117: Hind's Comets, p. 22.]\n\n  [Footnote 118: Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xi. \u00a7559, note.]\n\n{374}\n\nIf there is one quality more than another characteristic of solid\nrock, it is the immobility of its parts; as mobility is a distinctive\nfeature of water and vapor. Yet experiments in crystallization have\ndemonstrated the existence of mobility even in solid bodies, in an\nunimaginable degree. Mrs. Somerville remarks, that \"we are led, from\nthe mobility of fluids, to expect great changes in the relative\nposition of their molecules, which must be in perpetual motion, even\nin the stillest water and the calmest air; but we are not prepared to\nfind motion to such an extent in the interior of solids. That their\nparticles are brought nearer by cold and pressure, or removed further\nfrom one another by heat, might be expected; but it could not have\nbeen anticipated that their relative positions could be so entirely\nchanged as to alter their mode of aggregation. It follows from the low\ntemperature at which these changes are effected, that there is\nprobably no position of inorganic matter that is not in a state of\nrelative motion.\"  [Footnote 119] And elsewhere, in her Physical\nGeography, the same high authority assures us that \"nothing can be\nmore certain than that the minute particles of matter are constantly\nin motion, from the action of heat, mutual attraction, and\nelectricity. Prismatic crystals of salts of zinc are changed in a few\nseconds into crystals of a totally different form by the heat of the\nsun; casts of shells are found in rocks, from which the animal matter\nhas been removed and its place supplied by mineral; and the\nexcavations made in rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if\nthe rock the soft, and in a longer time when it is hard; circumstances\nwhich show an intestine motion of the particles, not only in their\nrelative positions, but in space, which there is every reason to\nbelieve is owing to electricity; a power which, if not the sole agent,\nmust, at least, have cooperated essentially in the formation and\nfilling of mineral veins.\"   [Footnote 120]\n\n  [Footnote 119: Connection of Phys. Sciences, \u00a7 14, p. 125.]\n\n  [Footnote 120: Phys. Geog. I, ch. xv. pp. 288, 289.]\n\n\n\nIn the language of the older treatise on science, glass is said to be\ntransparent: gold, coal, etc., opaque, that is, incapable of\ntransmitting light. But there is no substance known to modern\ndiscovery which, if sufficiently attenuated, is not capable of being\nseen through. Opacity, therefore, has no real existence as a quality\nof matter; it depends only on condition and circumstances. Hardness or\nsoftness in like manner, are easily separable from the substance of\nmatter. Clay in its natural state is soft, apply heat to it and it\nbecomes hard; wax is naturally hard, but becomes soft and ductile when\nwarmed. Thus our knowledge of the internal constitution of material\nsubstance, through the medium of its external qualities, is in the\nhighest degree uncertain, variable, and often erroneous. For there is\nnot one of those external notes or Marx, which we call qualities,\nwhich cannot be changed or modified in such a way as seriously to\nderange the accuracy of our observations. Enough of accuracy has been\nsecured for the purposes of our daily life; but, like the senses, our\nknowledge of the relation of quality to substance was never intended\nto carry us through the boneless field of knowledge, or enable us to\npronounce with certainty regarding the nature, the difference, or the\nidentity of substance, merely from the indications given us by its\napparent qualities. These are truly accidents; things which do not\naffect the essence of matter; but connected with it in an evanescent\nway, liable to sudden change, and totally baffling our attempts to\nestablish any certain criterion of substance by means of our\nobservations on its qualities.\n\nRecent observations in chemistry have still further demonstrated the\nimpossibility of arriving at any knowledge of the internal structure\nof matter from its appearances. The delicate tests invented by\nchemists, in order to detect the difference between substances which\nappear to every human sense the same, though they effect their purpose\nwith marvelous ingenuity, yet fail in indicating the ultimate reason\nfor their efficiency.\n\n{375}\n\nThus syrup extracted from the sugar-cane, or from plants yielding\nsimilar sugar, looks in every respect the same as that extracted from\nthe juice of the grape. The refinements of modern chemistry, however,\nhave pointed out several tests to distinguish one from the other.\n[Footnote 121] And in a beam of polarized light there is provided a\ntest as subtle as any contributed by the aid of chemistry. In the\ninstance of cane sugar, the plane of polarization revolves to the\nright; in grape sugar, it revolves to the left. Of this subtle agent,\nMrs. Somerville remarks, when stating this interesting fact, that '\"it\nsurpasses the power even of chemical analysis in giving certain and\ndirect evidence of the similarity or difference existing in the\nmolecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the permanency of that\nconstitution, or of the fluctuations to which it may be liable.\"\n[Footnote 122] The same delicate test of polarization enables us to\ndistinguish reflected light,  such as the moon's, from the light which\nissues from a self-luminous body, like Sirius. But in all these\ninstances, the ultimate rationale of its indications still remains\nveiled in impenetrable darkness; and with it, any knowledge of the\ninternal substance of matter.\n\n  [Footnote 121: Brande's Lectures on Organic Chemistry, p. 153.]was it\n\n  [Footnote 122: Connexion of Physical Sciences, \u00a7 xxii, p. 214.]\n\nIt is, however, in the mysterious facts to which chemists have given\nthe names of Isomorphism, Isomerism, and Allotropism, that we perceive\nthe most direct and remarkable contribution of modern scientific\nresearch to the defence of Catholic revelation. Chemistry enables us\nto penetrate further than any other science into the secret operations\nof Nature; and strange insight has been thus obtained into the\nidentity of substance under two or more external appearances; and of\nthe existence of two or more substances of distinct character under\nidentical appearances. A few words will not be idly devoted to a\ndescription of these terms, and of the results associated with them.\n\nIsomorphism expresses the phenomenon in crystallization established by\nGay Lussac and Mitscherlich, of different compounds assuming the same\ncrystalline form. The generally received law of this process had\nhitherto been, that the same substances invariably crystallize in\nforms belonging to one system, different substances, in forms\nbelonging to another. Cases had indeed been observed, before the\ndiscovery of Isomorphism, in which the same element had been seen to\ncrystallize in two forms, belonging to different systems, not\ngeometrically connected. Sulphur, for instance, crystallizing from its\nsolution in the bisulphuret of carbon, assumes a geometrically\ndifferent crystalline form from sulphur when melted by heat, and\nallowed to consolidate as it cools. But these and a few other similar\ncases had been explained as depending on a different arrangement of\nthe particles, due most probably to a difference in the temperature\nduring the operation. They were not thought to interfere with the\ngeneral law of the same substance always assuming the same crystalline\nform. The two eminent philosophers just mentioned ascertained beyond a\ndoubt that, in many instances, compound substances, in the process of\ncrystallizing, assume the same or a cognate form, though their\nelements are totally different. Thus chloride of sodium (sea salt),\nsulphate of alumina and potash (alum), and many other compound\nsubstances equally dissimilar, crystallize in the form of the cube and\nits congeners. Other crystalline forms also are found to be common to\nmany differently constituted compounds. \"To these groups of analogous\nelements,\" says Professor Gregory, from whose work, On Inorganic\nChemistry, we have abridged this account, \"the name of Isomorphous\ngroups has been given, as there is every reason to believe that as\nelements they possess the same form; and the phenomena of identical\nform in compounds of different but analogous composition, have\nreceived the name of Isomorphism. Two elements {376} are said to be\nisomorphous, which either crystallize in the same form, or may be\nsubstituted for each other in their compounds, equivalent for\nequivalent (the other elements remaining unchanged), without affecting\nthe form of the compound. We can hardly doubt that not only the salt,\nbut the acids are really isomorphous, and would be found so if we\ncould obtain them all in crystals; and we have the same reason to\nconclude that the elements of these acids are also isomorphous; that\narsenic and phosphorus, sulphur and selenium, for example, crystallize\nin the same form.\"   [Footnote 123]\n\n  [Footnote 123: Inorganic Chemistry, Ed. 1853; pp. 38 _et seq_. ]\n\nThe converse of this phenomenon is also included among the discoveries\nof modern science; the same substance is sometimes observed to\ncrystallize in two different forms not geometrically allied; and the\noccurrence of this new exception to the received law of\ncrystallization is called Dimorphism.\n\nIsomerism is the term employed to represent another exceptional class\nof facts, observed by later chemists to interfere with the general\nrule, that analogy or similarity of composition implies analogy in\nform and external properties. Two or more compounds, formed of the\nsame element, in the same relative proportions, and having, therefore,\nthe same composition in 100 parts, are often found entirely distinct\nand unlike in all their properties. Such bodies are called Isomeric.\n\"The discovery of Isomerism,\" says the same eminent chemist, \"however\nunexpected, is entirely consistent with the atomic theory, of which it\nis merely a special case. Isomerism is of very frequent occurrence\namong organic compounds, owing, no doubt, to their unusually large\natomic weights, since the numerous atoms of the elements afford much\nscope for isomeric modifications; and, doubtless, this principle plays\nan important part in the processes of organic life and growth, as well\nas in decay.\"   [Footnote 124]\n\n  [Footnote 124: Ib. p. 43, 44.]\n\nMore remarkable than all of these exceptions to hitherto established\nlaws is the discovery of the existence of simple elements under\ntotally dissimilar forms. Thus sulphur exists under three distinct and\nincompatible forms, or modifications, called Allotropic. Carbon\nlikewise in three; the diamond, which is crystallized in octohedrons,\nand is limpid and transparent; graphite, which is black, opaque, and\ncrystallized in prisms; and common charcoal, lamp-black, etc., which\nis black and quite amorphous. Phosphorus has two allotropic forms: one\ncrystallized, white and transparent, and easily set on fire; the\nother, deep reddish-brown, amorphous, and inflamed with much less\nease. Each of these elementary bodies thus assumes appearances as\ndissimilar as if they were totally different bodies, possessed of a\nphysical character quite unlike each other. Well may Professor\nGregory, after this summary of the subject, add: \"the occurrence of\nsuch marked differences in the properties of elementary bodies is very\nremarkable, and of great interest in reference to the molecular\nconstitution of matter; but the subject has not yet been fully\ninvestigated.\"  [Footnote 125]\n\n  [Footnote 125: Inorg. Chemistry, pp. 44, 45.]\n\nThe speculations of another very distinguished chemist, Professor\nFaraday, in this field of recent observation, are worthy of place in\nthis collective testimony of modern science, to the imperfect\nacquaintance with the ultimate constitution of material substance\nattainable by any amount of study of its external properties or\nappearances. \"There was a time,\" says this eminent philosopher, \"and\nthat not long ago, when it was held among the fundamental doctrines of\nchemistry, that the same body always manifested the same chemical\nqualities; excepting only such variations as might be due to the three\nconditions of solid, liquid, and gas. This was held to be a canon of\nchemical philosophy, as distinguished from alchemy; and a belief in\nthe possibility of transmutation was held to be impossible, because at\nvariance {377} with this fundamental tenet. But we are now conversant\nwith many examples to the contrary; and, strange to say, no less than\nfour of the non-metallic elements, namely, oxygen, sulphur,\nphosphoros, and carbon, are subject to this modification. The train of\nspeculation which this contemplation awakens within us is\nextraordinary. If the condition of allotropism were alone confined to\ncompound bodies, that is to say, to bodies made up of two or more\nelements, we might easily frame a plausible hypothesis to account for\nit; we might assume that some variation had taken place in the\narrangements of their particles. But when a simple body, such as\noxygen, is concerned, this kind of hypothesis is no longer open to us;\nwe have only one kind of particle to deal with; and the theory of\naltered position is no longer applicable. In short, it does not seem\npossible to imagine a rational hypothesis to explain the condition of\nallotropism as regards simple bodies. We can only accept it as a fact,\nnot to be doubted, and add the discovery to that long list of truths\nwhich start up in the field of every science, in opposition to our\nmost cherished theories and long received convictions.\"  [Footnote\n126]\n\n  [Footnote 126: Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, pp. 115, 116.]\n\nThose persons who have resisted the evidence of Catholic revelation on\nthe _prim\u00e2 facie_ ground that sound philosophy and a knowledge of the\nphysical phenomena of nature are directly opposed to some of its\ndoctrines, must begin, we should think, to feel their position a\nlittle less impregnable than it seemed before such sentiments as these\nwere warranted by the actually established facts of modern science.\nWith such evidence of its recent fruits, we may be well satisfied to\nwatch with interest and congratulation the progress of philosophical\ninquiry conducted in such a spirit; not so much for our own sakes, to\nwhom, indeed, no analogies afforded by any human science could add\nanything in the way of confirmation to what we have been taught by\ndivine testimony, transmitted through the church of Christ to our\nremote age; but for the sake of the erring and the doubting among the\nintellectual minds of our fellow-countrymen; with the hope that their\nattention might be arrested and turned in the direction plainly enough\nindicated by such analogies. With one more extract, we must take leave\nof Professor Faraday's highly interesting volume; only begging as many\nof our readers as are interested in such pursuits to purchase it, and\nstudy it for themselves. After pointing out the difference between\ncommon and allotropic phosphorus, he continues: \"We can scarcely\nimagine to ourselves a more complete opposition of qualities than is\nhere presented in these two conditions of phosphorus; an opposition\nnot limited by merely physical manifestations of density or\ncrystallographic form, but recognizable through all the phases of\nsolution, thermal demeanor, and physiological effect The metamorphosis\nhas, in fact, been so complete, that we can only demonstrate the\nallotropical substance _to be_ phosphorus, by reducing it to its\noriginal state, and subjecting it to ordinary tests. If the forces\ndetermining its constitution had been so balanced that the power of\nreduction were denied to us, then the substance we now call\n_allotropic phosphorus_ must necessarily, according to the strictest\npropriety of logic, have been admitted to be not phosphorus, but some\nother body. It is impossible, rationally, to deny that such permanent\nincontrovertibility may not lie within the power of natural laws to\neffect. That we are not aware of such an example, cannot be accepted\nas a proof of its non-existence; and analogy, the guidance to which we\nrefer when direct testimony fails, is in favor of the affirmative.\"\n[Footnote 127] From the great powers of analysis at the command of\nthis distinguished physicist, directed as much by the courage as by\nthe wisdom and the candid spirit of true philosophy, it is impossible\nto say {378} what further insight into the constitution of matter may\nnot hereafter be obtained. Such an instance is surely of itself a full\njustification of our sanguine hopes for the future of science in its\nrelation to what has been revealed by eternal and unchanging truth.\n\n  [Footnote 127:  Lectures, etc., pp.42, 43.]\n\nRather by way of indication than of summary of the reflections\nsuggested by these inquiries, we would ask, how is it that the almost\nillimitable extension of gross material elements should be accepted\nwithout hesitation, while the possibility of the spiritual and\nglorified body of the Lord existing, without division or\nmultiplication of itself, in every Catholic tabernacle, and also in\nheaven, is regarded as so wildly impossible, and even monstrous a\nconception, as to be scouted at the bare mention of it? When\nphilosophy expects us to believe that black, crumbling charcoal, and\nthe hard, shining diamond, are one and the same simple substance, why\nshould it be thought in the nature of things so incredible as at once\nto preclude all further examination of the evidence on which it rests,\nthat the substance of the Child of Bethlehem, of the risen and\nascended Lord, and of the most holy eucharist, are one and the same.\nWe are far from saying that the mode of existence is the same in all\nthese instances; we only claim for revelation what is conceded to\nscience; that appearances should not be held, _in limine,_ conclusive\nof the question, nor be allowed to outweigh or prejudice other\nevidence; for in every province of the universe of knowledge things\nare not what they seem. If what exists, or may exist, is to be limited\nby what human organs of sense can perceive, the boundaries of\nknowledge shrink into the narrowest compass: the eye and ear of an\ninfant are enthroned as the judges of the constitution of nature;\ndiscovery and the progress of science are no more, or would never have\nbeen; mankind would yet be sunk in the imbecility of its primitive\nignorance.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nNext to the fallacious testimony of the human senses, and the hidden\nnature of material substance, the subtle influences at work in the\nphysical world seem very remarkably to indicate some curious analogies\nbetween the constitution of matter in its finer forms, and the nature\nof spiritual agencies. Recent analysis of the solar beam, for\ninstance, has revealed rays hitherto unknown, because invisible to the\nacutest vision unaided by the appliances of science, and for long\nconcealed even from its piercing scrutiny, but yielding at last to the\nrefinements of modern investigation. These invisible rays have been\nproved to exercise most important functions in nature; in the\ngermination and vegetation of plants, and other widely multiplied\nphysical processes. There are few who have not heard much of the\nmagnetic and electric currents which permeate every portion of the\nsurface of the globe and its surrounding atmosphere; but we imagine\nthat not so many are aware of the powerful influence which they\npossess in the economy of our planet. \"There is strong presumptive\nevidence,\" says Mrs. Somerville, \"of the influence of the electric and\nmagnetic currents on the formation and direction of the mountain\nmasses and mineral veins; but their slow persevering action on the\nultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond a doubt by the\nformation of rubies, and other gems, as well as various other mineral\nsubstances by voltaic electricity.\"  [Footnote 128] And, in another\nplace, in the same instructive work, she remarks, that \"it would be\ndifficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through the\ncomplicated mazes of magnetism and electricity; the action of the\nelectric current on the polarized sunbeam, one of the most beautiful\nof modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto unsuspected\nbetween that power and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible\ninfluences on solar light, by {379} one of which nature has recently\nbeen made to paint her own likeness.\"  [Footnote 129] These\ninfluences, for all their subtlety, have a real, appreciable\nexistence, and fulfil a definite and beneficent end. A curious example\nof the subserviency of the invisible magnetic current to the wants of\nmen is mentioned by Humboldt as having occurred to himself, in one of\nhis voyages off the west coast of South-America. Bad weather had\nprevailed for several days, so as to shut out all view of land, or of\nthe sun and stars. The crew were in expectation of making a particular\nport on that coast: on consulting his dip-needle, the scientific\npassenger discovered that the ship had passed the latitude of its\ndestined port; the ship's course was altered, and much delay and,\nprobable, danger avoided.  [Footnote 130] Nor are the agencies\ndestructive to human life less subtile or recondite. Various miasmata\nof a pestilential character defy every refinement of chemical analysis\nto detect the cause of their mischievous operation, or the difference\nof their elementary constitution from that of pure and wholesome air.\nThe most universal, and, as far as our knowledge serves, the most\nimportant of all physical influences, that of gravitation, is also the\nsubtlest and most occult; traversing the vast regions of space with\ninstantaneous speed, and pervading the remotest fields of the great\nuniverse of matter; penetrating without sensible interval of time to\ndistances far beyond the utmost reach of human thought, with a force\nwhich maintains the stars of heaven in their courses, and gives\nstability to every known material system.\n\n  [Footnote 128: Physical Geography, II., chap. xxii. pp. 92.]\n\n  [Footnote 129: Physical Geography, II., xxxiii. pp. 400, 401.]\n\n  [Footnote 130: Cosmos, I. 171; III. 139.]\n\nIf these occult agencies in the material world are recognized as\nfulfilling their mission, for all their secrecy and subtlety, or\nrather, by means of these very characteristics, why is the possibility\nof a hidden yet efficient agency in the spiritual world denounced as a\nheresy against common sense and sound philosophy? The physical system\nof things has its great laboratory of decomposition and reconstruction\nkept in operation by these unseen influences; it is indebted to them\nfor the maintenance of its existence. Science rejoices to measure them\nby their admirable results, to detect their operations in their\nsensible effects. Why must the sacramental system revealed in the\nspiritual world be with equal justice refused its claim to an agency\nhardly more subtle? Philosophers admit the truth of observations in\nthese occult natural agencies, and have no doubt of their real\nexistence; why do they so contemptuously regard the result of our\nobservations in those which are secret and spiritual, when our\nobservations are as numerous, and their evidence as good?\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nThe whole question of the relation of space and time becomes one of\nvast interest and importance, in connection with a common objection\nmade to the possibility of our holding communication with the saints\nand angels in heaven, as Catholics are taught to believe they may.\nAcross a space of such unknown vastness, it is alleged that the idea\nof transmitting a wish or a prayer is contrary to every principle of\nphilosophy. Now, assuming, what indeed has never been proved, that the\nheaven of the blessed is as remote from our daily path as some\nmaintain it to be, and without entering here into the abstract\nquestion as to whether the idea of space or of time is the older and\nsimpler, some considerations are suggested by the study of modern\nscientific principles, which may throw light on the objection just\nstaled, and may help us to ascertain its real worth.\n\nIt is evident that time and space may be made a measure of each other.\nThe distance from one point in space to another may be expressed in so\nmany units of time, say a minute, an hour, or a day, required to\ntraverse the intervening distance at a given velocity. Hence, if\nvelocity of motion {380} from point to point be represented by the\nsimple formula of (Space/Time) we obtain two other formulas\nrepresenting; time and space, respectively, in terms of each other.\n\n  Thus,  if   Velocity = Space/Time\n\n  Then,   Time = Space/Velocity\n\n  and   Space  =  Time X Velocity.  [Footnote 131]\n\n\n\n    [Footnote 131: For example, call Velocity 40 miles and hour, and\n    Time 10 hours; then Space = 40 X 10 = 400 miles; or call Space 400\n    miles, Velocity being the same, then Time = 400/40 = 10 hours.]\n\nThere is a little instrument much valued by philosophical observers,\nbut of no great intricacy in itself, which is at once an unerring\nmeasure of space and time; we mean a common pendulum oscillating\nseconds in a given level, say of London, at a given level, say of the\nsea, other conditions, as of the thermometer, etc., being the same.\nThis instrument, beating seconds, is an invariable measure of length;\nin the latitude of London, for example, at the level of the sea, with\nthermometer at 62\u00b0 Fahr., it is invariably 39.1393 inches long. And,\nconversely, provide such an instrument of the length just mentioned,\nand set it a-going; its oscillations will exactly measure out one\nsecond of time. Further, as a measure of length, it enables us to\nascertain the weight of a cubic inch of water, in parts of a pound\ntroy, whence the imperial standards of weight and capacity are\nderived. Hence a pendulum is a constant representative of space, in\nits length; and of time, in its oscillation. At any point on the\nsurface of the globe, a rod of a certain given length will invariably,\nin similar circumstances, beat seconds; and a rod, beating seconds as\nit swings, will invariably measure a certain fixed length, according\nto the latitude. Why it does so, does not enter into our arguments\nnow; it is enough that the fact is ascertained, and is one of the very\ncommonest application to practise. Every good house-clock is evidence\nof it In the same town, for instance, the seconds' pendulums of all\nregularly-going clocks are of equal length to the minute fraction of\nan inch; and all pendulums, of the same length exactly, keep the same\ntime exactly. In other words, space is made a measure of time, and\ntime is a measure of space.\n\nWe said, just now, that space may be represented in terms of time, and\ntime in those of space, the rate of Velocity being given. London is\nsaid to be ten hours from Edinburgh, when the transit is made at the\nrate of forty miles an hour. \"As long as it would take to go to\nLondon,\" may be given as an expression equivalent to ten hours, at the\nsame rate of motion. But vary that rate, and the terms used instantly\nrepresent very variable quantities. Ten hours from London, at the rate\nof a pedestrian travelling his four miles an hour, represent an\ninsignificant distance of only forty miles; \"as long as it would take\nto go to London\" now expresses a period of a hundred hours, or more\nthan four days. But take the wings of light, and instantly the\ndistance supposed, if expressed in terms of time, dwindles to a minute\nportion of a second; even this is long, if you measure the space by\nthe flash transmitted along the electric wire. Leaving the\ncomparatively insignificant spaces on the surface of the globe for\nthose vaster distances which divide planet from planet and from the\nsun, the time of 8 minutes 3.3 seconds, which the solar light takes to\ntravel from its source to our globe may be taken as an expression of\nits distance from that luminary. Nay, there is a rate of velocity\nsurpassing all these, bridging over the vast span of Neptune's orbit,\nfor example, or the vaster diameter of a comet's path, in a unit of\ntime too minute for the subtlest human instruments or calculations to\nappreciate. We mean the force or influence of gravitation, which,\never since the first moment when the sun and the planets were created,\nhas been passing instantaneously from the centre of the solar system\nto every part, {381} even the most distant, of his wide empire, and\nback again from its furthest point to his centre.\n\nNow, it is evident that if you undertake to express the distance of\nsun from planet in terms of the time, at this rate of velocity, it is\nreduced to nothing. The sun is as effectually present, for instance,\nin his all-important gravitating influence, at every instant of time,\nin the planet Neptune, nearly three thousand millions of miles away,\nas the hand of the schoolboy is present at the end of his sling, while\nhe whirls it round his head, and retains the stone in its place by the\nstring. Cut the string, and the stone flies off; suspend for an\ninstant the influence, or force, or attraction, or whatever you please\nto call it, which binds Neptune to the sun, and he flies off in a path\nmore eccentric than any comet's.\n\nThere are two ways of spanning distance: one by actual, bodily\ntransit; another by the transmission of an impulse or wave, propagated\nand repeated along the space intervening, in some medium more or less\nmobile or subtle. The planetary motions are good examples of the\nactual translation of bodies through space: this earth of ours\nsweeping along, in its orbit round the sun, at a rate of something\nlike nineteen miles in a second, or 68,000 miles in an hour, besides\nits rotatory motion on its axis of 24,000 miles every day. The planet\nVenus exceeds this velocity, travelling at the rate of 80,000 miles an\nhour; while Mercury, in the same time, accomplishes 109,360 miles.\nEven this inconceivable velocity is far surpassed by the comet of\n1843, which, with a tail two millions of miles long, and a nucleus\napparently larger than our globe, swept round the sun, at its\nperihelion, at the rate of 366 miles, or nearly the distance from\nEdinburgh to London, in one second.  [Footnote 132]\n\n  [Footnote 132: Outline of Astronomy, \u00a7590, 593.]\n\nVelocities of impulse exceed those of bodily translation; that is,\nsupposing we may class among examples of wave motion the transmission\nof sound, light, electricity, and perhaps gravitation. Dr. Lardner\nmentions his having, on one occasion, in company with Leverrier,\nwritten a message by electric telegraph, at a distance of more than a\nthousand miles, and at the rate of 19,500 words in an hour, or of 5.5\nwords in a second.  [Footnote 133] At a similar distance, and indeed\nat a much greater, a steel bar may be made to vibrate fourteen\nthousand miles in a second.   [Footnote 134] Such a velocity evidently\nfar surpasses the power of human comprehension. Even in regard to the\nless rapid transmission of light, the eminent astronomer Bessel\ncandidly confesses that \"the distance which light traverses in a year\nis not more appreciable to us, than the distance which it traverses in\nten years. Therefore, every endeavor must fail to convey to the mind\nany idea of a magnitude exceeding what is accessible on the earth.\"\n[Footnote 135]\n\n  [Footnote 133: Museum of Science and Art, part viii. p. 116.]\n\n  [Footnote 134: Ib., Part ix. p. 201.]\n\n  [Footnote 135: Quoted, Cosmos, iii. 85.]\n\nNow, even supposing that we are acquainted with all the methods which\nexist in nature for spanning vast distances, and if, as we have shown,\ndistance may be expressed in terms of the time taken to travel over\nit, or transmit a communication across it, the thought forcibly\noccurs. What is distance, if viewed apart from the means at disposal\nfor overpassing it? A friend in the next room is not nearer us than\nanother in the next continent, if in the same interval of time we can\ncommunicate with either. To be sure, one of them we might see sooner\nthan the other, but sight is no necessary means of communicating; the\nblind are forever debarred from it. Man can communicate with man, even\nmaterially, without either sight or hearing; and far beyond the range\nof either.\n\nBut who shall be bold enough to say that other and subtler methods of\ncommunication may not exist in the material universe? or that the\nworld of spirit has none more vivid than those subtle currents which\npermeate the world of matter? To a generation or two ago, the means of\ntransmitting intelligence, which are now quite familiar to us, would\nhave seemed fabulous; a little further back in the history of Europe,\ntheir discovery might have involved the penalty due to witchcraft. If\nthe passage of a material impulse across the wide orbit of Neptune\nunites him intimately at every moment with the sun, is there any\ndistance that can be said absolutely to present an impassable gulf to\nthe intercourse of spirit with spirit? Or, can it be said that some\nsuch means of communication do not, and cannot exist, because human\nsenses do not perceive them, nor human intelligence comprehend them?\nTransmission by impulse surpasses in velocity every known instance of\nactual, bodily translation: why must what we yet know of the former be\nfixed as the limit of what is possible? Why may there not be some\nmeans of communication surpassing in swiftness the flash of the\nlightning, or the influence of gravitation, as far as it exceeds the\nsweep of the comet or the slow progress of the pedestrian? Why must it\nbe pronounced an idle dream, that we may hold one end of a chain of\nimpulses vibrating from earth to heaven, lying along the future track\nof our emancipated and purified spirits?\n\nAnd pursuing analogy one step further, it is no severe demand on the\nimagination to conceive that the universal presence of God, which\nembraces and interpenetrates the immensity of space, may be, to the\nsubtle and vivid impulses from spirit to spirit, what, in another\norder of things, the elastic ether of the planetary and sidereal\nspaces is to vibrations of material creation; that it may fulfil for\nthose similar functions of propagation and transmission. In him who is\neverywhere, at every instant, and forever, intelligence may easily be\nconceived to pass between the remotest points of space, with a speed\nnot slower than coexistence itself; for any him there is no passage or\nmotion either in time or space; he is the one indivisible Eternal,\nhere and now.\n\nV.\n\nWe are forcibly struck, while referring to the discoveries of modern\nscience, with the very slender ground on which the mass even of\neducated persons accept their most astonishing and improbable results.\nHow many persons of all those who talk, with much fluency and show of\nknowledge on subjects of physical science, have tested, by their own\nobservation, the truth of one of the phenomena which they converse\nabout? How many persons, for instance, who tell us that light and heat\nin the same ray have been separated, have actually proved it by\npersonal experiment, or even seen it proved by another? How many\npersons are there at this moment in England and Scotland who have\nverified by their own observation and calculation the size and figure\nof the earth, or its distance from the sun and moon; not to mention\nother more intricate problems in physics, of which they have no\npersonal knowledge whatever? The mass of mankind are content to\nreceive these things on sufficient testimony of men competent, or whom\nthey deem competent, to inform them on such subjects. Here, at least,\nin the domain of science, there is no exaltation of private judgment,\nno rebellion against scientific authority; and it is a wise and a just\narrangement that it should be so. There are not many men, in any age,\nfurnished with the intellectual outfit necessary for such\nverifications; a lifetime would not be sufficient to enable one man to\naccomplish them all. Sir John Herschel has the following admirable\nremarks, which are very much to our present purpose. \"What mere\nassertion will make any one believe, that in one second of time, in\none beat of a pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000\nMiles, and would therefore perform the tour {383} of the world in\nabout the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in\nmuch less than a Swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What\nmortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is\nalmost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so\nremote from us that a cannon ball shot directly toward it would be\ntwenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the earth by its\nattraction in an appreciable instant of time? But what are these to\nthe astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed,\nwhich teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of\nlight passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements,\nregularly occurring at equal intervals, no less than five hunted\nmillions of millions of times in a single second? That it is by such\nmovements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see; nay,\nmore, that it is the frequency of their recurrence which affects us\nwith the sense of the diversity of color. That, for instance, in\nacquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred\nand eighty-two millions of millions of times; of yellowness, five\nhundred and forty-two millions of millions of times; and of violet,\nseven hundred and seven millions of millions of times in a second.\nThese are nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most\ncertainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the\nchain of reasoning by which they have been obtained.\"\n\nIf Theology, or the science of God and his revealed will, is, as might\nhave been expected, not less, but more recondite than any other, as\nits objects are vaster, more remote from human understanding, than\nthose of any other science; surely, on philosophical principles, it is\nnot unreasonable that authority should have its weight here, also, and\nequal measure at least to be dealt to all. Yet the modern world is\nagreed in ridiculing and denouncing the principle of authority in\nreligious matters, as the bane of human society; and in exalting\nprivate judgment and opinion, as the Christian's only ultimate appeal\nin the matter. Apply this principle of independence to any other\nscience, to any subject of human knowledge, or to any object of\nintelligent inquiry; and a race of sciolists, pedants, and sceptics\nwould inevitably result. The authority of great names in science would\nlose all its just honor; there would be no system, no progress in\nobservations; thousands of persons, incompetent to do more than deny\nthe conclusions of the learned and the able, would refuse their assent\nto these, till the impossible time should arrive, when, by actual and\npersonal investigation, they should be pleased to pronounce judgment\non the accuracy of these conclusions; life would be consumed in\nnegation; mutual trust and deference to superior knowledge and\ncapacity would be annihilated. Whether in this incompatibility of\nprivate judgment with its best interests, and even with its stability,\nRevelation is very different from Science, we leave to the study of\nour readers, and to their observation of the fine gradations of\nindependent judgment which conduct from Luther to Strauss; the former\nof whom began by denying the pope, and the latter ended by impugning\nthe divinity of Jesus Christ.\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe principle of authority and its correlative, subordination and\ndependence, is represented, in a remarkable manner, in the\nconstitution of physical nature, especially in the province of\nastronomy. It is a remark of Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise,\n[Footnote 136] \"that the relations among the planets is uniformly, not\nco-ordinate, but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence\nof their primaries; primaries to that of the central sun; the central\nsun itself to a higher and more distant centre; in a sublimer material\nhierarchy, ascending in gradations of {384} immense numerical\nmagnitude; and thus while insuring the stability of the whole\nplanetary and stellar systems, ultimately, as every analogy teaches\nus, making one grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a\npoint of space whose distance we cannot even imagine.\"\n\n  [Footnote 136: Bohn's Edition, p. 175.]\n\nIn his remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the squares of\nthe times of planetary revolution round the sun are proportional to\nthe cubes of their mean distances from that central luminary, Sir J.\nHerschel has the following pertinent observations, \"Of all the laws to\nwhich induction from pure observation has ever conducted man, this\nthird law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly be regarded as the\nmost remarkable, and the most pregnant with important consequences.\nWhen we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system, from the\npoint of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere\nanalogy which strikes us--no longer a general resemblance among them,\nas individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the\nsun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it\nby its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a true\n_family_ likeness; they are bound up in one chain--interwoven in one\nweb of mutual relation and harmonious agreement--subjected to one\npervading influence, which extends from the centre to the furthest\nlimits of that great system; of which all of them, the earth included,\nmust henceforth be regarded as members.\"  [Footnote 137 ]\n\n  [Footnote 137: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix \u00a7489.]\n\nThe remarks of the same great philosopher on the systems of double\nstars, in a later part of his work on astronomy, bear still more\ndirectly on the view we are proposing. \"It is not with the revolutions\nof bodies of a planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that\nwe are now concerned; it is with that of sun round sun--each, perhaps,\nat least in some binary systems, where the individuals are very\nremote, and their period of revolution very long, accompanied with its\ntrain of planets and their satellites, closely shrouded from our view\nby it the splendor of their respective suns, and crowded into a space\nbearing hardly a greater proportion to the in enormous interval which\nseparates them, than the distance of the satellites of our planets\nfrom their primaries bear to their distances from the sun itself. A\nless distinctly characterized subordination would be incompatible with\nthe stability of their systems, and with the planetary nature of their\norbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their immediate\nsuperior, the sweep of another sun in its perihelion passage round\ntheir own might carry them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly\nincompatible with the conditions necessary for the existence of their\ninhabitants. It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and\nnovel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is not easy\nto avoid luxuriating in.\"   [Footnote 138]\n\n  [Footnote 138: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi. \u00a7 847.]\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe phenomena of nature or suggest an interesting view all of law in\ngeneral, which we shall in a few words faintly outline. It is\nconstantly urged as an objection to the doctrine of revelation\nregarding the Blessed Eucharist, for example, that it is contrary\nphilosophy, inasmuch as it assumes and implies the suspension of a\nuniversal law, which connects certain definite accidents or qualities\nof matter invariably with their corresponding substance; for in the\nHoly Eucharist the properties, qualities, or accidents of one\nsubstance are attached to another.\n\nBy a \"_Law_\" in physics no more can be understood than a deduction\nfrom a sufficiently large series of observed facts, establishing, from\nlong and tearful and extensive observation, a uniformity of result in\nthe same given circumstances. Some laws are said to be \"empirical,\"\nwhich though derived from careful noting of invariably {385} recurring\nphenomena, enunciate no principle, or rationale, but merely the\nnumerical result of observation. Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary\nmotion, and Bode's law of planetary distances from the sun, are\ninstances of law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of\ngravitation is said to furnish the principle which is involved in\nKepler's formula of details; because once Newton's law is admitted as\ngoverning planetary motion, what Kepler observed of the movements of\nthe planets, can be deduced by calculation. It would be perhaps more\nphilosophical, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard even\nthe most apparently elementary and fundamental law as only empirical,\nand the ultimate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this\nview, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would be said to lie\nonly one step nearer the ultimate principle than the earlier and more\nempirical. Probably there is no ultimate principle nearer than the\ndivine volition.\n\nIn fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philosophers as\nsomething short of the ultimate solution of material attraction and\nrepulsion; they are groping their way, at this moment, to something\nmore universal than that law, as may be gathered from the following\nobservations of Sir J. Herschel: \"No matter from what ultimate cause\nthe power which is called gravitation originates--be it a virtue\nlodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without,\nor the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids,\nmagnetic or electric ethers, or impulses--still, when finally brought\nunder our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy,\nits direction is _from_ many points on all sides _toward_ the sun's\ncentre.\"  [Footnote 139]\n\n  [Footnote 139: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. \u00a7490.]\n\nWhence is this uncertainty about the probable nature of this force?\nBecause, universal as it has been thought, it fails in certain\ncircumstances, as in some electrical conditions, and within very small\ndistances; when the relation of material particles to one another is\none of repulsion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is\ncalled, that fluids will always rise as high as their source, and no\nhigher. The phenomena of capillary attraction prove that this law does\nnot hold in all cases. The chemical law of atomic combination is\nsometimes found signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like\nthese, are good only as far as they go; there are limits to their\napplication.\n\nWhy may not this be true in regard to the law which is said to\nmilitate against the doctrine of the blessed Eucharist? It may hold\ngood for a thousand instances, and may fail in the next, like other\nphysical laws; and that instance may be the very one of this revealed\ndoctrine. _Exceptio probat regulam_ is a sound rule in a certain\nsense; it tells the other way, however, when the absolute\nimpossibility even of an exception is maintained in regard to any\nphysical law.\n\nBut, in fact, we see that this law of relation between quality, or\naccident, and substance, is very uncertain in its application to many\nconditions of matter. Modern discovery has much diminished the number\nof the properties, or qualities, of matter; and has proved that even\nthese are by no means constant in the same substance, nor always\nvariable in different substances; so that one substance often looks to\nevery sense, like another, wholly different; and \"behaves,\" like it,\nin a variety of ways; while the same substance has sometimes more than\none mode of appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity\nbetween material substance and its properties; if there is any law on\nthe subject, it is the other way; and the result of discovery seems\nclearly to demonstrate that we know absolutely nothing of the nature\nof substance.\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nClosely connected with this view of law is the interesting subject is\n{386} throughout nature, but especially in the motions and temporary\ndisturbances in the heavenly spaces, and which afford, in fact, the\nbest evidence of the stability of the vast system of creation. A\nvariation is observed in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for\ninstance, of which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's\nmotion round her primary; it might seem as if, at some vastly remote\nperiod in future time, the total derangement of our planetary system\nmust ensue; but calculation has assured us that there is a point, far\nshort of that, at which there will occur a change; and in the lapse of\nages things will return to their original condition. Thus beyond an\nexception to law there is still Law existing supreme, regulating the\nconditions and the term of such exceptional existence. In a similar\nmanner, the law of storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion\nof definite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the tropical\nhurricane; so definite, and so completely under the control of\nobserved rule, that navigators are provided with certain instructions\nfor evading the overwhelming force of those terrible visitations. We\nthink of these cycles of apparent exception and departure from\nestablished order, in the physical world, when we hear objections made\nagainst this or that apparent anomaly in the spiritual and moral\ngovernment of God; till the principles and laws of one government are\nproved wholly unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular\nvariation not impossible in the one as it actually exists in the\nother; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the outward glory\nof his church, the prevalence of her enemies against her, for a longer\nor a shorter time; the exile of her chief pastor; the triumph of\niniquity in her glorious capital; convinced that erratic trains of\nevents like these are subject to law in the permission of him who\ngoverns as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an act of\nhis sovereign and omnipotent will.\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nFrom what has preceded, one or two general reflections occurred to an\nintelligent mind, somewhat to this effect. It seems that the  horizon\nof science has never been long stationary, and is now opening wider\nthen at any former period. Every science has passed through many\nstrange phases of empiricism, before reaching the philosophical basis\non which it now rests. All of them are disclosing facts and analogies\nundreamed of by our grandfathers. A very few years make a book on\nchemistry or physiology old and out of date. We are posting on to\nfurther knowledge; strange and unimagined relations between matter and\nmatter, and still stranger between matter and mind, are no doubt\nawaiting the detection of future discoverers; our children, or their\nchildren, will know more than we. A single sentence of Professor\nFaraday's reflections on the subject of Allotropism, is sufficient to\nopen a wide view of the possible career of science. \"The philosopher\nends,\" he says, \"by asking himself the questions, In what does\nchemical identity consists? In what will these wonderful developments\nof allotropism end? Whether the so-called chemical elements may not\nbe, after all, mere allotropic conditions of purer universal essences?\nWhether, to renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may\nthe only so many mutations of each other, by the power of science\nnaturally convertible? There was a time when this fundamental doctrine\nof the alchemists was opposed to known analogies; _it is now no longer\nopposed to them, but only some stages beyond their present\ndevelopment._\"  [Footnote 140]\n\n  [Footnote 140: Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.]\n\nIs it safe to trust to what are considered to be indications of\nphysical truth in a contest with moral evidence when the limits of\nphysical knowledge are so floating and ill defined? Is it safe to\nerect barriers of supposed physical laws against the entrance of\nconviction regarding the truths of {387} revelation, when recent\ndiscovery has established so much that tells on the side of faith;\nwhen it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to it;\nwhen future discovery may, and seems likely to push the advantage of\nrevelation still further into the domain of matter; when its\nindications have so many analogies to the doctrines of revealed truth?\nWe are sure, at least, that future discovery can take from us no\nadvantage which we at present derive from our knowledge of physical\nlaws; it cannot fail widely to extend that advantage, by enlarging our\nacquaintance with the laws of nature.\n\n\n\nX.\n\nThe natural termination of our reflections is the consideration of how\nshort a way we yet see into the constitution of Nature; how far we are\nstill from reaching the secrets of her vast operations. \"After all,\nwhat do we see?\" asks Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial\nObjects_. \"Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular) universe, our\nown, and all which optical assistance has revealed to us, may be only\nthe outlines of a cluster immensely more numerous. The millions of\nsuns we perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There are no\nbounds to infinitude; and the boldest views of the elder Herschel only\nplaced us as commanding a ken whose radius is some 35,000 times longer\nthan the distance of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace\nexclaim, 'That which we know, is little; that which we know not, is\nimmense.'\"  [Footnote 141] If, on the one hand, the discoveries of man\nin every department of material knowledge prove him to be in genius\nand intelligence only \"a little lower than the angels,\" the boundless\nexpanse of undiscovered worlds of investigation in his own and distant\nsystems may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest\nphilosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in part.\n\n  [Footnote 141: Vol. ii. Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.]\n\nIf so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine government can never be\na safe or a philosophical guide to direct us in accepting or rejecting\nwhatever comes to us claiming to be from the author and sustainer of\nthat government, as revelation does. It can never be safe even as a\npreliminary guide; as an ultimate rule to test the value of\nrevelation, it is totally disqualified. Till we know all, we can say\nnothing of what is possible or impossible, probable or the reverse. We\ncan understand a person to whom the claims of revelation on his assent\nwere new and strange, hesitating to accept it at all, till its\ncredentials had been examined, and their evidence ascertained; but\nonce that process is concluded, and a revelation established, we\ncannot understand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of\nhuman knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum of revealed truth\nwhat seems to it intelligible, and accepting that, while rejecting\nwhatever it considers to be the reverse; and maintaining that, because\nit cannot comprehend the mysterious things of revelation, therefore\nthey cannot be from God. The only course, at once safe and\nphilosophical, is to accept the whole of what is presented to us,\nwithout questioning its coincidence, or otherwise, with our previous\nviews of what is likely or befitting; with our present notions of what\nis intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem in its doctrines\nunintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even contradictory: clouds of\ndoubts may seem to hover over it; storms of conflicting principles and\nlaws and assumptions, subversive, as we think, of the course of\nnature, may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-top, and\nthe clouds are left far beneath; the roaring of the storm cannot be\nheard so high. Descend a little way into the deep, and the agitation\nof its surface ceases; silence and order and everlasting rest are\nestablished there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of\nGod, as manifested in his material government, or the higher we ascend\nin contemplating his modes {388} of action in nature, the nearer we\nshall approach to the vision of that perfect harmony and nice\nadjustment of every part of his vast creation, the full disclosure of\nwhich will recreate our intelligence in the light of his eternal\nbeauty. It cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every\nnew step in science, at every discovery of the secret powers of\nnature. We welcome the advance of physical science as a pioneer of the\nultimately victorious progress of revealed truth, which shall\ndemonstrate its intimate harmony with all that is known of the divine\noperations in the constitution of nature.\n\nMeanwhile, we can afford to wait \"till the day breaks and the shadows\nflee away.\" The veil will one day be withdrawn, and we shall see, eye\nto eye. Influences and agencies which it has not yet been given to man\neven to imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us; as\nwhen the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, and he beheld his\nmaster surrounded with chariots of fire and horses of fire. Things\nwill then be seen as they are, in the day of the manifestation of the\nsons of God. We can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us,\nalready, much that we cannot account for, on natural principles;\nstrong presentiments, and instincts of the supernatural and eternal\norder of things, are ever and ever crossing our path, stirring us with\nstrange and sudden and mysterious power; disposing us for the\nrevelations of the final day. A day of wonder; a day of benediction;\nbut not for those who have refused to believe because they could not\nsee, but for Christ's simple little ones, who were content to believe\nbefore, or without seeing; for whom it was enough that the great\nCreator had spoken to them by his Son, and since by his church; more\nthan enough, that, even here, they could recognize the subservience of\nphilosophy to faith; that they could perceive \"in outward and visible\nthings the type and evidence of those within the veil.\"\n\n------\n\nTHE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN.\n\n\n\nCopied from a print of the Blessed Virgin in a Catholic Village in\nGermany. Translated into English by E. T. Coleridge.\n\n  Dormi, Jesu! mater ridet\n  Quae tam dulcem somnam videt,\n    Dormi, Jesu! blandule!\n  Si non dormis, mater plorat,\n  Inter fila cantans orat,\n    Blande, veni, somnule.\n\n\n  Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:\n  Mother sits beside thee smiling;\n    Sleep, my darling, tenderly!\n  If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,\n  Singing as her wheel she turneth;\n    Come, soft slumber, balmily!\n\n--------\n\n{389}\n\nOriginal.\n\nCELTIC ANTHOLOGY AND POETIC REMAINS.\n\n\nThere is no people, the annals of which may not be separated into\nthree distinct periods, namely: the period of heroes and epico-poetic\nnarration; the period of myth, fable, and apotheosis; and the period\nof realistic and definitive history. Or, to range the whole in the\norder of historical sequence, the three distinctive phases of\nrace-annals may be formulated as follows:\n\n  1. The period of myth and apotheosis--which, among the European\n  races especially, constitutes the beginning of history.\n\n  2. The period of heroes and poetic annals--which forms a kind of\n  transition period.\n\n  3. The period of realistic definitive history, untinted with\n  imaginative glories--the beginning of which indicates the point in\n  race-history at which literary civilization commences.\n\nTo the analysis of the first we apply the term _mythology_; but for\nthe second it happens that there is no term--unless we may be\npermitted so to deepen the sense of the word _anthology_ as to include\nwithin its sweep of definition, not only poetic extracts, but poetic\nmaterial and the logical analysis of that material. For the purposes\nof this paper, therefore, the word will be used in the sense\nsuggested, as including the poetic material of a people, and the\ndiscussion of any anthological idiosyncrasies therein manifested.\n\nThe use of the word being permitted--it happens that, however\nintricate and various in details, the _essential_ data of anthology\nare everywhere the same in classification, and everywhere susceptible\nof the same logical analysis. Without here pausing to specify reasons,\nwhich may be more conveniently specified hereafter--this division\ninto classes of _data_, needful because as yet no logicalization has\nbeen here attempted, may be effected with tolerable precision by\nrecurring to the usual analysis of a people's poetic material. The\nanalysis of these _data_--anthological because imaginative and\npoetic--may, therefore, be exhibited thus:\n\n  1. Mythology and semi-historical or moralistic fable.\n\n  2. Poetic annals and ancient waifs of ballad and song.\n\n  3. Household legends, fairy stories, and superstitions.\n\nIn the region of mythology the data have been collected and collated\nwith considerable thoroughness, especially by German _savans_; in the\nregion of poetic annals, only the general details have been subjected\nto analytic scrutiny; and in that of household lore and legend, saving\nthe collection of the Brothers Grimm, little has been effected in\ncomparison with the importance of the subject. Enough has been done,\nhowever, to demonstrate, not only the applicability of the fore-made\nclassification, but also the singular analogical resemblance in minute\ndetails which exists between the household legends of any one people\nas compared with those of any other, and which, in analogy at least,\npoints to the original historical unity of the human race.\n\nNor is the analogy which bespeaks this unity to be limited to the\ngeneral analysis of class. Amid the vagaries of mythology and\napotheosis, amid the epic-annals of heroes and demi-gods, and, in\nshort, amid the more minute imaginings and superstitions {390} of\nevery people may be traced curious and often startlingly singular\nanalogical resemblances.\n\nThe Edda, weird, Northern and Gothic in the _ensemble_ of its\nimaginings, reproduces, otherwise nomenclated, the mythology of the\nGreek and of the Roman; the dim bat-winged Athor of mystical Egypt,\nwho presided under the shadows of the pyramids over the creation of\nbeauty, reappears, less mystically aureola'd, in the classical\n_mythos_ of Venus; and the ghoul of the desert-inhabiting\nSaracen--most Arabic of all Arabs--haunts the woodlands and\nwaste-places of Germany, as illusive and wine-dispensing Elle-maid; in\nshort, in all forms of superstition and in all moods of anthology\nthere is an essential unity--a unity having its root in the general\nunity of the human imagination. For, the imagination, however through\nthe operation of local causes its dreams may be tipped with\nrainbow-tints or imbued with shadowy sublimity--is one in the\never-varying rhythm of its creations, and one in the vague palaces of\nfantasy which it uprears. Valleys and palaces of ideal loveliness it\nmay evoke--visions to which Poe weds expression in the weird imagery\nof his Haunted Palace:\n\n  \"And travellers in that happy valley,\n  Through two luminous windows, saw\n  Spirits moving musically\n  To a lute's well-tun\u00e9d law;\"\n\nOr, again, valleys and palaces of lunatic ghastliness and\nsuperstition--visionary lunacies, which Poe graphically, though\nsomewhat metaphorically, depicts in his own modification of the above\nrhythm-painting:\n\n  \"And travellers now within that valley.\n  Through the red-litten windows, see\n  Vast forms that move fantastically\n  To a discordant melody.\"\n\nBut, whether the music be discordant or well-tuned, the humanity of\nits note cannot be mistaken; and whether the creations of the human\nintellect be palaces of loveliness or pagodas of ghastliness, they\nstill bear the unmistakable impress of man's toiling after the\nideal--of the vague, restless, and unsatisfied yearning for the lost\nideal of his being, to compass which he toils and struggles and\ndreams. In this essential unity of human imagination is grounded the\nessential unity of the _data_ of anthology, and hence its marvellous\nand minute analogical resemblances.\n\nAnthology having never been reduced to definitive system, it happens\nthat no little of its critical material exists only in lumbering and\nuncollated masses. Indeed, not a little of that which might have been\nvaluable as material has been permitted to rot in mildewed\nmanuscript--for need of appreciation of its real value on the part of\nscholars--instead of having been (as it should have been) treasured\nand preserved, as the pabulum of thought and science; and yet more\nremains uncollected, and will so remain until a more valid\ncomprehension of its value shall have been impressed upon the minds of\nspectacled professors who are usually the last to comprehend that in\nthe comprehension of which they ought to be first. But,\nnotwithstanding this apparent apathy and neglect on the part of the\nlearned, there are, still, certain problems of history which can only\nbe unriddled with this key--that of comparative anthology--as, for\ninstance, the exploits of Joan d'Arc; a hundred riddles of mental\nphilosophy there are, which can not be unravelled without it; and, in\nevery language, multitudes of words are based, as to their peculiar\nshades of significance, upon anthological criticism. Thus the\n_nightmare_ is the _demon which haunts the night_; the _Huguenots_\nwere _imps of the woods_--from _Hugon_, the demon of the\nwoodlands;--and not not as a learned dean supposes the _people\neidgenossen_; and a _seer_ is simply a _see-er_, that is, one who has\nthe gift of the second sight.\n\n{391}\n\nA minute knowledge of anthology--we here use the term to denote that\nblossoming of events and moral ideas into imaginative forms, which\nconstitutes most of that which we denominate the poetic material of a\npeople, is, therefore, in the highest degree necessary to the proper\ncomprehension of--\n\n  1. Historical criticism.\n  2. Comparative philology.\n  3. Mental philosophy--especially in those moods of mind of which\n  modern civilization furnishes no examples.\n\nTo take a familiar illustration. It has been over and over\ndemonstrated that, unless we deny the validity of the common\nprinciples of historical evidence, to admit the existence of that\npeculiar imaginative faculty denominated \"second sight\" is a\nnecessity. Nor is the faculty, if its existence be admitted,\nnecessarily to be accounted a preternatural gift--being simply the\nlogical result of the cultivation of certain impulses of human\nintellect seldom, in the experiences of modern society, evoked into\nactivity; being, in fact, the logical deduction of that scenery which\nsurrounded the Highlanders of Scotland, and of that mood of mind which\nwas their prevailing habit. Civilization develops no sublimity of\nmental strength, except in the region of reason. Moral sublimity is\nnot developed by communion with streets and avenues. Neither is\nimaginative insight--that which, in ultimate deduction, is\ninspiration--an inhabiter of palaces. Born of crags, of' mountains,\nand of the lurid and ghastly grandeur of the tempest--the imaginative\ninsight is the lightning of the mind, and like the lightning at\nmidnight reveals that which to the moon and stars is wrapped in\ndarkness. To educe the principle: the imaginative forms (anthology)\ninto which primitive moral ideas, rude reasonings, and epic-events\nblossom, are essentially modified by two ever-active causes, namely:\nidiosyncrasies of race and scenic surroundings. And hence, in reducing\nthe fragmentary imaginings of a people to scientific system, we are\ncompelled to keep constantly in view the idea of answering to the\nconditions of three problems:\n\n  1. Given the scenery of a country\n  and the idiosyncrasies of its people, and we may, in a general way,\n  indicate its anthology; or\n\n  2. Given the anthology and idiosyncrasies, and we may, with\n  tolerable accuracy, indicate the leading peculiarities of the\n  scenery; or\n\n  3. Given the scenery and anthology, and we may indicate, with\n  exactitude, the leading idiosyncrasies of the people.\n\nHaving indicated, by way of preface, the general scope of anthology\nand the value of its _data_, we shall devote the remaining portion of\nthis paper to the anthological relics of the Irish race, and\nespecially to its elfin and poetic phases.\n\nFairies are (among the Irish peasantry) still believed to exist, and\nto exercise no little influence over the affairs of mortals. They are\ngenerally represented as pigmies, and are, so runs the superstition,\noften seen dancing around solitary thorns, which are believed to be\namong their most frequented haunts. Hence the veneration of the\npeasantry for old solitary thorns--the peasantry believing that if\nthese thorns are cut down or maimed, the fairies are thereby provoked,\nand will either maim the person who has cut the tree, cause his cattle\nto sicken and die, or otherwise injure his property. Places supposed\nto be haunted by fairies are termed gentle, as likewise are several\nherbs, in gathering which a strange ritual is observed. If provoked by\nany person, it is believed that the fairies will steal and carry away\nthat which is dearest to that person, as his wife, or especially any\nmembers of his family in babyhood and before baptism. The castles in\nwhich the fairies dwelt were generally believed to be movable at the\npleasure of the proprietor, invisible to human eyes, and usually built\nin ancient forths or raths. Among the principal fairy kings were\nFirwar, whose castle was at Knock Magha, and Macaneantan, {392} whose\nfairy palace was at Sgraba. Whistling Hill (Knock-na-feadalea), in the\ncounty of Down, is still visited by hundreds of the peasantry, who,\nespecially on the last night in October, which is observed with\nsingular ceremonials, aver that they can hear the music of the fairies\nissuing from the hill. The following verses include the names of the\nprincipal places fabled to be inhabited by fairy kings:\n\n  \"Around Knock-Grein, and Knock-na-Rae,\n  Bin Builvia, and Keis Korain,\n  To Bin Eakhlan and Lokh Da-ean,\n  And thence north-east to Sleive Guilin.\n  They trod the lofty hills of Mugarna.\n  Round Sleive Denard and Beal-at-an-draigh.\n  Down to Daudrin, Dundroma, and Dunardalay,\n  Right forward to Knock-na-Feadalea.\"\n\nWhich was the route of procession on the night of the last of October,\nwhen a\u00ebrial spirits were supposed to be peculiarly active. The\nfollowing legend of Whistling Hill we extract from a collection of\nthese legends in the original Irish made by Rev. William Neilson,\nD.D., and printed by Hogan, No. 15 Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin, in 1808:\n\n  \"There was au honest, pious man, who lived formerly near the river,\n  by the side of the hill (Whistling Hill); and the vestiges of his\n  house may yet be seen. His name was Thady Hughes; and he had neither\n  wife nor family--his mother, an aged woman, keeping his house.\n\n  \"Thady went out on a Hallow-eve night to pray, as he was in the\n  habit of doing, on the bank of the river; and looking up to observe\n  the stars, he saw a dusky cloud from the south moving toward him as\n  if impelled by a whirl-wind, and heard the sound of horses just as\n  if a troop of cavalry were tramping along the valley. Thady noticed\n  that they all came over the ford and round the mountain.\n\n  \"Remembering that he had often heard it said, 'if you cast the dust\n  under your feet against the cloud, if the fairies have any human\n  being with them they are compelled to release him,' Thady seized a\n  handful of the gravel which was under his feet and hurled it, in the\n  name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, against the whirlwind:\n  whereupon fell down a strange lady, weak, faint, and wearily\n  moaning.\n\n  \"Thady started, but, imagining that the voice of the strange lady's\n  moaning was human, went to the spot where she fell, spoke to her,\n  and took her in his arms and carried her to his mother, who gave her\n  food--the lady eating but little.\n\n  \"They asked her few questions that night, knowing that she came from\n  the fairy castles. Besides, she appeared to be sick and sorrowful,\n  and did not seem to be in any mood for talking. The next morning,\n  however, she related her story, having first enjoined secrecy, which\n  Thady and his mother promised.\n\n  \"The strange lady's name was Mary Rourke, and she had formerly lived\n  in the county of Galway, where she was married to a young man named\n  John Joyce, who lived hard by Knock Magha. One year after her\n  marriage with Joyce, King Firwar and his host carried her away to\n  the fairy castle of Knock Magha, leaving something in the form of a\n  dead woman in her place which bulk was duly waked and buried.\n\n  \"She had been in Knock Magha nearly a year and was daily entertained\n  with dances and songs, notwithstanding she was in sorrow at having\n  been parted from her husband. At length the host of the castle told\n  her that her husband had married another woman; that, therefore, she\n  ought to indulge in grief no longer; and that Firwar and his family\n  were about to visit the province of Ulster, and intended to take her\n  with them. They set out at dawn from Knock Magha forth, both Firwar\n  and host; and many a fairy castle they visited from dawn till fall\n  of night, traveling all mounted on beautiful winged horses.\n\n  \"After they lost Mary, the fairies did not halt; for they were to\n  feast that Hallow-eve in the fairy castle of Sgraba, with the fairy\n  king, Macaneantan.\"\n\n{393}\n\nThe story adds that Thady Hughes married Mary Rourke, and that a\ndifficulty subsequently arose between Thady and John Joyce, who,\nhaving heard of the escape of the strange lady from the fairies, went\nto Thady's cottage and claimed her as his wife. The matter afterward\ncame before the bishop for adjudication, who adjudged that as Mary\nhad, to all appearances, died and been buried as the wife of John\nJoyce, she was under no obligation to be his wife after her death. And\nthus ends the legend.\n\nThe general similarity of the fairies as depicted in this legend to\nthose of Germany as illustrated in Goethe's Erl King, is obvious, and\nseems to argue either historical kin or identity of origin. In\nGoethe's ballad a corpse is left in the arms of the father. The\nversion subjoined is an anonymous newspaper version, but is so far\nsuperior to that of Mrs. Austin, that we quote it in preference:\n\n  \"Who rideth so late through the night wind lone?\n    Yet is a father with his son.\n\n  \"He foldeth him fast; he foldeth him warm;\n    He prayeth the angels to keep from him harm.\n\n  \"' My son, why hidest thy face so shy?'\n  \"' Seest thou not, father, the Erl King nigh?\n\n  \"'The Erlen King with his train, I wist?'\n  \"'My son, it is only the fog and mist.'\n\n  \"'Come, beautiful one, come away with me,\n    And merry plays will I play with thee!\n\n  \"'Ah! gay are the blossoms that blow by the shore,\n    And my mother hath many a plaything in store.'\n\n  \"'My father, my father, and dost thou not hear\n    What the Erlen King doth say in my ear?'\n\n  \"'Be still my darling, be still, my son,\n    Through the withered leaves the winds howl lone.'\n\n  \"'Come, beautiful one, come away with me,\n     My daughters are fair, they shall wait on thee!\n\n  \"'My daughters their nightly revellings keep,\n    They shall sing, they shall dance, they shall rock thee to sleep.'\n\n  \"' My father, my father, and seest thou not\n    The Erl King's daughters in yon wild spot?'\n\n  \"'My son, my son, I see, I wist,\n    It is the gray willow down there in the mist.'\n\n  \"'I woo thee; thy beauty delighteth my sense.\n    And, willing or not, shall I carry thee hence.'\n\n  \"'O father, the Erl King now puts forth his arm!\n    O father, the Erl King, he doeth me harm!'\n\n  \"The father rideth, he rideth fast\n    And faster rideth through the blast.\n\n  \"He spurreth wild, through the night wind lone,\n    And dead, in his arms, he holdeth his son.\"\n\nOf this topic--the folks-lore of the Irish peasantry--we shall here\ntake leave, merely hazarding the opinion that there is some remote\nhistorical connection between the Irish traditions of the\nidiosyncrasies and doings of elves and those of the Germanic races--a\nconnection probably dating from the Danish occupation of the country\nabout the seventh or eighth century. In the Irish poetic annals, which\nantedate the Danish occupation by several hundred years, no traces of\nelfin traditions can be detected; and the same is true of the Ossianic\nballads which McPherson has rather imperfectly collated, and between\nwhich and the several Celtic manuscripts there is a singular\nresemblance.\n\nThe collation of McPherson, valuable in many respects, is amenable to\nalmost fatal criticism, in that the sublimity of the Ga\u00eblic\ncomposition is marred by being twisted from the parallelism (which, in\nthe original, is analogous to the Hebraic) into the form of prose: the\nparallelism being in English--as in Ga\u00eblic, Celtic, and Hebrew--the\nmost effective form into which sublimity can be wrought. And to\ndemonstrate the truth of this proposition we need only to put portions\nof McPherson's prose version into the parallelistic form, and shall\nadopt for this purpose Fingal's interview with the spirit of Loda,\nthan which, uniquely considered, a poem of more overwhelming sublimity\nwas never written or conceived. Subjoined is McPherson's version:\n\n  \"A blast came from the mountain: on its wings was the spirit of\n  Loda. He came to his place in his terrors, and shook his dusky\n  spear. His eyes appear like flames in his dark face: his voice is\n  like distant thunder. Fingal advanced his spear in night, and raise\n  his voice on high. 'Son of night retire: call thy winds, and fly!\n  Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms? Shall I\n  fear thy gloomy form, spirit of dismal Loda? Weak is thy shield of\n  clouds; feeble is that meteor thy sword! The blast rolls them\n  together; and thou thyself art lost. Fly from my presence, son of\n  night! call thy winds and fly!'\n\n{394}\n\n  \"'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice. 'I\n  turn the battle in the field of the brave. I look on the nations,\n  and they vanish: my nostrils pour the blast of death. I come abroad\n  on the winds; the tempests are before my face. But my dwelling is\n  calm above the clouds; pleasant are the fields of my rest.'\n\n  \"'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' says the king. 'Let Comhal's son be\n  forgotten. Have my steps ascended from my hills into thy peaceful\n  plains? Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of dismal\n  Loda? Why then dost thou frown on me? Why shake thine airy sphere?\n  Thou frownest in vain: I never fled from the mighty in war; and\n  shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven? No--he knows\n  the weakness of their arms.'\n\n  \"'Fly to thy land,' replied the form; 'take to the wind, and fly!\n  The blasts are in the hollow of my hand: the course of the storm is\n  mine. Fly to thy land, son of Comhal, or feel my flaming wrath!'\n\n  \"He lifted high his shadowy spear! he bent forward his dreadful\n  height. Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of dark-brown\n  Luno. The gleaming path of the steel winds through the gloomy ghost.\n  The form fell shapeless into air.\"\n\nNow, let us put this in the form of the parallelism--a form into which\nthe sententious sublimity of the composition naturally falls, and in\nwhich nearly all these ancient Ga\u00eblic and Celtic epics occur in the\noriginal:\n\n  \"A blast came from the mountain:\n  On its wings was the spirit of Loda.\n  He came to his place in terrors,\n  And shook his dusky spear.\n  His eyes appear like flame in his dusky face:\n  His voice is like distant thunder.\n  Fingal advanced his spear into the night,\n  And raised his voice on high.\n  Son of night, retire;\n  Call thy winds, and fly!\n  Why dost thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms?\n  Shall I fear thy gloomy form, spirit of Loda?\n  Weak is thy shield of clouds;\n  Feeble is that meteor, thy sword.\n  The blast rolls them together:\n  And thou thyself art lost.\n  Fly from my presence, son of night!\n  Call thy winds, and fly!'\n  'Dost thou force me from my place?' replied the hollow voice.\n  'I turn the battle in the field of the brave,\n  I look on the nations and they vanish:\n  In my nostrils is the blast of death.\n  I came abroad on the winds:\n  The tempests are before my face,\n  But my dwelling is calm above the clouds;\n  Pleasant are my fields of rest.'\n  'Dwell in thy pleasant fields,' said the king.\n  'Let Comhal's son be forgotten.\n  Have my stops ascended from my hills into thy peaceful plains?\n  Have I met thee with a spear on thy cloud, spirit of the dismal Loda?\n  Why dost thou frown on me?\n  Why shake thy dusky spear?\n  Thou frownest in vain;\n  I never fled from the mighty in war;\n  And shall the sons of the wind frighten the king of Morven?\n  He knows the weakness of their arms.'\n  'Fly to thy land,' replied the shadow;\n  'Take to the wind, and fly!\n  The blasts are in the hollow of my hand\n  The course of the storm is mine.\n  Fly to thy land, son of Comhal,\n  Or feel my flaming wrath!'\n  He lifted high his shadowy spear:\n  He bent forward his dismal height\n  Fingal, advancing, drew his sword, the blade of the dark-brown Luno.\n  The gleaming path of steel winds through the gloomy ghost.\n  The form fell shapeless in air.\"\n\nFor vague sublimity, for weird, dismal, ghastly, and phantasmagoric\ngrandeur of conception and effect, the imagery of the above episode of\nOssian has never been exceeded in the vast domain of fantasy-weaving;\nand this effect is vastly heightened by the sententious step of the\nsentences and the shadowy cadence of the parallelism--a cadence which\nis the natural expression of sublimity, and to compass which in\nordinary blank verse it is impossible. Compare, for instance, the\nfollowing imagery of similar _ensemble_, from Milton's \"Paradise\nLost\":\n\n       \"O'er many a dark and dreary vale\n  They passed, and many a region dolorous;\n  O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;\n  Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death--\n  A universe of death.\"\n\nOr the following rhythmical painting of more than Miltonic massiveness\nand magnificence of imagination, from the \"Orion\" of R. H. Horne--a\npoem of more idiosyncratic merit than most poems upon the classical\nmodel. Orion thus describes the building of a palace for Hephaistos\n(Vulcan):\n\n  \"So that great figures started from the roof,\n  And lofty coignes, or sat and downward gazed\n  On those who stood below and gazed above--\n  I filled it; in the centre framed a hall;\n  Central In that a throne: and for the light\n  Forged mighty hammers that should rise and fall\n  On slanted rocks of granite and of flint.\n  Worked by a torrent, for whose passage down\n  A gape I hewed. And here the god could take,\n  Midst showery sparks and swathes of broad gold fire,\n  His lone repose, lulled by the sounds he loved:\n  Or, casting back the hammer-heads until they stopped\n  The water's ebb, enjoy, if so he willed,\n  Midnight tremendous, silence, and iron sleep.\"\n\n{395}\n\nBoth of which, though in their manner unparalleled, are, in a less\ndegree, imbued with that which we may term POETIC ILLUMINATION; that\nwhich constitutes the felicitous sublimity of Ossian; in short, that\nfor which only one simile, and that an impossible one--namely,\nshooting of a sun athwart the heavens at midnight--be adduced.\n\nBut--the seasons here specified being deemed insufficient--if further\nreasons be necessary for the adoption of of the parallelistic form in\ntreating the ancient Ga\u00eblic and Celtic compositions, these necessary\nreasons are fluent from the original form of those compositions, and\nfrom the fact that the parallelism is the only poetic form adapted to\ntheir style; which may be demonstrated by comparing the rhythmical\ncollocation of a single poem, the Songs of Deardra, a Celtic poem in\nmanuscript which will form the basis of the remainder of this paper,\nwith the collocation of the parallelistic English rendering. Adopting\nphonographic equivalents for the Irish letters, the initial stanza of\nDeardra's song improvised as a farewell to Scotland, runs as follows;\n\n  \"Ionmuin lioni an tio ud shoin,\n  Alba cona hionghantuio;\n  Nokha tliucfuinn aisde de,\n  Muna dtioefuinn re Noise.\"\n\nAnd the parallelistic rendering, line for line, as follows:\n\n  \"Dear to me that eastern shore;\n  Dear is Alban, land of delights.\n  Never would I have forsaken it,\n  Had I not come with Naesa.\"\n\nThus the translation is rendered exact, conveying not only the matter\nbut, also, the manner of the original--without which last any\ntranslation is and must be defective. The song is thus continued:\n\n  \"Dear are Dunfay and Dunfin,\n   And dear are the hills around them;\n   Dear is Inis-drayon,\n   In dear to me Dunsaivni.\n\n  \"Coilcuan, sweet Coilcuan!\n   Where Ainii and where Ardan came.\n   Happy passed my days with Naesa,\n   In the Western vales of Alban.\n\n  \"Glenlee, O Glenlee!\n   Amidst thy thickets have I slept,\n   And amidst thy thickets feasted,\n   With my love in Glenlee.\n\n  \"Glenmessan, O, Glenmessan!\n   Sweet were thy herbs and bright thy greens,\n   Lulled by the falling stream we slept,\n   On Inver's banks in Glenmessan.\n\n  \"Gleneikh, bright Gleneikh!\n   Where my dwelling first was fixed,\n   The woods smiled when the rising sun\n   Shoots yellow arrows on Gleneikh.\n\n  \"Glenarkhon, dear Glenarkhon!\n   Fair is the vale below high Dromkhon.\n   Sportive were my days with Naesa,\n   In the blooming vales of Glenarkhon.\n\n  \"Glendarua, O Glendarua!\n   To me were thy people dear.\n   The birds sang sweetly on the bending boughs\n   That shaded over Glendarua.\n\n  \"Dear to me is that spreading shore;\n   Dear the sandy-margined streams.\n   Never would I have forsaken them,\n   Had I not come with Naesa.\"\n\nThe events celebrated in these manuscript songs, now mustily rusting\nin the Dublin University collection, occurred during the first\ncentury, A. C. Deardra was the daughter of Macdoil, the historian of\nUlla (Ulster); Concovar being at that time king. The plot may be\nbriefly described:\n\n  1. At the birth of Deardra it is foretold that she shall be the\n  cause of many calamities; but the king, unappalled by omens and\n  predictions, causes her to be taken from Macdoil and reared under\n  persons whom he appoints; proposing to make her queen of Ulla.\n\n  2. The beautiful Deardra conceives a passion for Naesa, one of the\n  sons of Usna; and, with the assistance of his brothers, Ainli and\n  Ardan, elopes with him to Alban, (Scotland,) in the western part of\n  which Naesa has large estates.\n\n  3. A messenger arrives from Concovar conveying the king's\n  solicitation that they return to Ulla, and bearing tokens of the\n  king's forgiveness to Naesa and Deardra.\n\n  4. Disregarding the forebodings of Deardra, the sons of Usna accept\n  the king's hospitality; and on the voyage Deardra sings the pathetic\n  farewell to Alban just quoted, as if foreboding the events which\n  follow.\n\n  5. As the vessel moors in the haven Deardra ceases to sing; but,\n  still foreboding ruin to Naesa, advises him to place himself under\n  the protection of Cuculiin, who has his residence at Dundalgan.\n  Naesa's confidence in the honor of Concovar, however, prevails; and\n  they proceed to Emana, the royal seat--Deardra foretelling their\n  fate both in conversation and in frequent prophetic song.\n\n{396}\n\n  6. They are received by Concovar with the semblance of kindness, and\n  placed in the castle of the Red Arm with guards to wait upon them;\n  while a body of mercenaries are sent to rescue Deardra and burn the\n  castle--the troops of Ulla having refused to imbrue their hands in\n  the blood of the heroes.\n\n  7. Naesa, Ainli, and Ardan effect their escape with Deardra; but,\n  being pursued, are overwhelmed by the king's mercenaries and slain.\n  Deardra sings the following lament, calling to mind every\n  circumstance which endeared her to Naesa, and reflecting with\n  self-tormenting ingenuity upon those transient interruptions which,\n  occasioning uneasiness at the moment, now serve to aggravate her\n  unavailing sorrow:\n\n  \"Farewell for ever, fair coasts of Alban;\n   Your bays and vales shall no more delight me.\n   There oft from hills with Usna's sons,\n   I viewed the hunt below.\n\n  \"The lords of Alban met in banquet.\n   There were the valiant sons of Usna:\n   And Naesa gave a secret kiss\n   To the fairest daughter of Dundron.\n\n  \"He sent her a bind from the hill,\n   And a fawn beside it running;\n   He left the hosts of Inverness,\n   And turned aside to her palace.\n\n  \"My soul was drunk with madness\n   When this they told me--told me\n   I set my boat upon the sea,\n   To sail away from Naesa.\n\n  \"Ainli and Ardan brave and faithful.\n   Valiantly pursued me,\n   And brought me bark again to land,\n   And back again to Naesa.\n\n  \"Then Naesa swore an oath to me;\n   And thrice he swore upon his arms.\n   That never would he cause me pain.\n   Until unto the grave they bore him.\n\n  \"The maid of Dundron swore an oath;\n   Thrice swore the maid of Dundron,\n   That long as Naesa dwelt on earth\n   No lover else should claim her.\n\n  \"Ah, did she hear this night.\n   That Naesa in his grave was laid,\n   High would be her voice of wailing,\n   But seven times fiercer shall be mine.\"\n\n  8. Standing by the grave of Naesa, Deardra concludes her\n  lamentations with the following funeral song and panegyric, which\n  having: sung, she springs into the grave and falls dead upon his\n  breast:\n\n  \"Long is the day to me: the sons of Usna are gone.\n   Their converse was sweet;\n   But as raindrops fall my tears.\n   They were as the lions on the hills of Emana.\n\n  \"To the damsels of Breaton were the dear.\n   As hawks from the mountain they darted on the foe.\n  The brave knelt before them,\n  And nobles did them honor.\n\n  \"Never did they yield in battle.\n  Ah! woe is me that they are gone.\n  Sons of the daughter of Caifa.\n  A host were ye in the wars of Cualna.\n\n  \"By careful Aifa were they reared.\n   The countries round paid them tribute.\n   Bursting like a flood in battle,\n   Fought the valiant youths of Sgatha\n\n  \"Uatha taught them in their youth.\n   The heroes were valiant in fight.\n   Renowed sons of Usna,\n   I weep, for ye have left me.\n\n  \"Dark-brown were their eyebrows;\n   Their eyes were fires beneath;\n   And their faces were as embers--\n   As embers ruddy with flame.\n\n  \"Their legs as the down of the swan--\n   Light and active were their limbs;\n   Soft and gentle were their hands,\n   And their arms were fair and manly.\n\n  \"King of Ulla, king of Ulla!\n   I left thy love for Naesa.\n   My days are few after him.\n   His funeral honors are song.\n\n  \"Not long shall I survive my love;\n   Think not so king of Ulla.\n   Naesa, Ainli, and Ardan,\n   I desire not life when you are gone.\n\n  \"Life hath no joy.\n   My days are already too many.\n   Delight of my soul,\n   A shower of tears shall fall upon your grave.\n\n  \"Ye men that dig their grave.\n   Dig it wide and dig it deep.\n   I will rest on the breast of my love\n   My sighs shall resound from his tomb.\n\n  \"Oft were their shields their pillow,\n   And oft they slept upon their spears:\n   Lay their strong swords beside them,\n   And their shields beneath their heads.\n\n  \"Their dogs and hawks,--\n   Who will now attend them?\n   The hunters are no more on the hills;\n   The valiant youths of Connai Cairni.\n\n  \"My heart, it groans--it groans.\n   When I see the collars of their hounds.\n   Oft did I feed them.\n   But I weep when they are near.\n\n  \"We were alone in the waste.\n   We were alone in the woodlands;\n   But I knew no loneliness,\n   Till they dug thy grave.\n\n  \"My sight begins to fail.\n   When I view thy grave, my Naesa.\n   My soul hastes to depart:\n   And my voice of wailing to be hushed.\"\n\nThus ends one of the most pathetically beautiful tales, founded upon\noriginal history, which the epico-poetic annals of any people afford.\nIt is far superior to any single poem amid the Svethico-Gothic remains\nrendered famous by the masterly translations of Longfellow. In fact,\nto him who shall {397} happily combine the requisite anthological\nlearning with the requisite skill as a translator, no literary\nGolconda, more prolific in the rubies and scintillant glories of\npoesy, could be unlocked, except with the Aladdin-key of almost\nangelic invention, than is afforded in the mouldering, mildewed, and\nmusty masses of manuscript, in queer Celtic letters, which have been\npermitted to rot for ages in the library of Dublin University. Had\nthey been English, they would have been magazinistically vaunted as\nmasterpieces in the piquant pages of \"Blackwood,\" or amid e dreary\nsermonoids of the \"Westminster.\" Being Celtic, they are, so being,\nneglected.\n\nAlbeit, there are to be Longfellows and Tennysons hereafter who shall\nbe cosmopolitan, and neither exclusively English, exclusively\nAmerican, nor exclusively Japanese; and men of learning there are to\nbe hereafter, who shall be citizens of the world (in a literary\nsense), and not especially citizens of England, or of France, or of\nAmerica, who will seek for the beautiful in strange places beyond the\nnarrow limits of London, Paris, or New-York.\n\nMeantime, it has been the object of this paper to play the lamp to the\ngem-seeking Aladdin--suggesting that something may be done, rather\nthan doing it. Hence what has been said and what might have been more\ncleverly and elaborately said, has here been curtly said upon the\nsubject of Celtic anthology--using the term in a sense that suited the\npurposes and scope of this paper.\n\n----------\n\nORIGINAL\n\n\n  \"QUARE TRISTIS ES ANIMA MEA,\n  ET QUARE CONTURBAS ME?\"\n\n\n  Why, O my soul! art thou, ofttimes,\n    So faint and sad?\n  Life shows to thee its brightest side;\n    Why not be glad?\n\n  Is not the earth most beautiful,\n    What wouldst have more?\n  Filled is thy cup with life's best gifts\n    And running o'er.\n\n  And all the grandeur and the grace\n    Of noble art--\n  Do they not beautify thy life,\n    And cheer thy heart?\n\n  And love, most heavenly gift of all--\n    Is it not thine?\n  Yes, truly; yet I cannot say\n    Content is mine.\n\n  I feel a sadness of the soul,\n    A weariness,\n  A constant longing of the heart;\n    What meaneth this?\n\n{398}\n\n  I know that once, when journeying far,\n    I felt like this,\n  But then they only called my grief\n    A home-sickness.\n\n  And so, with every gift of God,\n    With nought amiss,\n  My heart is longing, longing still;\n    What meaneth this?\n\n  Why is it that my soul is sad,\n    What meaneth this?\n  It panteth after thee, O God!\n    Thou art its bliss.\n\n------\n\nFrom the Reader.\n\nTHE LAKE DWELLINGS.  [Footnote 142]\n\n  [Footnote 142: The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland and other Parts of\n  Europe. By Dr. Ferdinand Keller, President of the Antiquarian\n  Association of Zurich. Translated and arranged by John Edward Lee,\n  F.S.A., F.G.S. (London: Longmans.)]\n\n\nSince 1854, when Dr. Keller published his first report on\npile-dwellings in Lake Zurich, he, and other Swiss archaeologists\nstimulated by his example and guided by his counsel, have zealously\nexplored many other Swiss lakes, and have succeeded in discovering\nmore than two hundred similar settlements, and in collecting tens of\nthousands of relics of the people who during many centuries occupied\nthem. Six reports on the \"wonderful Pfahlbauten\" have been published\nby Dr. Keller; but, being written in German, they are less known than\nthe compilation in French by Fred. Troyon, who has absorbed Dr.\nKeller's facts, and mingling them with fancies of his own, has given a\nsensational character to his work. Excellent notices have, however,\nappeared, written by Wylie, Lubbock, Lyell, and others, and\ntranslations of some original memoirs have been printed in the\nSmithsonian Reports. Stripped though the subject be, in some degree,\nof novelty, the present translation of Dr. Keller's work is not the\nless welcome; it is indeed right, that he who gave the first\nexposition of these structures should tell the story of their\ndiscovery, and picture forth the state of society which their remains\nreveal. In this work we have a general description of the structure of\nthese dwellings; notices of the various settlements which have been\ndiscovered, with an account of others on the Italian side of the Alps,\nand of the Crannoges in Ireland and Scotland; chapters on the remains\nof plants, by Dr. Heer, and of animals, by Professor R\u00fctimeter; and\nninety-nine plates and several woodcuts give graphic, but sometimes\nrough drawings of the dwellings, and of the various objects found in\nthem. As a storehouse of facts, illustrating the character and\nprogress of an ancient people, this work is invaluable; it will aid\nother archaeologists in their researches; and we think, too, that the\ncautious and philosophical manner in which Dr. Keller reasons from his\nfacts will help to correct some hasty and fanciful speculations.\n\n{399}\n\nFor the construction of pile-dwellings, Swiss lakes afford favorable\nsites, as along the shores there is generally a considerable breadth\nof shallow water. Some pleasant bay, protected by well-wooded hills,\nabounding in game, was selected for such settlements; and at a little\ndistance from the land piles of various kinds of would, generally\nentire stems with with their bark on, but sometimes split, and from\nfifteen to thirty feet in links and three to nine inches in diameter,\nwere driven into the bottom all the late, the heads of the piles\nrising from two to four feet above the water. At the Wangen settlement\nthere were 40,000 piles, but all may not have been driven down at the\nsame period. Across this substructure other stems of trees ten of\ntwelve feet long were laid, and fastened by wooden pegs; and above\nthem split boards were similarly fastened, for me a solid, even\nplatform, which was covered by a bed of mud or loam. The platform of a\nfew, which Dr. Keller calls _fascine dwellings_, was supported not on\npiles, but on layers of sticks and small stems built up from the\nbottom of the lake, being similar to some of the Scottish Crannoges.\nThe boards and planks had been imperfectly fitted together, for\nnumerous objects which had slipped through the chinks of the floor are\nscattered over the lake bottom; but quantities of broken implements,\npottery, and animal and vegetable refuse, heaped together on\nparticular spots, show that spaces had been left in the platform,\nthrough which rubbish had been thrown into the water, thus for me\nheaps analogous to the kitchen-middings of Denmark. Huts were erected\non the platform, having a framework of piles and stakes, with waddle\nor hurdlework of small branches woven between the upright piles, and\ncovered over with a thickness of from two to three inches of loam or\nclay, evidence of which has been found in pieces of half-burnt day\nretaining the impression of the wattle-work. As some pieces have a\ncurve, Troyon concluded that the huts were circular, and from nine to\ntwelve feet in diameter; but Dr. Keller shows that the curve had\nprobably been produced by the great heat to which the clay covering\nwas exposed before it fell into the water, while also pieces of\ndifferent curves are found promiscuously on the same spot with others\nperfectly flat, no piece indeed exceeding twelve inches across. It is\nnow pretty certain that most, if not all the huts, were rectangular;\nthose at Robenhausen and Niederwyl were found to be twenty-seven feet\nby twenty-two feet. They stood close to but apart from each other, and\nwere thatched with straw and reeds. From the almost universal\nprevalence of clay weights for weaving, it may be inferred that every\none was furnished with a loom. A narrow platform or bridge resting on\npiles, of which a few remains have been found, connected these\ndwellings with the land. Room enough there was in and around these\nhuts for all the operations of daily life, as well as for the\nmanufacture of every implement used in household economy; and in\nshort, this was the place where every craft or art known to the\nsettlers was brought into play. Even domestic animals were stalled on\nthe platform, as at Robenhausen the remains of the litter of these\nanimals has been found.\n\nSuch sites for dwellings are not unknown to history. Hippocrates\ndescribes similar habitations on the stagnant, quiet-flowing river\nPhasis in Armenia, and Herodotus others on Lake Prasias in Thrace. The\nCrannoges in Ireland were inhabited as recently as 1645, but rather as\nplaces of refuge; and at the present time there are analogous\nstructures in the Eastern Archipelago. Security against the attack of\nenemies seems to have been the chief reason of selecting such peculiar\nsites for dwellings, at a period when society was in a divided state,\n{400} and when war of tribe against tribe was frequent. Similar\nconditions were indicated by the numerous hill-forts of the ancient\nBritons, and even by the pele towers of the border-land in mediaeval\ntimes. From the great labor bestowed on the pile structures, and the\nvast number of instruments of all kinds found in the \"relic bed\" of\nthe lakes, it is clear that they had not been temporary places of\nrefuge, but permanent habitations, which had been occupied during many\ngenerations; and the relics, scattered abundantly beneath these\npile-dwellings, furnish important evidence relating to different eras\nof civilization.\n\nIn a considerable number of these dwellings--thirty at least--no trace\nof metal has been discovered, the instruments having been made of\nstone, bone, and wood; in a much larger number bronze, without a trace\nof iron, has been found; and in a few, it is clear that iron has been\nextensively used. The three ages of stone, bronze, and iron are here\nestablished by better evidence than from any other groups of remains;\nfor the great number and variety of relics which these lake\nhabitations have yielded, give a broad basis for true inductive\nreasoning on prehistoric conditions. Yet there is evidently no sudden\nbreak in these periods, such as would prove that superior and\nconquering races had introduced higher civilization. \"It is very\ncertain that, at least in Switzerland,\" says Dr. Keller, \"there was no\nhard line of demarcation between the three periods, but that the new\nmaterials were spread abroad like any other article of trade, and that\nthe more useful tools gradually superseded those of less value.\" We\nhave here, therefore, _continuity_ and _progress_; and it may be\nreasonably inferred, that the advance in art from the use of stone to\nthat of bronze, and then to iron, was made by the same race who\noriginally took up their abode on these lakes; for during the long\ntime the pile habitations were occupied, extending over several\nthousands of years, there was no essential change in the structure of\nthe dwellings or in the mode of life. Doubtless, when these\nlake-dwellers first arrived in Switzerland, they had the germs of\ncivilization; they had domestic animals from the first, such as sheep,\nthough the flesh of wild animals was more used for food; they could\nspin, weave, and make cordage from beast or vegetable fibre, rude\npottery they could make, some of which was even painted with graphite\nand rubble; fishers they were, using nets and hooks made of bone; from\nserpentine, flint, horns and bones they made their weapons and tools;\nthey had brought with them cereals, and cultivated the soil with very\ninefficient instruments made of stag's horns and crooked branches of\ntrees, and raised wheat and and barley, which they ground by mills of\nthe primitive form, consisting of a round stone as a corn-crusher, and\na mealing-stone with a hollow in which the corn was bruised. The stone\nweapons and implements are similar to those of Denmark; but several\nshow in an interesting manner how the stone celts or chisels, which\nwere small, from one to eight inches in length, were hafted. Some were\nfirst inserted into a piece of stag's horn, and then set in a shaft or\nclub; others were inserted into clefts of branches and fastened by\ncord and asphalt. During this early age, it was the most important of\nall instruments, and was used for various purposes; fixed at the end\nof a pole, it was a lance; set into wood, it was a war-club or\ndomestic axe; placed in horn, it was the poor man's knife; it served\nto skin animals, to cut flesh and hides, and to make all instruments\nof horn and wood.\n\nThe evidences of commercial intercourse with other people are but\nslight; but a bluish glass bead, in a stone age dwelling on the little\nreedy or \"moor-lake\" of Wauwyl, may show some connection with the\nEgyptians or Phoenicians; and knives, arrow-heads, and other\nimplements, made of flints, not found in Switzerland, but derived from\ndistant parts of France and Germany, {401} may indicate a barter trade\nwith the north and west. Possibly, too, Nephrite, of which the most\nvaluable celts were made, and which does not occur in Europe, but in\nEgypt, China, and other parts of Asia, may point to intercourse with\nthe east, unless we suppose the Nephrite implements had been brought\nfrom the east by the lake-dwellers, when they first settled in\nSwitzerland.\n\nNot a few of the stone-age dwellings had been burnt by accident or by\nan enemy, and wore not rebuilt; but others had a continued existence\nthrough both the stone and bronze periods; and hence we see\nsettlements in a transitional state, and trace a gradual advance in\ncivilization. At Meilen, where a vast number of stone relics have been\nfound, there appear one bronze armilla and one bronze celt; but at\nRobenhausen we probably see the commencement of the metallurgic art,\nfor amid a profusion of stone relics belonging to three different\nplatforms, crucibles have been found, with lumps of melted bronze, and\none lump of pure unmelted copper. It may be that the lake-dwellers\nbecame first acquainted with metal through traders; but, as Dr. Keller\nremarks, \"May we not venture to assume that the colonists, by their\nintercourse with strangers who were acquainted with the nature of\nmetals, were incited to search their country for copper ore, and try\nto melt and cast it? Copper ore is found on the south side of\nM\u00fcrtschenstock, on the Lake of Wallenstadt.\" The age which was dawning\nblends itself with the age which was setting; for we find that the new\ninstruments of bronze were copies of the old forms in stone. Even the\nbronze ornaments were but improved copies of analogous objects in own,\nshowing indeed the sameness of race in both periods, and the\nsimilarity of their tastes and customs. The gradual introduction of\nmetal gave to the lake-dwellers new powers, which enabled them to\nimprove their condition; dwellings were now erected in deeper water;\nlarger piles were used, and better sharpened and squared, fastened\nwith cross beams, and strengthened by stones heaped up; pottery was\nbetter made, more elegant in form, and sometimes painted black or red,\nor ornamented with tin-foil plates. The bronze implements which had\nbeen made by native artisans were of excellent workmanship and form,\nespecially the spear and javelin-heads, which prove great proficiency\nin casting. The swords with short handles and curved knives and\narmillae resemble those which have been found in Denmark; but we\nobserve none of the graceful leaf-shaped swords which occur in Britain\nand Ireland. Varied, peculiar, and sometimes beautiful is the\nornamentation of the period, consisting of zigzag lines, points,\ntriangles, spiral and lozenge forms.\n\nA transitional state there was, too, between the bronze and the iron\nperiods. Morges settlement on Lake Geneva may be regarded of the\nbronze age; for not only have one hundred and thirty bronze objects\nbeen found there, but also moulds for casting bronze winged celts,\nshowing that such implements had been made on the spot; yet here there\noccurs an iron poniard. But in the lake-dwelling of Marin, one of the\nlost occupied, the number of iron objects is surprisingly great,\nexhibiting to view weapons, agricultural and domestic implements, and\nornaments made of iron, which in the older dwellings had been made of\nstone or bone or bronze. Of these iron relics the most remarkable are\nthe swords, of which fifty and more have been found at Marin, some\nwith and others without sheaths, all, with one exception, of iron, and\nevery one being peculiarly yet differently ornamented. These swords\nare masterpieces of the smith's art, and were probably produced at\nlarge manufactories, when there were division of labor and every\npractical appliance, for some of them bear upon them makers' marks.\nThey are, however, the product of Celtic art, and correspond in form\nand ornamentation with those of the later Celtic period of northern\nnations; and {402} this view is confirmed by the discovery of similar\nswords in the ditches of the fortress of Alesia, where a conflict had\ntaken place between the Romans and Helvetians when it was besieged by\nCaesar. Less striking to the eye, however, is the connection between\nthe productions of the bronze and of the iron age; but our author\nremarks:\n\n  \"There are, indeed, some forms of implements which remind us of the\n  previous age. But, on the whole, when the Marin objects were made,\n  iron had taken full possession of the field, and all the implements,\n  including ornaments, which could be made out of iron, a metal both\n  firmer and more pliable, were manufactured out of this material. But\n  the form of these specimens had in some measure undergone a change,\n  for the working of iron is a totally different matter from that of\n  bronze; and the hammer of the smith and the moulds of the founder\n  cannot produce the same forms. The remains of the settlements of\n  pure stone, bronze, and iron ages indicate, therefore, epochs of\n  civilization among the inhabitants, separated by long intervals,\n  while the end for which the lake-dwellings were erected--namely, the\n  security of person and property--and their construction remained the\n  same.\"\n\nOf the religion of the lake-dwellers there is no certain information;\nbut some relics made of stone and pottery, somewhat crescent-shaped,\nfound in bronze-age settlements, Dr. Keller thinks may be\nrepresentative of the crescent moon, and, therefore, probably objects\nof worship. According to Pliny, the Druids gathered the mistletoe with\ngreat solemnity on the sixth day of the moon; and hence it is inferred\nthat the moon images were sacred emblems, having power to avert and\ncure diseases. This, however, is but a fancy, for it does not appear\nfrom Caesar that the Celts worshipped the heavenly bodies.\n\nThe fauna and flora of the lake-dwellings afford interesting\ninformation to naturalists, and throw some light on the questions as\nto the origin, the development, and distribution of species. During\nthe stone age, the _bos primigenius_ and _bos bison_ were abundant,\nbut they disappear after the introduction of metallic weapons; the\nformer is now only found on the marshes of the North Sea. A very large\nox, with great semilunar horns, bent forward from the frontal plane\n(_bos trochoceros_), and which had been contemporaneous with the\nmammoth and hippopotamus, appears to have been domesticated at Concise\nand Chevreaux. It is now extinct; but the marsh cow (bos brachyceros),\nwhich was most abundant in the stone age, has continued to exist to\nthe present time, and now occupies the mountainous parts of\nSwitzerland and its wild mountain valleys. In the earlier periods,\nseveral races of swine ran wild, which were subsequently domesticated.\nThe fox was abundantly eaten; but the hare was not used for food, even\nthe traces of its existence are few; neither domestic false, nor rats,\nnor mice appear. Wild animals predominate in the stone age, but they\ngave way in subsequent period. to domestic animals.\n\nThe seeds and other parts of plants lying in the lake mud, or buried\nunder several feet of peat, have been so well preserved, that their\ncharacters can be determined. The small-grained six-rowed barley and\nthe small lake-dwelling wheat (_triticum vulgare antiquorum_) were,\nfrom the earliest period, the most generally cultivated of farinaceous\nseeds; and, notwithstanding the rudeness of the husbandry implements,\nthe quality of the produce was apparently equal to that of modern\ntimes; the spelt (_triticum spelta_), now one of the most important\ncereals of Switzerland, did not appear till the bronze age; while rye\nwas entirely unknown, thus showing a connection with the countries of\nthe Mediterranean, the lake colonists having the same cereals as the\nEgyptians. Cakes of unleavened bread have been found, made of millet\nand wheat, which had been baked on the hearthstone in the dwellings.\nBarley seems to have been used boiled or parched; but as corn-crushers\nand mealing-stones have been found in most of the settlements, grain\nhad been extensively used for food The latest settlement, dating\nbackward {403} not less than 2,000 years, and the older going some\n3,000 years and more further backward still, it is interesting to\nobserve what change this long lapse of time produced on plants:\n\n  \"The dense, compact wheat and the close, six-rowed barley have\n  undergone no perceptible change, yet it must be confessed that most\n  of them agree with no recent forms sufficiently to allow of their\n  being classed together. The small Celtic beans, the peas, the small\n  lake-dwelling barley, the Egyptian and small lake-dwelling wheat,\n  and the two-rowed wheat, or _emmer_, form peculiar and apparently\n  extinct races; they are distinguished for the most part from the\n  modern cultivated kinds by smaller seeds. Man has, therefore, in\n  course of time produced sorts which give a more abundant yield, and\n  these have gradually supplanted the old varieties.\"\n\nWith wild plants the case is different:\n\n  \"The flora of the lake-dwellings announces to us that all the plants\n  which come in contact with man become changed up to a certain point,\n  and man participates in the great transformations of nature, while\n  the wild plants, which surround us at the present day, still grow in\n  the same forms as they did three or four thousand years ago, and do\n  not exhibit the slightest change.\"\n\nThe final abandonment of these lake-dwellings, about the beginning of\nthe Christian era, would result from an improved civilization and a\nmore united and orderly state of society; but how long before that\ntime they had been occupied has not yet been definitely determined;\nour chronology is still relative rather than absolute. Peat has\naccumulated over some settlements, but as its rate of growth varies\nunder different conditions, we are only told by it that the stone-age\ndwellings lasted many centuries. At Robenhausen peat moor, there are\nremains of three settlements of the stone age, one over the other; two\nof which had been destroyed by fire, and the last had been abandoned,\nprobably on account of the increase of peat. Between the first and\nsecond settlement there are three feet of peat and one foot of other\ndeposit, both containing relics; between the second and third\nsettlements the deposits are the same in character and sickness, and\nover the last dwelling are two feet of peat and half-a-foot of mould;\nso that during the stone age there had been a slow growth of eight\nfeet of peat, and the deposit of three and a half feet of other\nmatter. Other means have been used to obtain more definite results;\nthe most remarkable of which is that of Professor Morlot, who from an\nexamination of a cone of gravel and alluvium, connected with deposits\nof the stone, bronze, Roman, and recent periods, and gradually built\nup by the torrent of Teniere where it falls into Lake Geneva,\nconcludes that the age of bronze has an antiquity of from 3,000 to\n4,000 years, and that of stone from 5,000 to 7,000 years--no very\nstartling estimate, when we remember the high antiquity which has been\nassigned to the drift and cave men.\n\nOf the physical characters of the lake-dwellers, Dr. Keller gives us\nlittle information; that they had small hands is probable from the\nshortness of their sword-handles. Few human bones, and those chiefly\nof children, have been found. No crania of the stone age have been\nseen, but a few out of the bronze period, one of which from Meilen\ndiffers little from the skulls of the existing Swiss. It is,\ntherefore, mainly from the relics found that we can form any guess as\nto the origin and relationship of the lake-dwellers, and by those it\nis shown that they belonged to the very people who at the same time\nlived on the mainland. Dr. Keller concludes \"that the builders of the\nlake-dwellings were a branch of the Celtic population of Switzerland,\nbut that the earlier settlements belong to the pre-historic period,\nand had already fallen into decay before the Celts took their place in\nthe history of Europe.\"\n\nThe history of the lake-dwellers opens a hopeful prospect for those\nraces who are now in a degraded condition; for here they start with a\nlow degree of civilization, and yet there is a gradual rise upward to\nthat point where great skill was reached {404} in metallurgic and\nother arts; but even this was only a step onward to that high\ncultivation of intellect and morals among their descendants the Swiss\npeople. Why should not other races pass through the same stages,\nespecially when influenced by intercourse with modern civilized\nnations?\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL\n\n\nPEA-BLOSSOM.\n\n\n  I hear a faltering footstep\n  Crossing the matted floor,\n  And a little knock low down\n  On the panels of the door.\n  A small hand is uplifted\n  To raise the iron latch,\n  And entrance claimed in a silvery tone\n  No nightingale could match.\n\n  Away with books and papers!\n  Enter, my fairy bright;\n  Sweep the dim cobwebs from my brain,\n  And let in air and light.\n  Close the dull portals of history,\n  Unclasp that magic door\n  That leads to the jewelled caverns\n  Of fiction and fairy lore:\n  The legend of Cinderella,\n  Of knights and maidens small.\n  Of princely frogs and pigmy dogs.\n  And my lady's golden ball.\n\n  Good-night, my white-robed enchantress.\n  My blue-sashed, sunny-haired muse;\n  Perfection thou art, from that topmost curl\n  To the tips of thy dainty shoes.\n  Watch her well, angel-guardian!\n  Pray for her, crowned saint.\n  That when the time for the cross shall come,\n  Her spirit grow not faint;\n  That she may go to her last repose\n  With a heart unspotted by sin--\n  That this face of lustrous purity\n  May mirror the soul within.\n\n--------\n\n{405}\n\n\nORIGINAL\n\n\n\nA MONTH AT A FRENCH WATERING-PLACE.\n\nBY AN OLD BACHELOR.\n\n\nI always had a great veneration for the disciples of Esculapius, but\nnever so as when my considerate doctor decided that a sea voyage was\nabsolutely necessary for my my health. Being unblessed by those sweet\ncares, a wife and children, I determined to show my obedience to his\ncommands, and at the same time to ratify my long-cherished plan of\nvisiting the old world. Be reassured, readers, I have no intention of\nharrowing your gentle spirits by a description of sea-sickness, nor of\nwearying you with my experiences at custom-house or railroad d\u00e9p\u00f4t,\nbut desire to transport you at once to the good little watering place\nof V----, which had been recommended to me as the very place for the\nexorcising of that tyrant devil, dyspepsia.\n\nIt was a lovely evening in July that I took a carriage from D----, for\nthe said watering-place, for railroads have not as yet invaded the\nprimitive simplicity of the village; hotels have, however, and much to\nmy satisfaction I found myself, after a charming hour's drive, seated\nin a cozy room with an excellent dinner before me. My Hostess I soon\ndiscovered to be quite a character; a raw-boned, fast-talking\nFrenchwoman, with a suspicious darkness on her upper lip. When I had\nfinished my repast, this worthy dame informed me that it was the\ncustom of all good \"Seigneurs\" to repair to the beach after dinner; so\ngiving me my hat and cane, she showed me the way, and I in all\nobedience departed.\n\nThe moon was then full, and cast a deliciously deceptive light on all\naround; even the wretched huts wherein the French peasantry\ncontentedly huddle, mellowed by its light, looked picturesque and\nquaint. Looking around, I found that the village nestled between two\nhills, and that I was at the moment in the principal street, which\ncuts it in two, and from which smaller streets diverge in all\ndirections. Tempted by the quiet of the evening I turned from the main\nroad, and soon found myself in one of the prettiest winding lanes\nimaginable; at that quiet hour, with the moonlight streaming through\nthe interlacing trees, I know of nothing more charming than a walk\nalong the winding paths which form a network around the village; what\nin the day time might be simply pretty, borrowed from the lovely night\na charm and mystery that was irresistible; and so I wandered on, a\nluxurious feeling, half melancholic, half pleasurable, soothing my\nspirit, until I was abruptly reminded that all things sweet in this\nlife are short, by finding myself at the end of my pretty lane, and\nonce more landed in the village street. Here my landlady's admonition\nwas brought to my mind, by seeing several parties of red-hooded,\nred-cloaked personages all going one way; these were evidently some of\nthe good bathers, and them I followed. In a few minutes I found myself\nin quite a small crowd of strangers, who made the beach look like a\ngaden of poppies. I, who had formed my ideas of watering-places from\nNewport and Long Branch, looked in amazement at this beach, which is\nnothing more or less than a break in the high white cliffs, which\nstretch on either side at far at the eye can {406} reach; however,\nthough small, it seemed convenient, and I looked at the rippling water\nin eager anticipation of the morrow's bath. Seating myself on the\nstones, which form a poor substitute for the firm white sand of\nNewport, I proceed as is my custom, to observe my companions, and from\ntheir trifling actions to form an opinion of their different natures.\nA number of groups attracted my attention, but as I merely discovered\nthat the ladies of the parties were industriously occupied in trying\nto out-babble--talk it hardly was--each other, and that the men\ncarelessly reclined near them smoking, in utter despair of otherwise\nmaking use of their mouths, I was beginning to think that there was\nnot much food for my observations, when my attention was suddenly\narrested by the familiar sound of a few English words. Turning around,\nI saw at a few steps from me a party which I had not yet observed. The\ncentre figure of this new picture at once arrested my attention;\nevidently this lady considered herself of great importance, for she\nwas laying down the law to the various persons around her, with a\nvolubility that a French woman only can attain. Her dress was an\nextraordinary caricature of rural finery; it was a pity, I thought,\nthat the face under that peculiarly youthful, flower-ornamented hat,\nshould be that of a plain woman of fifty. Her court was principally\ncomposed of various feeble imitations of herself, but my attention was\nsoon entirely occupied by two figures at the extreme verge of the\ngroup, a young lady and a gentleman; the young lady seemed to be\ngiving an English lesson to her listless companion, who appeared\nalmost too indolent to turn around in admiration of the girl's\nsprightliness; a second glance convinced me that I was near one of my\nown countrywomen; the delicate profile, fragile form, and rather\nnervous manner could belong to none but an American. My interest was\nnow excited to the highest pitch, for when an ocean rolls between a\nman and his country, all that reminds him of that country has an\nirresistible charm, especially when that something happens to be a\npretty girl. But my observations were cut short, for the whole party\narose a few minutes after, and left the beach. I soon followed, and\nlearned from my voluble landlady that I had been observing\nfellow-boarders; that the strangely attired lady was the most\nimportant personage of V---- that she patronized sea-bathing every\nsummer, and that she rejoiced in the name of Madame la Baronne d'Agri.\nThe handsome young monsieur with the beard, proved to be her nephew,\nand the \"Charmante Americaine\" was with with her mother, an invalid\nfor whom sea air had been ordered. Then followed a long description of\nthe other members of the party, a Mr. and Mrs. Poirier and their\ndaughter, by young artist and several other personages, to which\ndescription I fear I was but indifferently attentive.\n\nNext morning it rained--rain forming a part of nearly ever day's\nprogramme, as I afterward discovered. Not yet having become hardened\nto the fact, I was dolefully looking from the hotel door, vainly\nendeavoring to discover a patch of blue sky, when I was joined by\nMadame la Baronne's nephew. Remarks on the weather were followed by a\npolite offer of a cigar, whose genial fragrance soon induced a more\ninteresting conversation. A few chance words brought out the fact that\nmy young companion was quite an amateur chemist, and as, in my college\ndays, chemistry had been a sort of passion with me, we were soon\nlaunched in an animated discussion. I was much interested to hear what\nrapid strides the French had recently taken in that and other positive\nsciences. From chemistry we passed to politics, philosophy, and\nfinally religion. While listening to this young man's clear, strong\nexposition of his sentiments on these various subjects, I found myself\nwondering at this, to me, new, new phase of the French character, as\nunlike the light, {407} frivolous, gay-hearted Frenchman of the novel\nand stage, as possible. I must say it pleased me even less; the\ndown-right scepticism, the well-turned sophisms, the extreme\nmaterialism, were easily traced to the teachings of Voltaire. I am\nwell pleased to think that this young man is the representative of but\na comparatively small class, but unfortunately that class is composed\nof much of the brain of the country, and consequently carries with it\ngreat influence. On all American questions M. Louis d'Agri (for so the\nyoung man was called) showed a curious interest; of our great war his\nopinion had been biassed by Southern influence--not unnaturally, since\nhis only American associates had been from that portion of our\ncountry; these associates had also given him their ideas on the\nsubject of slavery, but a few facts, put in the simple, plain way\nwhich seemed best to suit his turn of mind, convinced him, or seemed\nto convince him, that, in that particular at least, his judgment was\nin error. He asked many questions on the present state of affairs in\nour country, of the possible future of the South, of the treatment of\nJefferson Davis, etc., etc., all of which I answered apparently to his\nsatisfaction. Indeed, not only in his case, but in many others, I have\nnoticed that there is a great curiosity felt about everything\nAmerican; to tell the truth, I think that the war brought to their\nminds that a vast and important country really does exist on the other\nside of the broad ocean, a fact of which before they were but dimly\nconscious. Even now, the strange ignorance of our customs, people, and\nespecially our geography, even among the educated classes, would bring\nforth the astonishment and indignation of any American fifth-form\nschool-boy. The French are singularly devoid of our go-ahead qualities\nin everything; they travel but little, and being perfectly convinced\nthat France is the only country of any real importance on the globe,\ntrouble themselves but little about any other, especially should that\nother be separated from them by an ocean.\n\nFrom American politics we turned to those of France, a subject which\nbrought out the young man's most bitter anathemas; dissatisfied with\nthe form of government, with the people, and especially with the\nemperor, he expressed himself with much more freedom than any other\nFrenchman I had yet conversed with. Most of them answer any objections\nwith a shrug of the shoulders, and a furtive glance about them; they\noften praise the emperor for the good he has done their beloved Paris,\nbut with an air which says: \"I like not the man, but admire his\nsagacity.\" Very few Americans, however, could have expressed more\nrepublican, more anti-aristocratic sentiments than M. d'Agri, who, as\nI learned afterward, is the last direct representative of a decayed\nbut noble house. On all religious topics he proved to be an utter\nsceptic, avowedly believing in nothing, and regarding as either knaves\nor dupes all those who did not stoop to his own degrading materialism:\nsingular that a mind so clear should be so perverted. We had merely\nbroached the last subject, when the ladies of the party, enticed by\nthe sun which was beginning to brighten the sky, descended, and\nproposed going down to bathe. M. d'Agri, advancing toward the young\nlady I had observed the night before, said:\n\n\"_Mees Fannee_, I have just been having an interesting conversation\nwith a countryman of yours.\"\n\nThe young lady's face brightened, and with a frankness that is\ncertainly a charm peculiar to American girls, extended her hand,\nsaying in English:\n\n\"Is it possible! Americans in a foreign land can scarcely be\nstrangers!\" and so, from that moment, I was considered as one of the\nparty. Mrs. Hayne, the invalid mother, I found belonged to that rather\nextensive class of ladies who, from having some slight {408} nervous\nailment, nurse and pet it till it grows to be a real malady, which\nmakes them fretful, wrinkled and miserable. As we walked to the beach\nI was made the honored recipient of the good lady's woes, and being a\ntolerable listener was immediately taken into her favor.\n\nWe found the beach already lively with the indefatigable bathers, who\nseize on all tolerably sunshiny days to search for health in the\nluxurious water. Several groups of people, who either had bathed or\nwere going to bathe later, were seated on the stones, watching with\ninterest the extraordinary looking figures that emerged from the long\nrow of cabins. Notwithstanding my eagerness for a good swim, I stood\nfor nearly half an hour watching also; many of the ladies who went\ninto their cabins majestic in width of skirt and flowing drapery,\nemerged from them reduced to a mere ghost of their former grandeur. To\nall whom it may concern, I give it as my decided opinion, that\noil-silk caps and scant bathing dresses are generally not becoming,\nand that a young man must be of a peculiarly susceptible disposition\nto become enamored of these sea-nymphs.\n\nOne thing let me observe, there is a regard for personal safety here\nof which we are too devoid. I noticed in the water two black-clothed\nindividuals, whose only business seemed to be to exercise those ladies\nand children who did not swim, so that they might not catch cold; to\ngive lessons to beginners in the noble art of swimming, and to have an\neye to the safety of the bathers generally. When the bath is over, the\nwell-cared-for person is well wrapped up and hurried to the cabin,\nwhere a hot foot-bath is in readiness; to this latter arrangement I\ngive my most cordial approval.\n\nAs I turned around, after these various observations, intending in my\nturn to appropriate one of the cabins, I was met by Madame d'Agri,\nwho, in an eccentric bathing-dress, was tripping down to the water.\nStopping me, she overwhelmed me with voluble patronage, assuring me\nthat her nephew had spoken of me in the highest terms, and that all\nhis friends were hers; and finally pointing to the largest cabin on\nthe batch, over which the family arms floated ostentatiously, informed\nme that in that cabin they often retired from the vulgar herd, and\ninvited me, whenever I felt annoyed by the plebeians around me, to\njoin them, that a chair would always be at my disposal. Bowing my\nthanks, I beat a hasty retreat, out of breath for very sympathy.\n\nAfter my bath, which I enjoyed as only veteran swimmers can enjoy it,\nI sallied forth to verify or destroy the impressions my moonlight\nstroll of the night before had given me. To some extent, at least,\nthey were destroyed; in the moonlight the low, thatched huts\n--cottages they could scarcely be called--looked picturesque; in the\nbroad daylight they looked simply squalid; dirt and discomfort reigned\nsupreme. In many of these huts there seemed to be but one, unfloored,\nwretched-looking room, serving as kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, to a\nswarming family of dirty children, with their dirtier parents. Yet I\nan told that many of these peasants, who are content to live in these\nhovels year after year, and subsist on crabs, periwinkles, and such\ntrash, are often comparatively well off, some of them being in actual\nreceipt of rents amounting to ten and fifteen thousand francs a year;\nbut as their fathers live so do they live, and the natural consequence\nis that they are an ill-favored, withered-looking set. I looked in\nvain for a fresh, blooming girl, there seemed to be no age between\ntwelve and fifty; even the children looked withered, and the old\npeople were fairly bent double; yet they lived on, contented enough,\nbecause dreaming of no other possible life, and enjoying the bustle of\nan occasional f\u00eate with a zest which our more phlegmatic people would\ndisdain. While making these {409} reflections, I again found myself in\none of those charming lanes which had so pleased me the night before.\nThese, at least, were unspoiled by the misery around; what a blessing\nthat man cannot degrade nature, however he may degrade himself! By my\nside murmured and gurgled the prettiest little brook, dignified here\nby the name of \"petite rivi\u00e8re,\" which I ever saw; clear as crystal,\nswift and cold, it lends beauty and freshness to the whole country\naround. An American farmer would laugh at the tiny stream scarcely\nmore than a mile in length, but an artist would revel in its beauty.\n\nAnd so, what with bathing, walking, driving, and chatting, time passed\nquietly but pleasantly at the little village of V----. Meanwhile I\ngrew more and more interested in watching my companions, especially\ntwo of them; I often found myself, while seeming to listen to the\nBaronne's endless tales of her house's past grandeur, or to poor Mrs.\nMayne's recital of her troubles, closely observing my young\ncountrywoman and M. Louis d'Agri. Knowing as I did his ideas on\nserious subjects, and feeling, too, the influence which a mind like\nhis, strong, cool, and calculating, could scarcely fail to exercise\nover a sensitive and impulsive nature like hers, I found myself\ngrowing more and more uneasy. Evidently accustomed to that sort of\nflirting and freedom which is entirely prohibited to French girls,\nMiss Hayne delighted in taking her lazy cavalier unawares, and\nobliging him, with the most innocent air possible, to give up his dear\ncomfort--now to fetch a chair, again to hold her worsteds while she\nwallowed them; a sort of treatment to which the gentleman was\nevidently unaccustomed, and which, perhaps for the very novelty of the\nthing, seemed to create not an unpleasant sensation. But, on the other\nhand, he was fond of bringing out all her girlish and unsophisticated\nideas, and quietly leveling at them his battery of cold-hearted\nsophisms, in order to destroy them one by one; at first she would\nbattle bravely, but an impulsive girl, untrained to analyze her own\nconvictions, has but a poor chance against a clear-headed, determined\nman, and I noticed, with pain, that after every such discussion she\nwould seem uneasy and depressed. Then her opponent would lazily settle\nhimself in his chair, and allow his rival, the young artist, whom I\nhave strangely slighted heretofore, to bring his gallantries into\nplay. This young man was a sort of _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_ of Madame d'Agri's, and\nan entirely different type of man from Madame's nephew; all the arts\nand graces, compliments and \"petits soins\" which the latter despised,\nM. Dubois employed with true French art. He had from the first been\nstruck by Miss Hayne's pretty face, which he sedulously introduced\ninto all his sketches, paying her, whenever he was permitted, most\nunremitting attentions; but I noticed that, though the native coquetry\nwhich seemed to be this girl's principal fault, induced her to\nencourage him, a word, or even a look from M. Louis d'Agri, would draw\nher away from him to the piano, or oftener to the chess-board, where\nshe invariably received severe lectures on her neglect of the rules of\nthat noble game. You may, in the mean time, wonder what became of the\nother young girls of the party, for there were several; they looked at\n_Mees Fannee_, and her freedom of speech and action, in ill-concealed\nhorror, and remained near their mothers, chattering fast enough among\nthemselves, but scarcely venturing to answer \"yes\" or \"no,\" when\naddressed by their elders, especially if those elders happened to be\nof the other sex. Indeed, M. Louis informed me in confidence that his\nyoung countrywomen, \"s'ennuyent bien, et ma foi! elles ennuyent\njoliment les autres\" before marriage, but after--bah! and an\nexpressive wave of the hand finished the sentence.\n\nOne morning as I was lounging about, thinking with a certain degree of\n_ennui_ that doing nothing was, after all, the hardest sort of work, I\nwas met {410} by Madame d'Agri, who accosted me with one of her\nsweetest smiles.\n\n\"O Monsieur! I was just wondering where I should find you--so\ndelighted, really so charmed--you must go with us, indeed you must!\nnow, no excuse; positively I will accept none; this time you must\nallow my will to be law.\"\n\n\"Madame, I am your most obedient; but in what particular am I required\nto show my duty?\"\n\n\"Mon Dieu! and have I not told you? what a giddy thing I am; indeed my\npoor husband\" (whom I am sure she talked to death) \"always said I was\ngiddy! We are going to C----, where there is to be a f\u00eate, and on the\nway we can see see a chateau or two, not much, you know, but pretty\nwell for these degenerate times. Yes, we are all going--that is, no,\nnot all, for poor Madame Hayne has the migraine: dear! dear! how that\npoor woman suffers! So the charming _Mees Fannee_ has accepted me as\nher chaperone--interesting girl, is she not? Well, as I was saying,\nMadame Hayne has the migraine, and Madame Poirier has the toothache\nand will not that her daughter go without her; so the party will be\nreduced to Madame Duchemin and her daughter, _Mees Fannee_, my nephew,\nM. Dubois--has he not a charming talent--and myself; and you really\nmust join us--plenty of room I assure you, plenty of room. We shall\ngo in one of those vehicles they call an 'Americaine'--I fancy it got\nits name from the hospitality with which it holds so many people--so\nlike your delightful country!\"\n\nAfter some little delay occasioned by the ladies, who, as might be\nexpected, all forgot something at the last woman's, we started. It was\na fresh, breezy morning, just such a one as to excite high spirits,\nand make one appreciate every trifling incident. The road was\nexcellent, indeed it made me blush for some of our own ill-made,\nill-kept roads; but of this I said nothing, for every American feels\nbound, when abroad, to represent all concerning his country \"couleur\nde rose.\" The scenery was charming; nothing perhaps striking and grand\nand vast, like the scenery we are most accustomed to, but a pleasing\nalternation of hill and dale, with well-cultivated fields, villages\nnestling in groves of fine trees, and above all occasional glimpses of\nthe blue ocean, to delight the eye and to give one a genial and\npleasing sense of the beautiful, without calling forth rapturous, and\nlet me add, fatiguing expressions of admiration. When we reached the\nfirst chateau we all agreed that we were tired of the \"Americaine,\"\nand that it was absolutely necessary for our happiness to wander about\nfor half so hour or so.\n\n\"M. d'Agri!\" exclaimed Miss Hayne \"you once promised me a sketch; here\nis my album, and yonder chateau is the very subject for a drawing; so,\nsir, please, to sit down and obey my command.\"\n\n\"Obedience was never my principal virtue, _Mees Fannee_, and I feel\nparticularly lazy this morning.\"\n\nBut a little imperious gesture, accompanied by a half smile, had their\neffect, and the young man, perhaps too indolent to make further\nobjections, took the proffered album, and seeking the softest\ngrass-plot, sat down. I noticed that the artist, of whose arm the\nBaronne had taken possession, looked around angrily, as though this\ntime M. d'Agri were in reality trespassing on his ground; but that\ngentleman, himself quite a clever draughtsman, proceeded with most\nimperturbable _sang froid_. The view he chose was really pretty. The\nchateau, a large, irregular edifice, stood at the end of a noble\navenue of horse-chestnuts, whose broad leaves made a dense shade; the\ncountry immediately around was charming; a little stream somewhat\nresembling that of V----, only larger, was seen in the distance,\nwandering through shrubbery and trees, until lost behind a hill which\nrose more abruptly than most of the hills in this part of Normandy. On\nthe other hand, fields of wheat and oats extended for some {411}\ndistance, ended by a dark belting of woods; not far from us stood one\nof those large wayside crosses so often seen in Catholic countries,\nnear which a shepherd was tending a flock of sheet.\n\nWhen the sketch was finished Madame d'Agri came up, and admiring it\nloudly, thanked _Mees Fannee_, with many caresses, for having made\nthat lazy nephew of hers exert himself, and during the rest of the\nride showered even more than her ordinary share of condescensions on\nthe young girl. This brought to my mind various other trifling\ncircumstances, and I said within myself: \"French titles are often\naccompanied by French poverty; this girl is rich, and Madame la\nBaronne knows it. I will watch.\"\n\nIt was late in the afternoon when we reached the village; leaving our\ntired horses at the inn, we walked to the market place. Here, a number\nof booths, gay with flags and ribbons, stood temptingly displaying\ntheir wares; most of them were filled with second-rate, but highly\ncolored china, for which unlucky wretches were induced to try their\nchance, through the agency of a particularly dirty pack of cards.\nGambling on a small scale, for pieces of dusty gingerbread, seemed to\nbe another favorite mode of parting with sous. On the other side, the\nbeating of drums and clanging of cymbals announced that in a certain\ntent the unsophisticated mind could be rejoiced by extra-ordinary\ntheatrical representations for the moderate sum of three sous; dust,\nnoise, and bustle reigned supreme, and the peasant's in their holiday\nclothes seemed to be at the very height of enjoyment. Altogether it\nwas a gay and picturesque scene, but I was content to view it at a\nrespectful distance. Not so Madame d'Agri; she patronized the\npeasants, who looked at her eccentric costume in bewildered\nadmiration; chucked the children under the chin, scolded the parents,\nand in short acted out the \"grande dame\" of the f\u00eate to her heart's\ncontent. As night approached, a large building in the centre of the\nplace, used, I believe, as a sort of flour d\u00e9p\u00f4t on market days, was\nlighted by Chinese lanterns and flaring tallow candles; here the youth\nof both sexes enjoyed a rollicking, laugh-abounding dance, to the\nsound of a cracked fiddle. Madame was just insisting on forming a\nquadrille of her own, to encourage the peasantry, who, by the way,\nseemed but little in need of encouragement, when her nephew\nrepresented to her that we should not get home till late as it was,\nand that the moon would not serve after a certain hour. Reluctantly\nshe yielded, and we settled ourselves once more in our \"Americaine,\"\ntired but pleased. The conversation was soon monopolized by M. d'Agri\nand Miss Fanny, who, whatever might be their fatigue, always seemed to\nhave some point of dispute.\n\nAfter this excursion my vigilance increased, and my observations were\nnot pleasing; two or three little circumstances brought out in M.\nd'Agri's character an insensibility to the pains and sufferings of\nothers, and a certain cruelty of thought and action, which,\nnotwithstanding the interest his fine intellect excited in me, brought\na feeling of distrust, and at times of dislike.\n\nOne rather misty day, on which but few bathers ventured into the\nwater, I, feeling a need of exercise, determined to enjoy my customary\nswim. The cabin I happened to take stood next to the large one of\nMadame d'Agri. When I returned, dripping and glowing from my bath, I\nnoticed that the lady was seated in it sewing, and that her nephew was\nlounging by her, reading the paper. As I was luxuriating in the\ndelicious feeling which I believe sea-bathing alone can give, I was\nstartled by a few words which came distinctly to my ears; so far the\nconversation had not risen above an occasional, monotonous hum, but\nsuddenly I found myself in the awkward position of a forced listener,\nas the thin wooden partition proved but a slight {412} obstruction to\nthe heightened voices of the speakers.\n\n\"My good aunt, let us not broach that subject again.\"\n\n\"My good nephew, I must and will; the welfare of our noble house--\"\n\n\"Fiddlesticks!\" (this is a mild translation.) \"Listen rather to this\naccount of the transactions at Vienna.\n\n\"Louis, you are mad. If you will not be moved by higher\nconsiderations, think at least of your own comfort--that comfort that\nyou love so well. You are poor, too high born to work, what then is\nleft you but a wealthy marriage?\"\n\n\"There you have touched my only vulnerable point, my comfort; but\nthen, my dear aunt, what becomes of your aristocratic scruples? would\nyou have the noble blood of the d'Agris contaminated?--\"\n\n\"But, Louis, Americans are not like others; it is true they do say her\nfather made his money in commerce, but then, I read somewhere or other\nthat Americans consider themselves all as sovereigns; besides, we want\nmoney, and if it is said that you married a foreigner, people will not\ntrouble themselves about the origin of her money-sacks, as they would\nif she were the daughter of a French roturier. Come, my boy, be\nreasonable; remember that you are the last representative--\"\n\n\"I remember, rather, that champagne is dear, and so are cigars: what\ndo you want of me?\"\n\n\"I want you to marry this rich girl; no hard task--you seem to like\nher well enough--\"\n\n\"My good aunt, everything in life bores me. When I was a child, my\nplaythings bored me; later, school and college proved almost\nintolerable bores; my rank bores me; Paris bores me, the country still\nmore so; society is an insufferable bore, but above all, French girls\nbore me. Now, this _Mees Fannee_ is original or seems to me so; she\nstirs me a little with her quickness, her coquetry, and her _outr\u00e9_\nideas. But remember that has not yet lasted long; a few weeks more,\nand she too probably, will bore me--and then for a whole lifetime . . .\ngood aunt, that is a consideration to make a man tremble!\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Louis; yon will have to marry some time or other.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose so; but French girls are brought up with a becoming\nsense of the submission due from wives to husbands; now, this girl\nwould prove rebellious I know, and, however democratic I may be in my\ntheory of the government of nations, my theory of the government of\nthe 'menage' is that of despotism. Besides, I have a remnant of\nhumanity left in me, and would not condemn that bright young creature\nto the misery of being my wife; no, no, let her marry some Quixotical\nAmerican, who will place her on a high pedestal and pass his life in\nadmiring her and letting her henpeck him.\"\n\nI could not help smiling at this resume of an American husband's\nchivalric devotion.\n\n\"Very well, you will pass your life as you have commenced it; you will\ndeny yourself all sorts of luxuries because they are expensive; that\nRembrandt you covet so, will remain unpurchased; you want to travel,\nbut you will stay at home, because travelling costs money; and finally\nyou will marry some girl as poor as yourself, or with a d\u00f4t, which she\nwill spend, together with more than half your pittance, in buying\nsilks and satins to outshine Madame this or Madame that--\"\n\n\"Hold!\"\n\n\"On the other hand, you might, by marrying this charming _Mees_,\ndecorate your house with pictures and statutes, go everywhere, see\neverything, and take your place among the enlightened patrons of art\nand science; all this you reject because you are afraid this little\n_Mees_ will prove stronger of will--\"\n\n{413}\n\n\"Stronger of will than I!\" and M. Louis sprang from his chair; the\nBaronne was no fool after all. \"Diable! there are few women I could\nnot bend to my will. My aunt, I will try my luck with this little\n_Mees_; win her, wed her, and conquer her, too?\"\n\n\"There spoke a d'Agri; but, my dear boy, you should pay her court more\nassiduously, compliment her--\"\n\n\"Pshaw! I understand your charming sex better than you do yourself; if\nflattery could have won her, I should long ago have been beaten by\nthat soft-headed, smooth-tongued artist. No, the surest way to win a\nwoman is to make her feel that you can master her, and that if you bow\nbefore her, it is only because you choose to do so.\"\n\n\"So you are not afraid of ultimate success; you think she loves you?\"\n\n\"No, but I think she is fascinated, mesmerized, what you will, by me,\nwhich answers the same purpose; what I have to do is to hasten\nmatters, and that is what I mean to do. I think she has gone to the\n'Source' for one of her eccentric, solitary rambles. An revoir, ma\nbonne Tante!\" and the young man sprang from the cabin with an energy\nwhich I had never before noticed in him. Soon after, Madame gathered\nup her work apparently, and I heard no more. My toilet finished I also\ntook my departure, and thoughtfully turned my steps toward the hotel.\n\nOn my way I met Miss Fanny just returning from her walk; evidently M.\nLouis had missed her. Ascertaining that she was not tired, I begged\nher to accompany me to a particularly pretty spot on the hill, from\nwhich the village was seen to advantage; on the way the conversation\nwas desultory, though I tried gradually to lead it to the subject I\nmeant soon to attack. Once seated under the trees, I changed my tone,\nand looking at her earnestly, said:\n\n\"Miss Fanny, will you pardon me if the interest I feel in you, as a\ncountrywoman, and as a guileless girl, leads me to speak plainly to\nyou? Remember that I am more than twice your age; come, have I\npermission to make myself disagreeable?\"\n\n\"I do not understand you\"--and she looked up startled; then, perhaps\nreading a part of my thoughts in my face, she said with a blush, \"Yes,\nyou may speak.\"\n\nI then, as gently as possible, told her what I had observed, and dwelt\non the young man's unsound religions principles, on his want of\nsympathy for others, etc., and finally related the conversation I had\njust heard, softening some parts, but giving a detailed account of\nothers. She bent her head, and seemed considerably moved.\n\n\"And now, my child,\" I continued, \"give me the satisfaction of feeling\nthat I have done right, that you are glad to know this, that your\nheart is not as yet so engaged in this affair as to bring you any real\nunhappiness; if I thought I had unwittingly wounded any deep and\nhonest sentiment of yours, if I thought you felt for this young man\nthat sort of love which hallows its object, and often purifies it from\nevil, I could not easily forgive myself.\"\n\n\"You need not fear, my good friend; I thank you for your interest in\nme,\" and she extended her hand, smiling faintly through her tears. \"I\nhave done wrong I know, but this is how it happened: at first, ennuyed\nby the quietness of this place, which seemed so dull after Newport, I\ncommenced a sort of flirtation with this M. Louis d'Agri, merely\nbecause I craved excitement.\"\n\n\"Precisely; in other words you are an example of our as yet imperfect\nsystem of education. In France young girls are kept in severe\nrestraint, from which they rebound after marriage, often causing much\nmisery; ours is the other extreme--there is an almost unlimited degree\nof liberty among our young people, which is so far good that it\ncreates a feeling of chivalric honor among the men, and of\nself-sustaining strength among the women; but at the same time this\nfreedom creates also a longing for excitement, a {414} fear of ennui,\nwhich finds vent in an immense amount of flirting, generally innocent\nenough, but which becomes a part of the character of almost every\nyoung person, especially every young girl--is it not so?\"\n\n\"Perhaps it is; at all events the peculiar character of this young man\nsoon interested me; I felt piqued at his indolent, indifferent manner,\nand continued the flirtation; gradually, as I came to know him better,\nhe acquired over me, I scarcely know how, a sort of influence from\nwhich I could not rid myself; but never once did I mistake the feeling\nwhich prompted me to crave his society, for love.\"\n\n\"Then you do not think he could have succeeded in--\"\n\n\"I do not know; had I not been made aware of his base, mercenary\nmotives, he might have strengthened that influence so far as to blind\nme to its nature, and make me think it love; but--\"\n\n\"But now you are warned.\"\n\n\"But now I defy M. Louis d'Agri and his fascinations,\" and her eyes\nflashed.\n\n\"Still, do you not think that you would feel more comfortable away\nfrom his society?\"\n\n\"I feel no fear, but shall be glad to leave this place. Fortunately,\nmother was complaining this very morning of the cold sea-winds, and I\ncan easily persuade her that it is necessary to go further south. Is\nyour mind easy now? I see you have but little faith in my resolution.\"\n\n\"Pardon me. I have, but I think that the Baronne would find means to\nmake a longer residence here disagreeable, did she perceive the change\nwhich your manner must necessarily undergo.\"\n\nOur conversation lasted some little time longer, and ended by most\nkindly expressed thanks, and hopes for some future meeting, which\nhopes I most cordially reciprocated, for the girl's frank and simple\nmanner during the past conversation had much heightened my esteem of\nher.\n\nThat evening there arose a perfect storm of regrets, and expressions\nof surprise at Mrs. Haynes suddenly expressed determination. \"It was\nnot possible! Madame's health had improved so perceptibly,\" which\nassertion the worthy lady repudiated with as much energy as though it\nhad been an insult. \"We shall feel so deserted after she and _Mees\nFannee_ have gone,\" etc., etc. _Mees Fannee_ said nothing, but a\nheightened color, and a quiet, determined manner new to her, seemed to\nstrike M. Louis forcibly; he darted a quick look at me, but whether he\nreally ever suspected my agency in the transaction or not, I never\nknew. If he did, I believe that after the first feeling of anger had\npassed, he felt grateful rather than not, for his better nature, I am\nglad to think, really revolted at the idea of the contemplated\nmeanness.\n\nAt eleven the next morning the old-fashioned diligence carried _Mees\nFannee_ and her mother away, leaving the hotel _triste_ indeed. A\nlittle while after I saw Madame la Baronne and her nephew walking up\nand down the little garden, the lady gesticulating violently, and the\nyoung man quietly smoking a cigar, and answering his excited relative\nwith an occasional shrug of the shoulders.\n\nSoon after I also took my departure, for I found the interest of the\nplace strangely diminished, and the evenings at the \"plage\" stale,\nflat, and unprofitable; so leaving the good French ladies and their\ndaughters discussing the coming winter's fashions with voluble\ninterest, the indefatigable Baronne eagerly looking out for another\nheiress, and the nephew lazily indifferent to her success, I made my\nadieux. Thus ended my month at a French watering-place.\n\n------\n\n{415}\n\n\nAVE MARIA SINE LABE CONCEPTA.\n\n\nBY REV M. MULLIN.\n\n  Hail, Mary, our Mother! Hail, Virgin the purest!\n    Hail, Mary, the Mother of mercy and love!\n  Hail, Star of the Ocean, serenest and surest\n    That ever shone brightly in heaven above!\n  'Mid the shadows of death stretching down o'er the nations,\n    Thy children have always rejoiced in your fame.\n  Oh! proudly we witness in our generations\n    The last crowning halo that circles thy name.\n\n  Tradition, which, joined with its sister evangel,\n    God placed upon guard at the door of his bride.\n  Tradition, which beams like the sword of the angel,\n    As flame-like, it \"turneth on every side,\"\n  Tradition shoots up o'er the ages victorious--\n    Its summit in heaven, its base upon earth--\n  Like a pillar of fire, far-shining and glorious,\n    And shows thee all sinless and pure in thy birth.\n\n  As fair as the rose 'mid Jerusalem's daughters.\n    As bright as the lily by Jordan's blue wave,\n  As white as the dove, and as clear as the waters\n    That flowed for the prophet and circled his grave;\n  As tall as the cedar on Lebanon's mountain,\n    As fruitful as vine-tree in Cades' domain.\n  As straight as the palm by Jerusalem's fountain.\n    As beauteous as rose-bush on Jericho plain;\n\n  As sweet as the balm-tree diffusing its odor,\n    As sweet as the gold-harp of David the king,\n  As sweet as the honeycomb fresh from Mount Bodor,\n    As sweet as the face veiled by Gabriel's wing:\n  The silver-lined sky o'er the garden of Flora,\n    The rainbow that gilds the dark clouds within view,\n  The star that shines brightest, the dawning Aurora--\n    More chaste than the moon, and more beautiful too.\n\n  The glass without stain, and the radiance immortal,\n    The ever-sealed fount in the city of God,\n  The garden enclosed, on whose sanctified portal\n    None e'er but the King of the angels hath trod:\n  The sign that appeared in mid-Heaven--a maiden\n    With the moon 'neath her feet, and twelve stars on her head,\n  Sun-clothed, going up from the desert to Eden;\n    Such Mary, the Queen of the living and dead.\n\n{416}\n\n  Oh! such are the words of the saints now in glory,\n    Whose voices are heard o'er the dark waste of time,\n  Like sentinels set through the centuries hoary,\n    Proclaiming her free from original crime;\n  Of the prophets and pontiffs, and doctors and sages,\n    Who once in this dark vale of misery trod,\n  Like lamps hanging out on the mist-covered ages\n    To light up the ways of the city of God.\n\n  We see by their light with a swelling emotion\n    The bark of the church, as it onward doth ride,\n  Through tempest and gloom, where the Star of the Ocean\n    Doth brightly illumine its path o'er the tide;\n  Where clouds become thicker and hurricanes fleeter,\n    And threaten to shut out its radiance from view,\n  We see through the darkness the figure of Peter\n    As he points it out still b the sailors and crew.\n\n  We hear the loud ring of the multitude's paean\n    By the nations in triumph exultantly sung,\n  From the cliffs of the north to the distant AEgean,\n    As Celestine silenced Nestorius' tongue:\n  In Ephesus' temple--the temple of Mary--\n    The fathers hold council by Peter's command,\n  In Ephesus' streets, long expectant and weary,\n    The crowds stand with joybells and torches in hand.\n\n  We see the grand figure of Cyril before us,\n    Where John, her adopted, before him had trod,\n  As pontiffs and people swell loud the glad chorus,\n    That Mary our Mother is Mother of God.\n  And oh! that we've witnessed the last shining lustre,\n    That Star of the Stars, in her diadem set,\n  The first in existence, last placed in the cluster.\n    To shine through a long line of centuries yet;\n\n  There were journeys by land, there were ships on the ocean,\n    That bore Judah's princes to Sion's bright walls;\n  The people have heard with a thrilling emotion\n    The voice of the high priest, as on them it calls.\n  Oh! bless them, dear Mother, we pray with emotion.\n    And bless this green island, that looks up to thee;\n  For this, dearest Mother, is gem of the ocean,\n    And thou art immaculate Star of the Sea.\n\nDecember 8,1864.\n\n------\n\n{417}\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nWOMAN.  [Footnote 143]\n\n  [Footnote 143: Essays on Woman's Work, by Bessie R. Parkes. The\n  higher Education of Woman, by Emily Davis. Woman's Work in the\n  Church, by J. M. Ludlow. London and New York: Alex. Strahan.]\n\nAmong the social topics of the day, that of the present position and\nfuture prospects of woman holds a prominent place. This is the less to\nbe wondered at, in that the course of civilization, the force of\npublic opinion, together with the effect of the progress of machinery\nupon labor, have materially altered the duties which were once\nesteemed peculiarly her own.\n\nWe have three small books before plus, all from England, and all\nbearing on this one topic. The first (\"Essays on Woman's Work\")\ndelineates very forcibly the fact, that the actual work of women,\nindependently of that performed within the domestic circle, is\n(relatively to the employment of numbers) immense. Our authoress calls\nit \"the great revolution which has been so little noticed amidst the\nnoise of politics and the clash of war--the withdrawal of women from\nthe life of the household, and the suction of them by the hundreds of\nthousands within the vortex of industrial life.\" Page 20 she says: \"I\nwas told in Manchester, by one of the most eminent and thoughtful\nwomen in England, that the outpouring of a mill in full work at the\nhour of dinner was such a torrent of living humanity that a lady could\nnot walk against the stream. I was told the same thing at Bradford by\na female friend.\" (Page 22)--\"It is clear then, since modern society\nwill have it so, women must work.\" But not women only; \"young female\nchildren are winding silk for twelve clear hours a day beneath a hot\nAfrican sun, in a charitably economical institution,\" (27) and\n\"mothers have left the hearth and the cradle, and the young girls and\nthe _little_ children themselves have run to offer their feeble arms;\nwhole villages are silent, while huge brick buildings swallow up\nthousands of living humanity from dawn of day until twilight shades.\"\n(33)--\"There are to be seen the obvious results of the absence of\nmarried women from their homes, in discomfort, etc., and in the\n_utter_ want of domestic teaching and training during the most\nimportant years of youth; besides the sure deterioration of health\nconsequent on long confinement.\" Well may Miss Parkes consider it \"a\npurely economical and selfish tendency, acting by competition alone\nand casting aside unprofitable material. Women are more and more left\nto provide for themselves, and society takes hardly any trouble to\nenable them to do so, either by education or by opening the doors to\nsalaried employment. The great overplus of the female sex in England,\ncaused chiefly by the wholesale emigration of men to the colonies,\nincreases the difficulty tenfold.\" \"In fact, the general freedom and\n_laisser aller_ of English political and social life, while it serves\nmany admirable purposes in the general economy of the nation, allows\nthe weaker classes, those who are in any way unfitted for the race, to\ngo to the wall, while the others pass by. I believe the very _poor_ to\nsuffer far more in England than elsewhere; and I am sure there is no\ncountry on earth where so many women are allowed to drift helplessly\nabout, picking up the scanty bread of insufficient earnings.\" \"We are\nat present in an extraordinary state of social disorganization.\" (Pp\n37, 38.)\n\nThis is but a dismal result of progress, of civilization; modern\nsociety with all its boasting seems to have {418} achieved little for\nhappiness. After this witness for the uneducated class, Miss Parkes\nproceeds to show the difficulties that encompass the educated strivers\nafter bread, and here difficulties seem to increase, from the danger\nincurred by exposing young women to intercourse with a corrupted\nsocial state; \"it is better,\" says Miss Parkes, \"to be starved in body\nthan made worse in the moral and spiritual life,\" and in this we can\nbut agree with her, as also in the conclusion that this fact renders\nmany an occupation ineligible which would otherwise be good in itself.\nThe lady's remarks on the changes of eighty years are interesting, as\nher accounts of \"educated destitution\" are graphic and painful in\ntheir truth. Her remarks are sensible, and her plans proposed are so\nmodest and unassuming they seem rather suggestions, \"helps to\nthought,\" than projects, and as such we cordially recommend them; for\nthough American society is not yet in the state depicted of the\nsuperabundant populations of Europe, we cannot fail to recognize that\nif the _same principles_ are exercised on this side of the Atlantic as\nhave been exercised on that, the same results will follow when\npopulation becomes denser; it behooves us, then, to be wise in time,\nand acknowledge some higher law than that provided by an inexorable\nsystem of political economy, if we would be happy. Men and women are\nnot necessarily blind agents of capitalists, mere creators of a wealth\nwhich they do not share in due proportion to their intelligence and\ntheir industry. They are moral beings, if they would but know it, if\nthey would but exercise and cultivate their moral powers; beings\ncapable of controlling themselves, and, by enlightened industrial\narrangements, of providing for themselves and for their neighbors. The\ntendencies of Miss Parkes are evidently to the formation of\njoint-stock societies, making the laborer at once a worker and a\ncapitalist. This _might_ be so contrived as to form another style of\n\"guild\" of auld lang syne, when Catholic workmen protected each other\nfrom want. Christian love, and earnest thought, endeavoring, to form\nassociations for mutual interchange of kind offices, and for\nencouraging each other in practices of piety and good will to men, are\nessentially Catholic; it is only when based on a purely selfish\nmotive, and with purely earthly aims, that they lose their charm and\nbest security. We confess that for ourselves we do not expect to see\nany great improvement in the condition of the worker, whether male or\nfemale, in Europe or elsewhere, by combination or otherwise, while the\neffort for improvement is unsustained by a recurrence to first\nprinciples, and unbased on _positive_ religious forms and dogmas. As\nlong as the _world_ is unchristian it must remain _selfish_, and the\nweakest will go to the wall, in every form of of civilization, whether\nnamed co-operative or competitive. But once recognize that man's most\nessential life resides in his _soul_, and that he is bound to provide\nfor the wants of that soul as his first object, \"guilds\" take form and\nshape, and the _laborer_, rising in dignity, performing his labor as\nan ordinance of God, \"loving his neighbor as himself,\" establishes, or\nmay establish, associations, in which the weaker shall be protected,\nand the poor recognized as the representatives of Christ. This we\nshall see exemplified on another page in speaking of the \"_Rosines_\"\ninstituted by Rosa Governo, who had been a servant.\n\nMiss Davis's book on the Higher Education of Woman, is addressed more\nespecially to the middle classes, for whom she requires education has\na means of obtaining a livelihood. The discrepancies between the\neducation accorded to English girls and boys are greater than those\nexisting between American boys and girls; still there is much room for\nimprovement. Girls are too apt to be superficial, \"to read too much,\nand think too little;\" and even here in free America, some may be\nfound who think they should lose {419} caste being useful, thorough,\nand energetic. To such as these we particularly recommend Miss Davis's\nbook, for it sifts all such fallacies, and regards the question of\nwoman's place in the social order, primarily considering them as\n\"children of God, members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of\nheaven; and, secondarily, as wives, mothers daughters, sisters\" (p.\n36). Miss Davis writes modestly, suggestively, not dogmatically;\nfeeling her way as it were at every step. Her descriptions are of\ncourse English, but much that she says of the _necessity_ of suitable\nemployment for woman, not only for a maintenance but for _healthy\nexistence_ as a moral and intellectual being, is applicable to every\nnation, and will afford useful hints to any one who has pondered\nseriously on woman's present position and future prospects.\n\nWe regret that we cannot speak so favorably of the tone of Mr.\nLudlow's book, valuable as is the information it affords as to what\nthe collective energy of women can effect when strong religious motive\nis the prompter of their actions. The author gives a consecutive\naccount of the work of women in the church from the time all the\napostles to the present era, tracing their usefulness, their power of\nvarying their action according to the exigencies of the day in which\nthey lived; the devotedness of the ancient deaconesses the learning of\nthe nuns, when the world was the prey of the Goths and Vandals and\ntheir successors; the intellectual activity that characterized the\ncommunities while the outer world was sunk in barbarism; the books\nthey spent their lives in copying, and the works they themselves\ncomposed. Then he gives an account of the active orders, or, perhaps,\nrather associations, as of the B\u00e9guines--\n\n  \"who, without renouncing the society of men or the business of life,\n  or vowing poverty, perpetual chastity; or absolute obedience, yet\n  lead, either at their own homes or in common dwellings, a life of\n  prayer, meditation, and labor. Matthew Paris mentions it as one of\n  the wonders of the age for the year 1250, that 'in Germany there\n  rose up an innumerable multitude of those continent women who wish\n  to be called B\u00e9guines, to that extent that Cologne was inhabited by\n  more than 1,000 of them.' Indeed, by the latter half of this\n  century, there seems to have been scarcely a town of any importance\n  without them in France, Belgium, Northern Germany, and Switzerland.\"\n  (P. 118.)\n\n  \"The first of these fellowships was composed of weavers of either\n  sex; and so diligent were they with their work, that their industry\n  had to be restricted, lest they should deprive the weavrers' guilds\n  of their bread. Wholly self-maintained at first, they rendered\n  moreover essential service in the performance of works of charity.\n  As soon as a B\u00e9guinage became at all firmly established, there were\n  almost invariably added to it hospitals or asylums for the\n  reception, maintenance, or relief of the aged, the poor, the sick.\n  To this purpose were devoted the greater part of the revenues of the\n  sisterhood, however acquired, another portion going to the\n  maintenance of the common chapel. The sisters moreover received\n  young girls to educate; went out to nurse and console the sick, to\n  attend death-beds, to wash and lay out the dead; were called in to\n  pacify family disputes.\" (P. 118.).\n\n  \"The B\u00e9guines had no community of goods, no common purse for\n  ordinary needs. Nevertheless, those among them who were wholly\n  destitute, or broken down with infirmities, were maintained at the\n  public expense, or out of the poor fund; mendicancy was never\n  allowed, unless in the extremely rare case of the establishment not\n  being able to relieve its poorest members.\" (P. 120.)\n\nThis is refreshing testimony to woman's powers, and were a similar\n_devoted principle_ now at work, many of the problems troubling\nearnest, thoughtful female minds might be solved.  \"The striking\nfeature of her self-maintenance by labor\" is a very valuable evidence,\nfor now that machinery is called in to _help_ the race, we cannot\nbelieve that under its rightful application, Christian women could\neffect _less_ at the present time than they did in ancient days. A\nsimilar devotedness, a similar idea of the duty of living for God, a\nsimilar appreciation of the divine institution of industry as a means\nof sanctification, would produce equal or even superior effects, since\nintelligence is more diffused now than formerly, and mechanical\nassistance more within the reach of the many. {420} That which is\nneeded is simply the spirit of _godliness_, and to him that _asketh_\nthis is _promised_. Shall we then longer look calmly on the evils that\nbeset the sex, when the means are at hand to remedy them, whenever we\nsincerely wish for them?\n\nMr. Ludlow proceeds to trace the educational fellowships, the\nUrsulines, Angustinians, and others. He says that in the sixteenth\ncentury female orders generally devoted themselves to education, even\nwhen founded on the old Franciscan basis of manual labor. Then comes\nthe enumeration of the charitable sisterhoods, in all their varied\nmodes of assuaging human misery or diminishing temptation to sin; in\nall their efforts for succoring the poor, the sick, the infirm, and\nfor recalling the lost sheep to the fold. The information contained in\nthe volume renders the book valuable in spite of Mr. Ludlow's\nprejudices, broadly and oftentimes coarsely expressed. We dare not\nrepeat his blasphemies relative to the adoration of the blessed\neucharist, to the vow of chastity, or to other dogmas; they are\nintroduced, as he acknowledges, to free the author from the imputation\nof Romanizing tendencies, to which the involuntary testimony he bears\nto the _right action_ of the church has subjected him. We pity him,\nthat he did not see the force of his own evidence, that he was not led\nto the truth, rather than to the vilifying it. We give but _one_\ninstance of the manner he has adopted in order to prove himself no\nRomanist; it will suffice to show the want of candor which reigns\nthroughout the book when the _Romish_ Church is touched upon. Having\ndescribed, _con amore_, the institution of the B\u00e9guines as \"being\nexempt from almost all the inconveniences of a _convent life_\" (to\nwhich he appears to entertain an insuperable objection), he attributes\nat first their fall to the jealousy of the regular congregations. Yet\nafter a while, the innate force of truth compels him to confess that\nthe institution fell by its own fault. The free fellowships departed\nfrom the _spirit_ of their foundation. \"In place of the\nself-supporting industry and active charity which at first\ncharacterized them, there crept in the opposites of these--reliance\nupon others' alms and indifference to good works! So complete was the\nchange that the very term B\u00e9ghard, _prayer_, surviving in our\n'beggar,' has come to designate clamorous pauperism\" (pp. 136, 137) He\ncontinues on another page:\n\n  \"But the B\u00e9guine sisterhoods of the north were too numerous, too\n  useful, too much in harmony with the spirit of their age and\n  country, too deeply rooted in the affections of the people, to\n  perish before the canons of the council or a papal bull. Nor,\n  indeed, it was soon seen, did Rome's safety require that they should\n  perish. The existence of free _brotherhoods_ was, indeed,\n  inconsistent with that of Romanism itself; for every community of\n  men, not bound by rule or vows, not subject to a clerical head, must\n  be of necessity an asylum of free thought, such as a monastic church\n  with an infallible head could not, without the greatest danger,\n  allow. Sisterhoods, on the other hand, although equally unbound by\n  vow or rule, might safely be tolerated; since, through the priestly\n  director or confessor, generally an essential part of the\n  organization of any B\u00e9guinage, they could be kept in dependence,\n  tempted on into monachism. And thus, parallel with the current of\n  censure against B\u00e9ghardism and B\u00e9guinism as a system, there begins\n  to flow another current of toleration, and even, as the danger\n  diminishes, approval, for those 'faithful women who, having vowed\n  continence, or even without having vowed it, choose honestly to do\n  penance in their hospitals, and serve the Lord of virtues in spirit\n  of humility.'\"\n\nThe B\u00e9guines were finally absolved from censure by the Council of\nConstance, 1414 (pp. 139, 140). The mind which does not see in this\naccount that one set of B\u00e9guines were suppressed on account of\ndisorder and that the others were retained from the desire of\npromoting virtue,  is singularly blinded by prejudice, notwithstanding\nthat he walks, as he says himself (p. 139), \"in the brightness of\nLuther's most blessed name.\"\n\nThe B\u00e9guines, according to our author, were eventually merged into\n{421} Tertiaries, or more regularly organized religious bodies, of\nwhom he gives so interesting an account that we can but wonder and\nadmire the more that the account comes, from such a source. There is,\nhowever, in the author's mind, a notable ignorance of the \"purity of\nintention\" enforced by the church as necessary to the sanctification\nof good works, and this accounts for much misconception on his part.\nHe says that when Madame de Miramon, a young widow, began her\nreligious life in works of active charity, \"her director exhorted her\nto make a 'retreat' for a year, in order to devote herself to her own\nperfection, without exercising her charity toward her neighbor.\" This\nMr. Ludlow styles \"a trait characteristically Romish,\" in which we\nmust presume he is right, for if he represents the anti-Romish party,\nwe must say, judging by his book, there is little apprehension shown\nby that party that \"good good works,\" to be acceptable, to be\nsanctifying to the agent, must be wrought in God, and therefore that a\nyear spent in the repression of self-seeking, in acts of humiliation\nand self-abasement, might be and probably was necessary to insure that\nthe future acts of the pious lady should be performed in that \"pure\nintention\" which would draw down upon them the fructifying blessing of\ndivine grace. We are fain to confess that this is, as \"the gentleman\nsays, characteristically Romish;\" and much we rejoice at so beautiful\na characteristic of our faith.\n\nWe cannot follow Mr. Ludlow through all his accounts, which we regret\nthe more as he gives important evidence to the fact, that in every age\nof the church pious women have been found to comprehend the needs of\nthe age in which they live, and to associate with the special purpose\nof providing the assistance necessary. In a barbarous age, when\nvandalism overturned human learning, \"nunneries, like monasteries for\nmen, became schools or store houses of learning, sometimes even\ncentres of intellectual activity. At the beginning of the sixth\ncentury, the nunnery founded by St. Cesarius at Arles contained two\nhundred nuns, mostly employed in copying books. Their rule bound them\nto learn 'human letters' for two hours a day, and to work in common,\neither in transcribing or in female labor\" (p. 106). The convents of\nTours, founded in the sixth century by Queen Radegund, and the Swabian\nnunnery of Gaudesheim, in the latter half of the tenth century, the\nglory of female monachism, were specially centres of intellectual\nactivity. In the latter dwelt the poetess Hrotsvitha, herself not the\nfirst authoress of her convent, whose Latin plays seem to have\nespecial attraction for Mr. Ludlow, for his panegyric is couched in\nthese words, \"Hrotsvitha, at least, was no hooded Pharisee\" (pp. 119,\n111).\n\nDuring the Crusades and European wars, the communities of the\nTertiarian hospitaller nuns, under various names, excite his\nadmiration, though he thinks \"the worship of these nuns may not be the\nhighest and best, but it is surely genuine\" (p. 142). Thanks even for\nthat admission, Mr. Ludlow. The B\u00e9guines, of whom we have already\nspoken, and the educational nuns spring up at the hour of need, and\nfor the present day \"the institute of 'Rosines' of Turin presents an\ninteresting feature.\" These latter have no vows, no seclusion. They\nare a genuine working association of women, only with a strong\nreligious element infused in their work. They were founded by Rosa\nGoverno, who had been a servant. There Mrs. Jameson found (see\nCommunion of Labor) \"nearly four hundred women, from fifteen years of\nage upwards, gathered together in an assemblage of buildings, where\nthey carry on tailoring, embroidery, especially of military\naccoutrements for the army, weaving, spinning, shirt-making,\nlace-making, every trade, in short, in which female ingenuity is\navailable. They have a well-kept garden, a school for the poor\nchildren of the neighborhood, an infirmary, including a ward for the\naged, a capital dispensary, with a small medical library. {422} They\nare ruled by a superior, elected from among themselves; the work-rooms\nare divided into classes and groups, each under a monitress. The rules\nof admission and the interior regulations are strict; any inmate may\nleave at once, but cannot be readmitted. Finally, they are entirely\nself-supporting, and have a yearly income of between 70,000f. to\n80,000f., that is, about from \u00a32,800 to \u00a33,200. No female organization\nis more pregnant with hope than this\" (p. 181). With this we conclude\nour notice of Mr. Ludlow's book, although he has also accounts of some\nfew Protestant associations, imitated and modified from the foregoing.\n\nWe cannot but rejoice at so much welcome testimony, from an outsider,\nto the benefits flowing from the female religious institutions of the\nchurch of Christ, and feel encouraged to believe that whatever may be\nthe necessities of the times, bands of holy women will rise up to\nadminister thereunto.\n\nIt is refreshing, too, as an evidence that the gratitude which woman\nowes to the church, she is willing to repay in self-devotedness to the\n_wants_ of the members of that church. No woman who has ever reflected\nfor one brief hour on the emancipation from slavery that has been\nwrought for her by the ministry of the church, can fail to recognize\nthat in the Church alone is her _real_ protection, her true safety.\nThe pagan woman--what was she? You may see her type in the Eastern\nharem, the Hindoo suttee, the Indian burden-bearer. The few women of\nantiquity who broke their chains did so at a fearful cost. The\nAspasias, the Diotemes, the Semiramises, the Zenobias, the\nCleopatras--alas! a cloud obscures their greatness; and even\nheathenism condemns while it admires them. Respectable women were\n_slaves_; if not nominally so, yet slaves in intellect, slaves by\ninferior position, slaves through _ignorance_; slaves because their\n_souls_ could find no scope for exertion. And now what are the\ntendencies of the age? I fear we must confess that they are purely\nmaterialistic, that they point rather to the reign of physical power\nthan that of moral force; and if so, what must woman expect save a\nreturn in some shape, modified by existing machinery, to the old idea\nof enslavement under another name? The laws of the church are already\nannulled by society in respect of marriage. The power of easy divorce\nexists in the Eastern states, and polygamy flourishes in Utah. These\nare matters calculated to make Catholic women reflect ere they march\ntoo readily with the tendencies of the age. The church, and the church\nonly, raised the standard of woman, and that incidentally, by\nproclaiming that she had a _soul_ to save, and that the powers of the\nsoul were will, memory, and understanding. Christian men were obliged\nto concede to her the exercise of these powers, by the same authority\nthrough which they claimed the right to exercise them for themselves.\nBut now, the world is for the most part not Christian, and we must\nlook well to the principles that it puts forth; its associations or\nco-operations, if founded on a merely selfish principle, must end in\ndisorder. It requires the strong religious element spoken of by Mrs.\nJameson as existing among the Rosines, and the \"pure intention\" which\ninduced Madame de Miramon to obey her director and make the year's\nretreat he prescribed, in order that her future acts might be begun,\ncontinued, and ended in God, to insure that a community life or\nassociation shall produce good. That joint-stock companies may for a\nwhile flourish and contribute to the wealth of the shareholders is\ndoubtless true; but if the wealth thus obtained is made merely to\ncontribute to material enjoyment, it will rather injure than profit\nthe possessor, whether that possessor be man or woman. Strong moral\npower is produced by exercise, by endurance, renunciation, rather than\nby gratification. {423} Strong intellectual power is produced by deep\nthought, head study, unremitting exertion, as strong physical power is\nproduced by labor, continuous activity, hard fare, and unluxurious\nhabits. We must not lose sight of these facts when we seek to improve\nthe condition of either man or woman; and desirable as are\nassociations for mutual benefit, we must not forget that if they are\nto be permanent, they most aim at something higher than improving in\ntemporalities. The union of the natural law with the supernatural law\nshould form the especial study of every thinking member of the church;\nand to women's associations it seems a study peculiarly desirable, as\nwoman owes her present improved condition entirely to the effects\nproduced by that supernatural action on her previous condition. If we\nmight be allowed to suggest a subject of thought to such Catholic\nwomen as see the evils depicted by Misses Parkes and Davis, and wish\nto assist in their removal, it would be that they should meditate and\nstudy the practical bearing of the ancient associations of the church\nto mitigate the then existing evils, and having caught the spirit of\ndevotedness from the many examples therein presented, should proceed\nto consider what form of devotedness is demanded by the present\nneeds--and in the spirit of the church assemble to promote the needful\nwork.\n\nThat there is much to be done, all must confess; but in what way it is\nto be done is not altogether so evident. Only tracing from all history\n\"that woman's work in the church\" is to see the difficulties of the\ntimes, to enter with warm sympathy into its distresses, and having\npurified the human tenderness with which she is gifted by casting it\ninto the furnace of divine love, to direct that tenderness,\nenlightened by intellectual culture and strengthened by acetic\npractice, into the channels needing assistance. We can but feel\nconfident that Catholic women will now as heretofore ponder over the\nposition of their sex with regard to labor and intellectual culture,\nand that to meet its requirements such institutions will be formed as\nwill push forward \"progress\" in the most approved system compatible\nwith the solemn duties of _Catholicity_: that is, uniting the human\nprivilege to the far higher and loftier privilege involved in being a\nmember of the church of Christ.\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nMY TWO MITES.\n\n\"This poor widow hath cast in more than they all.\"\n\n\n  Widowed of the world, that once did me betroth.\n  Unto the treasury of God brought I,\n        In after days,\n  A heart and mind--my all--two mites in worth,\n  And cast them in. What wealth, if they should buy\n        Such priceless praise!\n\n------\n\n{424}\n\n\nMISCELLANY.\n\n\n\n_A most Important Discovery in Photography_.--That photographic\nproductions cannot be relied upon as permanent appears a fact only too\nwell established. The public have been convinced of it by seeing\nfolios of choice productions and scores of treasured portraits pass\ngradually into \"the sere and yellow leaf\" of their age, and finally\ndisappear. A few years, more or less, generally works the change.\nPhotographers, too, have lost all faith in the absolute permanence of\ntheir productions, and have long been looking for this desirable\nquality in some ideal process for which their experimentalists were\nindustriously striving and working, and for which they were most\nanxiously looking, rather than to any modification of the old silver\nprocess, which they have now wrought up to such a pitch of perfection.\nThis fading has been pretty clearly shown to be, at least mainly, due\nto the action of the hyposulphites. The print lasts a longer or\nshorter time in proportion to the degrees in which the fixing\nagent--hyposulphite of soda--has been removed from the paper; but the\nslightest trace of it will assuredly bring about the destruction of\nthe photograph. The only chance of absolute permanence appears to be\nin its complete elimination, although even then there are other\nelements of evil which may be suspiciously regarded. We have hitherto\nrelied for this purpose upon the mechanical action of water, and some\nable men have run counter to the general experience by affirming that\nabsolute permanence could be obtained by proper and sufficient\nwashing. Mr. Carey Lea, for instance, asserted, about a year since,\nthat he had tested properly-washed prints with a very delicate and\ncertain test for the hyposulphites without discovering their trace,\nand in prints which he considered had been properly washed. This test\nwas that of placing a few drops of an alcoholic solution of iodine in\nseveral ounces of water, and applying the same with a camel's-hair\nbrush to photographs on starch-sized paper. The presence of the\nstarch, if freed from the hyposulphite by sufficient washing, was\nindicated by a violet or purple stain where the solution was applied;\nbut in prints not thus washed the presence of hyposulphite was\nindicated by the absence of such stain, which could be at once removed\nfrom the well-washed print by plunging it into a solution of\nhyposulphite. On the other and, Mr. Dawson, of King's College, in a\nrecent number of The British Journal of Photography denies the power\nof more washing to give permanence, \"unless the prints have been\nsoaked for some time in hot water so as to remove _all_ the size--even\nthen, supposing the paper non-albumenized, the elimination of the\nwhole of the hyposulphite is problematical.\" He adds--\"Some\nphotographers, we are aware, do treat their prints with a final wash\nin hot water; but this, of course, although unquestionably conducive\nto the permanence of the proof, does not remove the whole of the size\nin which the hyposulphite is locked up; and if it did, the paper would\nbe as little cohesive as blotting-paper, and prints would lose much in\nvigor and brilliancy. In the case of prints on albumen, or albumenized\npaper, hot water, we may reasonably suppose, has no more powerful\neffect in removing hyposulphite from albumen than cold water, if,\nindeed it has so much; and it can only be by acting on the texture of\nthe paper itself, and removing the size therefrom, that it can\nexercise a beneficial influence at all.\" To demonstrate the\ntruthfulness of his ideas on this subject, some prints which had been\nwashed in cold running water, and with the utmost care and attention,\nfor over twenty hours--and the final drippings from which, when\nsubjected to the tincture of iodine test, displayed no trace of the\nhyposulphite--were experimented with, and still gave up to boiling\nwater, in which they were steeped, at least one-fortieth part of a\ngrain of the destructive element to the half sheet of paper, clearly\nshowing that the cold water had not really removed it all, although it\nhad eliminated all that it could reach or had influence over. Now\nwhether Mr. Dawson and his supporters or Mr. Lea and his supporters be\nright, {425} whether photographs fade so universally because they are\nrarely or never sufficiently washed after the process of fixing, or\nbecause it is impossible to remove all trace of the hyposulphites from\nthe  paper by washing, it is certain that they do fade, and few\ndispute the final cause of such a fading. Therefore, a discovery which\ndestroys these mischievous agents altogether cannot but be regarded as\nmost important, and such a discovery is our pleasing duty to announce\nas having been recently published by Dr. Angus Smith, F.R.S., in the\npages of The British Journal of Photography, from which we quote:\n\"Considering that the cause of the destruction of photographs,\napparently by the action of time only, was in reality caused by the\namount of hyposulphite remaining in the paper, D. Reissig, of\nDarmstadt, contrived a mode of washing it out by centrifugal force.\nFor indicating the presence of sulphur assets, he used a small\ngalvanic arrangement with one cell, and decomposing the acid, had the\nsulphur thrown on a piece of polished silver, which became readily\nblackened in the solution. Dr. Theodore Reissig, my assistant,\nexamined several faded photographs for me by his brother's method,\nwhich, however, appeared unnecessarily delicate, as it was found the\namount of sulphur was very large, and roughly, we thought, in\nproportion to the amount of decay. I did not determine how much was\nhyposulphite and how much sulphate. As I had been interesting myself\nin bringing into use some of the remarkable properties of peroxide of\nhydrogen in oxidizing metals and organic bodies in fluids, it seemed\nto me that we might readily use it for oxidizing the hyposulphites. I\nam supposing that the sulphate alone will not be injurious.\" Dr. Smith\nthen shows how this powerful, oxidizing agent may be used to convert\nthe mischievous hyposulphites into the innocuous sulphate, and Mr.\nDawson, in the same number of the journal, gives the following\nexperimental illustration: \"Dissolve in a wineglass any quantity of\nsulphate of soda, and add to the solution a few drops of tincture of\niodine. The solution will remain permanently discolored, showing that\nsulphate of soda does not dissolve iodine. In another wine-glass, half\nfilled with plain water, drop sufficient tincture of iodine to strike\na permanent dark sherry color throughout the liquid; then add, drop by\ndrop, a weak solution of hyposulphite of soda till the color is\ndischarged, taking care to add as little excess of hyposulphite as\npossible. So far this experiment shows that iodine is soluble in\nhyposulphite of soda. Now, fill up the glass with an aqueous solution\nof peroxide of hydrogen, and observe the effects. After a few minutes\nthe iodine is no longer held in solution, and the liquid will resume\nthe dark sherry color it had before adding the hyposulphite of soda.\"\nEvery chemist will readily explain this. To apply this new chemical\nagent to this new use, take the print, after fixing and washing, and\nsoak it for a short time in a solution of the peroxide of hydrogen of\nthe strength of say one ounce of a ten-volume solution in forty ounces\nof water.--_Popular Science Review_.\n\n----\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS\n\n\n\nPASTORAL LETTER OF THE SECOND PLENARY COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE. The\nArchbishops and Bishops of the United States, in Plenary Council\nAssembled, to the Clergy and Laity of their charge. Baltimore: John\nMurphy & Co. 8vo pamphlet. For sale by L. Kehoe, New York.\n\n\nThis is the first official utterance of the Archbishops and Bishops of\nthe United States in Plenary Council assembled, to the clergy and\nlaity of their charge. As such it will be listened to with an\nattention due to the importance of the subjects on which it speaks,\nand to the character and motives of the august assembly from which it\nproceeds. It is the warning voice of the shepherds of the people,\nraised after long and matured deliberation to remind the flock of its\nduties, pointing out the dangers which threaten, the quarters from\nwhich they spring, and the means by which they are to be avoided. It\nis the herald of that full legislation which in a few months will be\npromulgated for the Catholics of the United States. The outlines of\nthat {426} legislation are traced with rapid pen in this document; the\ndetails, which have been already filled in, will, after having\nreceived the approval of Rome, be presented to the public stamped with\nthe seal of the Fisherman. The great object of this Pastoral Address\nis to impress upon the minds and hearts of Catholics those cardinal\nprinciples and duties of cheerful obedience to the divinely\nconstituted authority of the \"bishops placed to rule the Church of\nGod;\" in order that when the decrees of the Council are published,\nall--bishops, priests, and the laity--may co-operate in heart and\nhand in giving them practical effect. _All_ are members of the same\nmystical body of Christ, the Church; and therefore _all_ should in\ntheir respective positions and functions unite in harmonious action\nfor the well-being of the whole, according to the order established by\nthe divine head and founder. \"For there are diversities of ministries,\nbut the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God,\nwho worketh in all; and hath set the members every one of them in the\nbody as it hath pleased him\" (Cor. xii. 1).\n\nSuch being the object of the Pastoral Letter, it very naturally\ncommences (Sec. I.) with the \"Authority of Plenary Councils;\" and\n(Sec. II.) with \"Ecclesiastical Authority\" in its general relations,\nand with the correlative obedience thereto binding on the Christian\nconscience. As human policy and human action have, even in secular\nmatters, their religious as well as their civil aspects, the\nprinciples are laid down which mark out the boundary line between the\ncivil and ecclesiastical powers (Sec III.); a boundary line which\nnotwithstanding the experience and lessons of past centuries, is often\nobliterated or lost sight of. After having, in brief and emphatic\nlanguage, called attention to these general truths relating to\nauthority and consequent obedience founded on the natural and divine\nlaws, the episcopal legislators devote several sections to the more\nprominent questions and wants which affect the Catholic Church in the\nUnited States. Sec. IV. calls attention to the afflicted condition of\nthe Pope and to the obligation incumbent on his spiritual subjects,\nfor whom he daily prays and works, of relieving him. Sec. V. to the\n\"Sacrament of Matrimony,\" that great and sacred link by which society\nis in its nearest and dearest associations held together, but which is\nso much exposed to be severed, if not wholly destroyed, in our days.\nSec VI. to the press, that giant engine for good or for evil, wielded,\nalas! with such fatal efficacy against the faith and morals of the\n\"little ones and the weak ones\" of the fold, and yet which, properly\ndirected might be made the instrument most powerful for truth and for\ngood. Sec. VII. deals with the \"education\" of youth, on which indeed\nthe future of society and religion depends. Sec. VIII. with the\nsubject of '\"Catholic Protectories and Industrial Schools.\" Sec IX.\nwith the necessity of cultivating \"vocations\" in the ministry. Secs.\nX. and XI. are addressed, respectively, to the \"Laity\" and the\n\"Clergy.\" Sec XII. points to the condition of the emancipated slaves,\nand to the means to be used by the Church in ameliorating it. Sec\nXIII. glances at those most favored spots in the bosom of the Church,\nwhere the sun shines most brightly, and the fairest lilies spring to\nbe woven as a garland in her triumphant crown--to \"Religious\nCommunities.\" The \"conclusion\" epitomizes the whole by saying:\n\n  \"We have taken advantage of the opportunity of the assembling of so\n  large a number of bishops from every part of our vast country, to\n  enact such decrees as will tend to promote uniformity of discipline\n  and practice among us, and to do away with such imperfect observance\n  of the rites and approved ceremonies of the church as may have been\n  made necessary by the circumstances of past times, but which no\n  length of prescription can ever consecrate, and thus to give the\n  services of our religion that beauty and dignity which belong to\n  them, and for which we should all be so zealous.\n\n  \"For the furtherance of these important objects, we have caused to\n  be drawn up a clear and compendious series of statements upon the\n  most essential points of faith and morals, with which we have\n  embodied the decrees of the seven Provincial Councils of Baltimore,\n  and of the first Plenary Council, together with the decrees enacted\n  by us in the present Council, which, when they have been examined\n  and approved of by the Holy See, will form a compendium of\n  ecclesiastical law for the guidance of our clergy in the exercise of\n  their holy ministry.\n\n  \"The result of our labors, when thus returned to us, will be\n  promulgated more fully in our Provincial Councils and Diocesan\n  Synods and we will then take advantage of the opportunity to bring\n  more fully under the notice of the clergy, and the people committed\n  to our pastoral charge, the details of what we have done, and the\n  exact nature of the means {427} by which we hope to give increased\n  efficiency to the whole practical system of the church in this\n  country.\n\n  \"We have also recommended to the Holy See the erection of several\n  additional episcopal sees and vicariates apostolic, which are made\n  necessary by our rapidly increasing Catholic population and the\n  great territorial extent of many of our present dioceses.\"\n\nIt does not become us to review, but only two direct attention to this\nmost remarkable and important document. Abstracting from the authority\nof those from whom it emanates, and viewed merely as the pronouncement\nof so many men distinguished for learning, experience, and piety, it\nwill be read with respectful consideration by the educated portion of\nour community, whether Catholic or Protestant. On the former, however,\nit has a higher and holier claim--as the legislative exponent of those\nappointed to keep garrison on the watch-towers of Israel, to give\ntimely warning of danger, from whatever part of the horizon it\napproaches, to lead and guide them in their journey through this\nearthly desert to the promised land of heaven. In some of the plenary\ncouncils (for instance, of Africa about the time of St. Cyprian or of\nSt. Augustine, or of Asia before that of St. John Chrysostom) a\ngreater number of bishops were assembled. In plenary councils, too,\nweightier matters may have come under consideration; as, for example,\ndoctrinal questions at the Council of Orange, not, however, to be\nfinally settled without the after-sanction all the Infallible Church.\nBut never, we may venture to say, has any provincial council in other\nparts of the church been called to legislate for so vast a territory,\nmore on questions of discipline and practice affecting the present and\nfuture prospects of a population so widespread and so varied in its\norigin, its habits, and its pursuits. Some of the bishops traveled by\nsea and land over thousands of miles, and were heard to facetiously\nsay that \"as they had come so far it were a little thing to step\nacross and see the Pope at Rome.\" They were all, as we said, picked\nmen, \"chosen among hundreds\" of learned and pious priests; actuated\nsolely by the motive of doing the best their collective prudence\nsuggested for their people. Hence their opinions on questions with\nwhich they were all practically acquainted in their respective\ndioceses, merit to be heard by all classes with the deepest respect.\nDoctrinal matters were not discussed at Baltimore; these are reserved\nfor the supreme authority of general councils and of the Holy See. But\npractical remedies are suggested for social and moral evils in a\nquiet, calm, and steady tone, which sounds upon the ears of Catholics\nlike the voice of the Holy Spirit, and wakens in the hearts of the\nwell-minded children of the church an echo such as we may imagine the\ngentle voice of the divine Master to have awakened in those who\nlistened to his sermon on the mount. The council does not confine\nitself to the enunciation of general principles, but enters into\nminute, practical details on each subject. Had we space we would wish\nto quote much; but we confine ourselves to what it says on the section\non the press:\n\n  \"We cheerfully acknowledge the services the Catholic press has\n  rendered to religion, as also the disinterestedness with which, in\n  most instances, it has been conducted, although yielding to\n  publishers and editors a very insufficient return for their labors.\n  We exhort the Catholic community to extend to these publications a\n  more liberal support, in order that they may be enabled to become\n  more worthy the great cause they advocate.\n\n  \"We remind them that the power of the press is one of the most\n  striking features of modern society; and that it is our duty to\n  avail ourselves of this mode of making known the truths of our\n  religion, and removing the misapprehensions which so generally\n  prevail in regard to them.\n\n  \"In connection with this matter we earnestly recommend to the\n  faithful of our charge the Catholic Publication Society, lately\n  established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted\n  clergyman. Besides the issuing of short tracts, with which this\n  society has begun, and which may be so usefully employed to arrest\n  the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will\n  allow to read larger works, this society contemplates the\n  publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit\n  and the interests of religion appear to require. From the judgment\n  and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such\n  tracts and books as have already been issued by this society, we are\n  encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making\n  known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices\n  which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many\n  of our fellow-citizens. For this it is necessary that a generous\n  co-operation be given, both by clergy and laity, to the undertakings\n  which is second to none in importance among the {428} subsidiary\n  aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for\n  the diffusion of Catholic truth.\"\n\n----\n\nCURIOUS QUESTIONS. By Rev. Henry A. Brann, D.D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 272.\nNewark, N. J.: J. J. O'Connor & Co., 59 and 61 New street. 1866.\n\nThis attractive-looking, well-printed volume reflects great credit on\nthe enterprise and taste of the publishers, who, we hope, will be\nrewarded and encouraged by an extensive sale. We may remark, by the\nway, that some of our publishers would do well to imitate the Messrs.\nO'Connor in their style of binding and lettering, which is neat and\ntasteful but perfectly plain. The flashy style of late adopted in some\ncases is in most wretched taste, especially when the book treats of\ngrave and serious topics; and it is especially displeasing to all\nscholars. The only fault in the mechanical execution of the book\nbefore us is, that the margin of the page is somewhat too large.\n\nThe book itself treats of much more weighty and important topics than\nthe title would suggest. It is an analysis and resume of some of the\nprincipal topics treated of in our philosophical text-books. The\nauthor has studied attentively and with understanding, and has\npresented us with an abstract of his studies, expressed in a clear,\nterse, and methodical style. There are, nevertheless, occasional\ninfelicities of diction, which could easily be corrected, and which\nare pardonable in a young and unpractised author. The use of the word\n\"conscience\" for consciousness appears to us decidedly objectionable,\nand likely to mislead the English reader not familiar with the Latin\nword \"conscientia,\" of which it is too verbal a translation. Such an\nexpression as \"secundum quid beings\" is awkward and quite unnecessary.\nThe same word sometimes recurs too frequently for euphony, and some\nsentences are carelessly constructed or unfinished. These faults are,\nhowever, comparatively slight and infrequent, and do not enter into\nthe texture of the style and diction itself, which is of good and\nserviceable fabric.\n\nThe author follows the school of Plato, St. Augustine, Gerdil,\nLeibnitz, Gioberti, and the modern ontologists, taking the Abb\u00e9\nBranchereau as his more immediate guide. The general principles and\ndrift of the system of philosophy contained in the prelections of the\nlast-named author we regard as sounds, and we are therefore well\npleased to see this system in part reproduced by one who has mastered\nit, and has also illustrated it from his studies in other authors.\nThere is a certain confusion and incompleteness, however, in the\nstatements and explanations of M. Branchereau upon one or two\nimportant points, and the same reappears in the work before us. One of\nthese points relates to the activity of the intellect in its intuition\nof being. M. Branchereau does not speak distinctly upon the point, but\nDr. Brann expresses the opinion that the intellect is active, in\ncontradiction to Gioberti. If by this is meant that the intellect has\nan active power to originate the intuition of infinite, eternal,\nnecessary being, we apprehend that consequences might be deduced from\nthis statement not in accordance with the Catholic doctrine. Another\npoint relates to the universals, or genera and species. On this point\nthe language both of M. Branchereau and of our author seems not to be\nsufficiently precise and accurate to guard against the appearance of\nmaintaining the untenable proposition that genera and species are\ncontained in God.\n\nThere is one more point of very great importance, where our author has\neither misapprehended the doctrine of the great writers of whose\nsystem he is the expositor, or has intentionally deviated from it,\nand, as we think, without due consideration. He maintains (p. 255)\nthat material substance is radically spiritual and intelligent.\nLeibnitz, who is followed by a great number of the ablest philosophers\nof our day, taught that the ultimate components of matter are simple\nand indivisible, and so far similar in essence to spiritual\nsubstances. Branchereau has very ably sustained this doctrine in his\nphilosophy, and we regard this portion of his treatise as one of the\nmost valuable of his contributions to science. He draws the line,\nhowever, in common with all other Catholic writers with whom we are\nacquainted, sharply and distinctly between material and spiritual\nsubstances, as, we think, sound philosophy requires. The theory of our\nauthor opens the way to the Darwinian theory of the evolution of all\nthe {429} entities of the universe from identical ultimate elements.\nWe think he would have shown more judgment by abstaining from the\nexpression of an immature speculation of his own on such an extremely\ndifficult and abstruse question. A little less of positive assertion,\nand a little more diffidence of manner, and deference toward others,\nthroughout the whole volume, would be more graceful in an author just\nat the outset of his career; especially as he is treating of those\nprofound and momentous questions which task and often baffle the\nmightiest and most veteran leaders in the intellectual warfare.\n\nHaving finished the ungracious part of our critical task, we take\npleasure in giving our judgment, that the design of the author in the\nwork before us is one that is praiseworthy, and the manner of its\nexecution such as to make it really valuable to the class of readers\nhe has in view. It is worthy of their attentive perusal, and could not\nfail to benefit them if they would read and consider it with care. It\nis an exposition of principles and doctrines in philosophy far deeper,\nsounder, and more satisfactory to the intellect than is usually found\nin the English language; and makes accessible to those who are\nunacquainted with our best Catholic authors a portion of that treasure\nof thought which is locked up in them out of the reach of the majority\nof even educated men. We should like to have this book read by our\nstudents and literary men generally, and even by our professors of\nmetaphysics in the colleges of the United States. It presents the\noutlines of a system far superior to that jejune psychologism of the\nScottish school which is usually talked, and ought to be welcome to\nthose who are in search of something more solid. It will also be\nvaluable to students of philosophy in our own colleges as a companion\nto their text-books, as well as to English readers generally who have\ntaste and capacity for relishing on philosophical subjects. We wish it\nsuccess and a large circulation, and we trust the author will continue\nhis contributions to literature and science.\n\n----\n\nTHE AUTHORSHIP OF THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE By Nathaniel Holmes.  1\nvol. 12mo, pp. 601. New York: Hurd &  Houghton. 1866.\n\n\nMr. Holmes attempts, in this finely printed volume from the Riverside\nPress, to prove that the works of Shakespeare are not Shakespeare's,\nbut Francis Bacon's. His argument is: Shakespeare did not write them\nbecause he could not; Francis Bacon, my lord Verulam, did write them\nbecause he could. To which it may be replied: Shakespeare could write\nthem, because he did; Bacon did not, because he could not. That Bacon\ncould not, is evident from the character of the man and what we know\nof his acknowledged writings; that Shakespeare did is the uniform\ntradition from their first appearance down to the present, and must be\npresumed until the contrary appears.\n\nMr. Holmes has proved, what all competent judges have always held,\nthat the author of the works received as Shakespeare's must have had\nmore learning and greater scientific and linguistic attainments than\nhis biographers supposed Shakespeare to have had, but has not proved\nthat he must have had more than Shakespeare might have had. Few\npersons capable of appreciating the wonderful productions attributed\nto Shakespeare can doubt that he was up to the scientific lore of his\nage; knew enough of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and perhaps\nSpanish, to read and understand works written in those languages; had\nsome general knowledge of medicine; was familiar with many of the\ntechnicalities of English law; was a profound philosopher, with more\nthan an ordinary knowledge of Christian theology and morals. But who\ncan say that Shakespeare might not have had all the learning and\nscience here supposed?\n\nWe in reality know next to nothing of the facts of Shakespeare's life.\nWe know the place and date of his birth and death, the age at which he\nwas withdrawn from the grammar-school, and of his marriage; we know\nthat he was in London about the age of thirty, where he chiefly\nresided till within two or three years of his death, as an actor,\nplay-wright, manager, and a large stockholder in a London theatre.\nThese, and some few business transactions and his retirement, after\nhaving accumulated a handsome property, to his native place, where his\nfamily appear to have resided, constitute nearly all that we know of\nWilliam Shakespeare outside of his works; and in these facts there is\nnothing that proves it impossible or even difficult, {430} with the\ngenius, ability, and quickness the author of Shakespeare's works must\nhave had, for him to acquire all the learning and science those works\nindicate in their author.\n\nBen Jonson says Shakespeare had \"little Latin and less Greek,\" but\nJonson was a pedant, and his assertion meant simply no more than that\nhe was not profoundly or critically learned either as a Greek or Latin\nscholar; and there is no necessity of supposing that he was. Latin and\nGreek were taught in the grammar-schools of his time, and as it is\nsaid he was fourteen when called home from school, it is no violent\nsupposition to suppose that he learned enough while at school to read\nand understand Latin and Greek books, at least sufficiently for his\npurposes as a poet. We know not how or where he spent the sixteen\nyears between leaving school, or the twelve years between his marriage\nand his appearance in London, but he might, for aught we know, have\neasily acquired during those years all the learning and knowledge of\nmodern languages indicated by his earliest plays. It could not take a\nman of his genius and ability many weeks' study to master as much of\nlaw and medicine as his works indicate; and as to his theology and\nmetaphysics, we must remember that he lived before Bacon, Hobbes, and\nLocke had enfeebled theology and philosophy in the English mind, and\nobliterated from the memory of Englishmen all traces of Catholic\ntradition. Shakespeare, if not a Catholic himself, had been trained to\na greater or less extent in Catholic principles, and he rarely, if\never, deviates in his philosophy, his theology, or theoretic morals\nfrom Catholic tradition, still in his time retained to a great extent\nin spite of Protestantism by the main body of the English people.\n\nBearing in mind that Shakespeare wrote his plays for the stage, to be\nacted, and that he used without scruple any materials from whatever\nquarter gathered that he could lay his hands on, there is nothing\nwonderful in their production, except the unrivalled genius of their\nauthor. There are many self-educated men, even in our own country, who\nin the learning and science acquired from the study of books equal\nShakespeare, but in that which comes from within no one self-educated\nor university-educated has ever equalled him; and not unlikely the\nfact that his genius had never been cramped by the pedantic rules of\nthe university, nor his time frittered away in learning minutiae that\nnever come into play in practical life, and which the student forgets\nas soon as he goes forth into the world, was in his case are great\nadvantage--at least no disadvantage.\n\nBut we cannot forgive the author for his sacrilegious attempt to\ntransfer of the glory of Shakespeare to Francis Bacon, a different and\naltogether an inferior man. Shakespeare was infinitely superior to\nBacon. Even if Bacon had been great enough to write Shakespeare's\nplays--of which there is no evidence--he was not philosopher enough\nto do it. Shakespeare is always in accord with the best philosophical\ntradition which comes down from the ancients through the fathers and\ndoctors of the church, as well as with the dictates of experience and\ncommon sense; Bacon begins a rupture with tradition, and places\nphilosophy on the declivity to sensism and materialism, whose logical\nterminus is universal nullity. Shakespeare's philosophy is Catholic,\nBacon's is Protestant, and has produced the same anarchy in science\nthat Protestantism has in religion and morals. There is nothing like\nin the spirit and tone of the two men. Their _morale_ is quite\ndifferent; neither may have been blameless in life, but Shakespeare,\nif he sinned, did so from high spirits, joviality, heedlessness; while\nBacon sinned, we we know, from sordidness, and left his name stamped\nwith the infamy that belongs to a judge that takes bribes. Bacon,\nintentionally or not, has favored modern doubt and unbelief, while\nShakespeare crushes the incipient doubt of his age in Hamlet and in\nseveral other of his place, and he could never have said with Bacon,\natheism is better, socially and politically, than superstition. But\nenough. Mr. Holmes deserves no thanks for what he has done, and we do\nnot think that he has proved his theory is not a \"crazy theory.\"\n\n----\n\nFAMILIAR LECTURES ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.\nBy Sir John Herschel. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.\n\n\nThis volume contains, among others, essays on the Sun, Earthquakes and\nVolcanoes, Comets, Celestial Measurement, Light, Force, and Atoms. The\nauthor, although upward of seventy years of {431} age, still  writes\nwith the enthusiasm, vigor and sprightliness of a young votary of\nscience, and of course with the profundity, range of thought, weight\nof judgment, and vastness of learning belonging only to one who has\ngrown gray scientific studies. The topics he discusses are among the\nmost important and interesting in science. To their absorbing\nintrinsic interest is added the charm of Sir John Herschel's method\nand style of exposition. In literary merit and beauty of style this\nseries of lectures exceeds any of the productions of the professors of\nphysical science with which we are acquainted, and is equal to our\nbest English classics. There is a pleasant playfulness also about the\nancient astronomer, which must have made his lectures, as he delivered\nthem, most delightful to listen to. The religious and moral tone of\nthe lectures is elevated and wholesome. Without any set and formal\nattempts at moralizing or preaching, the illustrious author naturally\nand forcibly presents, on fitting occasions, the irresistible evidence\nafforded by the stupendous order of the universe of the infinite\nwisdom and goodness of God. Some few disparaging remarks about\nCatholic superstition occur in his pages; but not so many as we\nfrequently meet with in similar works by English Protestants, who seem\nto be incapable of abstaining for a very long time from their favorite\namusement--one which has as much popularity with the English public as\nthe national game of \"Aunt Sally.\"\n\nNotwithstanding these little specimens of religious squibbery, which\ncan do no harm to any intelligent Catholic, whether child or adult, we\nrecommend this book most cordially to all our readers. It is a great\nadvantage and pleasure to those intelligent and educated readers who\nhave not had time or opportunity to study scientific text-books, to\nhave the grand results of science placed before them in an\nintelligible and readable form. We cannot think of anything more\ndesirable for the interests of general education, than a complete\nseries of lectures, like those of the volume before us, on all the\nprincipal topics of the several grand divisions of physical science.\nThe field of knowledge is now so vast, and includes so many distinct,\nrichly cultivated enclosures, that even students must confine\nthemselves to the thorough study of a few specialties. Yet, education\nought to include a general survey of the universal domain of\nknowledge. Therefore, it becomes important to have generalizations,\ncompendiums, the condensed cream of science, prepared by the hands of\nmasters in the several branches of knowledge. We are grateful to Sir\nJohn Herschel for devoting his old age to the task of making the\nsublime discoveries of astronomical science intelligible to ordinary\nreaders. His charming volume should be in every library, and read by\nevery one who takes pleasure in solid knowledge communicated in the\nclearest and most agreeable manner.\n\n------\n\nTHE RISE AND THE FALL; OR, THE ORIGIN OF MORAL EVIL.\nIn three parts. Part I. The Suggestion of Reason. II. The Disclosure\nof Revelation. III. The Confirmation of Theology. New York: Hurd &\nHoughton. 1866.\n\nA very thoughtful, sensible, calmly written book, pervaded by a high\ntone of moral and religious sentiment. The modest, anonymous author\nmay be called an orthodox Protestant semi-rationalist. He takes\nScripture as furnishing certain revealed data on which the individual\nreason must construct a rational theorem of religion. Revelation, as\napprehended by the individual reason, being a variable quantity, of\ncourse dogmas are reduced to mere hypothesis more or less probable,\naccording to the force of the argument which sustains them. We have,\naccordingly, about as ingenious and plausible an hypothesis of\noriginal sin as any one can well make who does not begin with the true\nconception as given him by the Catholic dogma. The author's hypothesis\nis, that Adam, having been created in the intellectual, but not in the\nmoral order, was elevated to the moral order through his own act,\nthereby contracting a liability to sin as incidental to moral liberty,\nwhich he transmitted together with the moral nature to his posterity.\nIn this way sin entered into the world through Adam, not by an\nimputation or infusion of his sin into his descendants, but as an\nincidental consequence of the transfer of human nature into the sphere\nof moral obligation. The transgression of Adam and Eve the author\nconsiders not to have been a sin at all, but an act {432} without any\nmoral character, like that of a young child climbing to the roof of a\nhouse; a bold experiment which the inexperience of infant man led him\nto hazard without regard to the unknown consequences.\n\nWe consider the effort to determine the questions discussed by the\nauthor, from the data admitted by him, to be as impossible a task as\nto calculate the distance of a fixed star which makes no parallax. The\noscillation of the ground, of the building, and of the instrument used\nby the astronomer, and the apparent or proper motions of the stars,\nmay deceive him by an apparent parallax, from which he will make a\nplausible but illusory calculation. The application suggests itself.\nWe have already discussed the same questions, from the data furnished\nby revealed Catholic dogmas, and are now engaged in discussing them in\nthe series of articles entitled \"Problems of the Age;\" and it is,\ntherefore, superfluous to enter here into a new discussion of the same\ntopics.\n\nWe are glad to see these questions discussed, and always read with\ninterest what is written by a candid, earnest, well-informed, and able\nwriter like the author of this book. With many of his views we\ncordially agree, and recognize the justice, force, and beauty of many\nof his observations. We like him particularly for his clear views of\nthe goodness and justice of God, the freedom of man, the negative\ncharacter of evil, the worth and excellence of moral virtue; and for\nhis denial of physical depravity, of a dark, inevitable doom preceding\nall personal existence or accountability, and similar fatalistic\ndoctrines of the old Protestant theological systems. While, however,\nthe moderate rationalism of the author avails so far as to refute\ncertain systems or doctrines which are contrary to reason, and to\nfurnish certain fragmentary portions of a better system, it is not\nsufficient to make a complete synthesis between reason and revelation.\nCatholic philosophy alone is competent to achieve this mighty and,\nindeed, superhuman task.\n\n----\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED,\ncomprising some remarks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy and on\nMr. J. S. Mill's Examination of that Philosophy. By H. L. Mansel,\nB.D., Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy in the\nUniversity of Oxford. London and New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1886\n\n\nThe philosophy of Sir William Hamilton has been the subject of an\nanimated controversy for some time in England and Scotland. It has\nbeen attacked from two opposite sides--some of the principal critics\nupon it having been themselves pupils of the distinguished Scottish\nbaronet, whose system they have undertaken to combat. On the one side,\nMr. Calderwood has assailed it, as deficient in affirming the\nprinciple of certitude respecting ideal truth, and on the other, Mr.\nMill, as affirming too dogmatically the same principle. These assaults\nhave called out other champions in defense of their great master,\namong whom Mr. Mansel is one of the most conspicuous. Those who desire\nto know what can be said in favor of the Hamilton system will find\nthis volume worthy of their perusal. The author brings learning, no\nmean ability, and very good temper to his task. We are no admirers of\nthe system he undertakes to defendant, but still less of that of his\nantagonist. The first we regard as inadequate to the need which exists\nof a true Christian philosophy, the second as subverting the very\nbasis of all philosophy and all religion. In this controversy our\nsympathy and respect are given to the Oxford professor, as one who is\nstriving to uphold the belief in God and the Christian revelation,\nalbeit with insufficient weapons. We find, also, very much that is\nadmirable in particular portions of his essay.\n\nIt is needless to say anything in praise of Mr. Strahan's\npublications, so far as the beauty of their mechanical execution is\nconcerned. The volume before us is a perfect specimen of British\ntypographical art, just such a book as delights the eye of the\nliterary amateur.\n\n----\n\nBOOKS RECEIVED.\n\n\nFrom the Author: \"The Life of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Colombia and\nPeru, Father and Founder of Bolivia: carefully written from authentic\nand unpublished documents.\" By Doctor Felipe Larrazabal. Vol. 1, 8vo.,\npp. 410.\n\n\nAnniversary Address and Poem, delivered before the society of the\nAlumni of the Detroit High School, August 30th. 1886. Address by H. E.\nBust; Poem by Miss M. F. Buchanan.\n\n\n\nFrom the American News Company: \"Utterly Wrecked.\" A Novel, by Henry\nMorford; paper.\n\n----------\n\n{433}\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD\n\n\nVOL. IV, NO. 22.--JANUARY, 1867.\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nA CHRISTMAS SONG.\n\n\n  A carol of joy, a carol of joy,\n    For the glorious Christmas time;\n  While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad.\n    Let the merry bells sweetly chime.\n  Let us seek the crib where our Saviour lies--\n    See, the shepherds are kneeling there;\n  Let us offer, with Mary and Joseph,\n    Our worship of love and prayer.\n\n  A carol of praise, a carol of praise,\n    With the angels let us sing;\n  Let us welcome with notes of rapturous joy\n    Our Saviour, our God and King.\n  Oh! would we could offer him worthy gifts,\n    Oh! would that our hearts could love,\n  With some equal return, the Holy Child,\n    Who for us left his throne above!\n\n  A carol of joy, a carol of joy,\n    Let the whole earth gladly shout;\n  She has waited long for this promised day.\n    Let the glorious song flow out.\n  A carol of praise, a carol of joy.\n    Let us sing for the Christmas time.\n  While the heavens rejoice and the earth is glad,\n    And the merry bells sweetly chime.\n\n\n----\n\n{434}\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nCHARITY AND PHILANTHROPY.\n\n\nThere is no denying that our age, in its dormant tendency, places\nphilanthropy above charity, and holds it higher praise to call a man\nphilanthropic than to call him charitable. In its eyes charity is to\nphilanthropy as a part to the whole, and consists, chiefly, in giving\nthe beggar a penny or sending him to the poor-house, and in treating\nerror and sin with even more consideration than truth and virtue.\nCould anything better indicate the distance it has fallen below the\nChristian thought, or its failure to grasp the principle of Christian\nmorals?\n\nPhilanthropy, according to the etymology of the word, is simply the\nlove of man; charity, according to Christian theology, is the love of\nGod, and of man in God. Philanthropy is simply a natural human\nsentiment; charity is a virtue, a supernatural virtue, not possible\nwithout the assistance of grace--the highest virtue, the sum and\nperfection of all the virtues, the fulfilment of the whole law, the\nbond of perfectness which likens and unites us to God; for God is\ncharity, _Deus est caritas_. It does not exclude but includes the love\nof man, our neighbor or our brother; \"for if any man say, I love God\nand hateth his brother, he is a liar. For if he loveth not his\nbrother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?\"\nWhoever loves God must necessarily love his brother, for his brother\nis included in God, as the effect in the cause, and he who loveth not\nhis brother proves clearly thereby that he doth not love God. But\ncharity, though it includes philanthropy, is as much superior to it as\nGod is to man.\n\nThe natural sentiments are all good in their origin and design, as\nmuch so since as before the fall; and man would be worthless without\nthem; would be a monster, not a man. But in themselves they are blind.\nEach one tends, when left to itself, to become exclusive and\nexcessive, and hence comes that internal disorder, anarchy, or war of\nconflicting sentiments of which we are all more or less conscious, and\nin which originate all life's tragedies. Even when developed,\nrestrained, and directed by the understanding, as they all need to be,\nthey are not even then moral virtues, meriting praise. Moral virtue is\na rational act, an act of free will, done for the sake of the end\nprescribed by the law of God; but in the sentiments there is no free\nwill, except in restraining and directing them, and man acts in them\nonly as the sun shines, the rain falls, the winds blow, or the\nlightnings flash. There may the beauty and goodness in them, as in the\nobjects of nature, but there is no virtue, because the spring of all\nsentimental action is the indulgence or gratification of the sentiment\nitself, not the will to do our duty, or to obey the law by which we\nare morally bound.\n\nIndeed, what most offends this age--perhaps all ages--and for which\nit has the greatest horror, is duty or obedience; for duty implies\nthat we are not our own, and, therefore, are not free to dispose of\nourselves as we please; and obedience implies a superior, a lord and\nmaster, who has the right to order us. It, therefore, sets its wits to\nwork and racks its brains to invent a morality that excludes duty, and\nexacts no such hateful same as obedience. It has found all that it is\nfar nobler to act from love than from duty, and to do a thing because\nwe are prompted to do it by our hearts, then because God, in his law,\ncommands it. {435} In other words, it is nobler, more moral, to act to\nplease ourselves, than it is to act to please God. This passes for\nexcellent philosophy, and you may hear it in conversation of many\nyoung misses just from boarding-school, read it in most popular novels\nand magazines, and be edified by it from the pulpit of more than one\nprofessedly Christian denomination.\n\nThis philosophy sets the so-called heart above the head, that is, it\ndistinguishes the heart from the understanding and will, and places\nit, as so distinguished, above them. Hence we find the tendency is to\ntreat faith, considered as an intellectual act, and consequently the\nChristian dogmas, with great indifference; and to say, if the heart is\nright, it is no matter what one believes, and, it may be added, no\nmatter what one does. What one does is of little consequence, if one\nonly has fine sentiments, warm and gushing feelings. Jack Scapegrace\nis hard drinking a gambler, a liar, a rake, and seldom goes near a\nchurch; but for all that he is a right down good fellow--has a warm\nheart. He gives liberally to the missionary society, and makes large\npurchases at charity fairs. Hence a good heart, which at best means\nonly quick sensibilities, and which is perfectly compatible with the\ngrossest self-indulgence, and the most degrading and ruinous vices,\nconstitutes the sum and substance of religion and morality, atones for\nthe violation of every precept of the Decalogue, and supplies the\nabsence of faith and Christian virtue.\n\nAll errors are half truths. Certainly, love is the fulfilling of the\nlaw, and the heart is all that God requires. \"My son, give me thy\nheart.\" But the \"heart\" in the scriptural sense is reason, the\nintellect, and the will; and the love that fulfils the law is not a\nsentiment, but a free act of the rational soul, and, therefore, a love\nwhich it is within our power to give or withhold. It is a free,\nvoluntary love, yielded by intelligence and will. In this sense, love\ncannot be contrasted with duty; for it is duty, or its fulfilment, and\nindistinguishable from it; the heart cannot be contrasted with the\nhead, in the scriptural or Christian sense of the word; for in that\nsense it includes the head, and stands for the whole rational\nsoul--the mistress of her own acts. To act from the promptings of\none's own heart, in this sense, is all right, for it is to act from a\nsense of duty, from reason and will, or intelligence and free\nvolition. In souls well constituted and trained, or long exercised in\nthe practice of virtue, no long process of reasoning or deliberation\never takes place, and the decision and execution are simultaneous, and\napparently instantaneous, but the act is none the less an act of\ndeliberate reason or free will.\n\nPlato speaks of a love which is not an affection of the sensibility,\nand which is one of the wings of the soul on which she soars to the\nEmpyreum; but I can understand no love that contrasts with duty,\nexcept it be an affection of the sensitive nature, what the Scriptures\ncall \"the flesh,\" which is averted by the fall from God, and, as the\nCouncil of Trent defines, \"inclines to sin\"--\"the carnal mind,\" which,\nSt. Paul tells us, is at enmity with God, is not subject to the law of\nGod, nor indeed can be. Christianity recognizes an antagonism between\nthe flesh and the spirit, between the law in our members and the Law\nof the mind, but none between the love she approves and the duty she\nenjoins, or between the heart which God demands and the head or the\nunderstanding. Love by the Christian law is demanded as a duty, as\nthat which is due from us to God. We are required to love God with our\nwhole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.\nThis is our duty, and therefore the love must be an act of free\nwill--a love which we are free to yield or to withhold, for our duty\ncan never exceed our liberty. The Christian loves duty, loves\nself-denial and sacrifice, loves the law, and delights in it after\n{436} the inner man; but in loving the law he acts freely from his own\nreason and will, and he obeys it not for the sake of the delight he\ntakes in it, but because it is God's law; otherwise he would act to\nplease himself, not to please God, and his act would be simply an act\nof self-indulgence.\n\nThe age, in its efforts to construct a morality which excludes duty\nand obedience, tends to resolve the love which Christianity demands\ninto an affection of the sensibility, and thence very logically\nopposes love to duty, and holds it nobler to act from inclination than\nfrom duty, to follow the law in our members than the law of the mind.\nIt may then substitute, with perfect consistency, the\ntranscendentalist maxim, Obey thyself, for the Christian maxim. Deny\nthyself!\n\nBut this is not all. The age, or what is usually called the age, not\nonly resolves virtue, which old-fashioned ethics held to be an act of\nfree will done in obedience to the Divine law, into a sentiment, or\ninterior affection, of the sensibility, but it goes further and\nresolves God into man, and maintains that the real sense of the\nmystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, is that man is the\nonly actual and living God, and that beyond humanity there is only\ninfinite possibility, which humanity in its infinite progress and\nevolution and absorption of individual life is continually\nactualizing, or filling up. So virtually teaches Hegel,\ninconsiderately followed by Cousin, in teaching that _das reine Seyn_,\nor simply possible being, arrives at self-consciousness first in man.\nSo teach the Saint Simonians, Enfantin, Bazard, Carnot, and Pierre\nLeroux; and so hold the school or sect of the Positivists, followers\nof Auguste Comte, who have actually instituted _un culte_ or service\nin honor of humanity. The Positivists are too modest to claim to be\nthemselves each individually God, but they make no bones of calling\nhumanity, or the great collective man, God, and offering him, as such,\na suitable worship. This is taught and done in France, the most\nlettered nation in Europe; and the principle that justifies it\npervades not a little of the popular literature of Great Britain,\nGermany, and the United States.\n\nIf man or humanity is God, of course the highest virtue is and must be\nphilanthropy, the love of all men in general, and of no one in\nparticular. Resolve now God into man, and philanthropy or the love of\nman into an affection of the sensibility or sensitive nature, and you\nhave in a nutshell the theology, religion, and morality to which the\nage tens, which the bulk of our popular literature favors, which our\nsons and daughters inhale with the very atmosphere they breathe, and\nwhich explains the effeminacy and sentimentalism of modern society. It\nis but a logical sequence that the age, since women are ordinarily\nnarily more sentimental than men, places woman at the head of the\nrace, and holds woman--if young, beautiful amiable, sentimental, and\nrich--to be the most perfect and adorable embodiment of the divinity.\nThe highest form of philanthropy is the love of woman. I would say,\nphilogyny, only that might be taken to imply that the highest virtue\nis the love of one's wife, or wifehood, which is to old-fashioned,\nunless by wife is meant the wife of one's neighbor. But, my dear young\nlady, be not too vain of the homage you receive; it will be withheld\nwith the first appearance of the first wrinkle or the first gray hair.\nIt is better to be honored as  a true woman than to be worshipped as a\ngoddess or even as an angel.\n\nThe sentimental worship of humanity, or the reduction of the virtue of\ncharity to the sentiment of philanthropy, necessarily weaken and\ndebases the character; and whatever we may say under various aspects\nand praise of our age, and however strong our confidence that God in\nhis providence will turn even its evil tendencies to good, we cannot\ndeny its moral weakness; and it is doubtful if {437} the debasement of\nindividual character was greater, even in the Lower Empire, or that\nmen were more dishonest or fraudulent, more sordid or venal. Other\nages have been marked, perhaps, by less refinement of manners, more\nviolent crimes, and great criminals, but few are found less capable\neither of great virtues or great expiations. This need not surprise\nus, for it is only the natural effect of substituting sentiment for\nvirtue, and sentimental for moral culture, which we are constantly\ndoing.\n\nMany, perhaps, will be disposed to deny that we have substituted\nsentimental for moral culture, and it must be concluded that the\ndidactic lessons given in our schools throughout Christendom, for the\nmost part, remain very much as they have been ever since there was a\nChristendom, and in general accord with pure Christian ethics. There\nare few, if any, schools for children and youth, in which the\nsentimental and humanitarian morality, or rather immorality, is\nformally taught. But we should remember that the didactic lessons of\nthe school-room do very little toward forming the character of our\nyouth, and that the culture that really forms it is given by the home\ncircle, associations, the spirit and tone of the community in which\nthey are brought up. There is a subtle influence, what the Germans\ncall _der Welt-Geist_, which pervades the whole community, and affects\nthe faith, the morals, and character of all who grow up in that\ncommunity without any formal instruction or conscious effort of any\none. So far as formal lessons and words go, the culture of our\nchildren and youth is, for the most part, Christian; but these lessons\nand words receive a practical interpretation by _der Welt-Geist_, what\nI call s spirit of the age, and should, \"the prince of this world,\"\nwhich deprives them of their Christian sense, takes from them all\nmeaning, or gives them an anti-Christian meaning. It is one of the\nstriking peculiarities of the age that it inculcates the baldest\ninfidelity, the grossest immorality in the language of Christian faith\nand virtue. It is this fact which deceives so many, and that makes the\nassertion of sentimental for moral culture appear to be a total\nmisstatement, or, at least, a gross exaggeration of the fact.\n\nIt will, no doubt, also be said that a decided reaction in our popular\nliterature against sentimentalism has already commenced. The realism\nof Dickens and the Trollopes is opposed to it, Bulwer Lytton, in his\nlate novels at least, is decidedly hostile to it, and Thackeray\nunmercifully ridicules it. These and other popular writers have\nundoubtedly reacted against one form of sentimentalism, the dark and\nsuicidal form placed in vogue by Goethe in his Sorrows of Werter, and\nnow nearly forgotten; but they have not ridiculed or reacted against\nthe form of sentimentalism which substitutes the sentiment of\nphilanthropy for the virtue of charity. They encourage\nhumanitarianism, and make the love of man for woman or woman for man\nthe great agent in developing, enlarging, and strengthening the\nintellect, the spring of the purest and sublimest morality. The hero\nof popular literature is now rarely an avowed unbeliever or open\nscoffer, and in all well-bred novels the heroine says her prayers\nnight and morning, and the author decidedly patronizes Christianity,\nand says many beautiful and even true things in its favor; but, after\nall, his religion is based on humanity, is only a charming\nsentimentalism, embraced for its loveliness, not as duty or the law\nwhich it would be sin to neglect; or it is introduced as a foreign and\nincongruous element, never as the soul or informing spirit of the\nnovel.\n\nThe fact is undeniable, whether people are generally conscious of it\nor not, and we see its malign influence not only on individual\ncharacter, but on domestic and social life. It has nearly broken up\nand rendered impossible the Christian family in the easy and educated\nclasses. {438} Marriage is, it is said, where and only where there is\nmutual love, and hence the marriage is in the mutual love, is lawful\nbetween any parties who mutually love, unlawful between any who do\nnot. Love is an interior affection of the sensibility, a feeling, and\nlike all the feelings independent of reason and will. All popular\nliterature makes love fatal, something undergone, not given. We love\nwhere we must; not where we would nor where we should, but where we\nare fated to love. It needs not here to speak of infidelity to the\nmarriage vows, which this doctrine justifies to any extent, for those\nvows are broken when broken from unreasoning passion or lust, not from\na theory which justifies it. I speak rather of the misery which it\ncarries into married life, the destruction of domestic peace and\nhappiness it causes. Trained in the sentimentalism of the age, and to\nregard love as a feeling dependent on causes beyond our control, our\nyoung people marry, expecting from marriage what it has not, and\ncannot give. They expect the feeling which they call love, and which\ngives a roseate hue to everything they look upon, will continue as\nfresh, as vivid, and as charming after marriage as before it; but the\nhoneymoon is hardly over, and they begin to settle down in the regular\nroutine of life, before they discover their mistake, the roseate hue\nhas gone, their feelings have undergone a notable change, and they are\ndisappointed in each other, and feel that the happiness they counted\non is no longer to be expected. The stronger and more intense the\nmutual feeling the greater the disappointment, and hence the common\nsaying: Love matches are seldom happy matches. Each party is\ndisappointed in the other, frets against the chain that binds them\ntogether, and wishes it broken.\n\nThis is only what might have been expected. Nothing is more variable\nor transitory than our feelings, and nothing that depends on them can\nbe unchanging or lasting. When the feelings of the married couple\nchange toward each other, the marriage bond becomes a galling chain,\nand is felt to be a serious evil, and divorce is desired and resorted\nto as a remedy. It is usually no remedy at all, or a remedy worse even\nthan the disease; but it is the only remedy practicable where feeling\nis substituted for rational affection. Hence, in nearly all modern\nstates, the legislature, in direct conflict with the Christian law,\nwhich makes marriage a sacrament and indissoluble, permits divorce,\nand in some states for causes as frivolous as incompatibility of\ntemper. It is easy to censure the legislature but it must follow and\nexpress the morals, manners, sentiments, and demands of the people,\nand when these are repugnant to the divine law, it cannot in its\nenactments conform to that law; and if did, it's enactments would be\nresisted as tyrannical and oppressive, or remained on the statute book\na dead letter, as did so much wise and just legislation inspired by\nthe church in the middle ages. The evil lies further back, in the\nhumanitarianism of the age, which reverses the real order, puts the\nflesh in the place of the spirit, philanthropy in the place of\ncharity, and man in the place of God, and which promotes an excessive\nculture of the sentiments, at the expense of rational conviction and\naffection. There is no remedy but in returning to the order we have\nreversed, to the higher culture of reason and free will, not possible\nwithout faith in God and the Christian mysteries.\n\nBut passing over the effects of sentimental morality on individual\ncharacter, the private virtues, and domestic happiness, we find it no\nless hostile to social ameliorations and reforms in the state. The age\nis philanthropic, and wages war with every form of vice, poverty, and\nsuffering, and is greatly shocked at the evils it finds past ages\ntolerated without ever making an effort to remove them, hardly even to\nmitigate them. {439} This is well as far as it goes; but in an age\nwhen the sensitive nature is chiefly cultivated, when physical pain is\ncounted the chief evil, and sensible pleasures held to be the chief\ngood, practically, if not theoretically, many things will be regarded\nas evils which, in a more robust and manly age, were unheeded, or not\ncounted as evils at all. Many things in our day need changing, simply\nbecause other things having been changed, they have become anomalous\nand are out of place. What in one state of society is simple poverty,\nis really distress in another; and poverty, which in itself is no\nevil, becomes a great evil in a community where wealth is regarded as\nthe supreme good, and the poor have wants, habits, and tastes which\nonly wealth an satisfy. The poorer classes of today in civilized\nnations would suffer intensely if thrown back into the condition they\nwere in under the feudal r\u00e9gime, but it may be doubted if they do not\nreally suffer as much now as they did then. Perhaps such wants as they\nthen had were more readily met and supplied than are those which they\nnow have. In point of fact, Christian charity did infinitely more for\nthe poor and to solace suffering in all its forms, even in the feudal\nages, than philanthopy does now; and we find the greatest amount of\nsqualid wretchedness now precisely in those nations in which\nphilanthopy has been most successful in supplanting charity.\n\nPhilanthropy effects nothing except in so far as it copies or imitates\nChristian Charity, and its attempted imitations are rarely successful.\nIt has for years been very active and hard at work in imitation of\ncharity; but what has it effected? what suffering has it solaced? what\ncrime has it diminished? what vice has it corrected? what social evil\nhas it removed? It has tried its hand against licentiousness, and\nlicentiousness is more rife and shameless than ever. It has made\nrepeated onslaughts on the ruinous vice of intemperance, and yet\ndrunkenness increases instead of diminishing, and has become the\ndisgrace of the country-. It has professed great regard for the poor,\nbut does more to remove them out of sight than to relieve them. It\ntreats poverty as a vice or a crime, looks on it as a disgrace, a\nthing to be fled from with all speed possible, and makes the poor feel\nthat wealth is virtue, honor, nobility, the greatest good, and thus\ndestroys their self respect, aggravates their discontent, and\nindirectly provokes the crimes against property become so general and\nso appalling. What a moral New York reads us in the fact that she\nmakes her commissioners of \"Public Charities\" also commissioners of\n\"Public Corrections!\" Philanthropy rarely fails to aggravate the evil\nshe attempts to cure, or to cure one evil by introducing another and a\ngreater evil. Her remedies are usually worse than the disease.\n\nOwen, Fourier, Cabet, and other philanthropists have made serious\nefforts to reorganize society so as to remove the inequalities or the\nevils of the inequalities of wealth and social position; but have all\nfailed, because they needed, in order to succeed, the habits,\ncharacter, and virtues which, on their own theories, can be obtained\nonly from success. As a rule, philanthropy must succeed in order to be\nable to succeed.\n\nPhilanthropy--humanitarianism--has been shocked at slavery, and in\nour country as well as in some others it formed associations for its\nabolition. In the West India Islands, belonging to Great Britain, it\nsucceeded in abolishing it, to the ruin of the planters and very\nlittle benefit to the slave. In this country, if slavery is abolished,\nit has not been done by philanthropy, which served only to set the\nNorth and the South by the ears, but by the military authority as a\nwar measure, necessary, or judged to be necessary, to save the Union\nand to guard against future attempts to dissolve it. Philanthropy is\nhard at work to make abolition a blessing to the freedmen. It talks,\nsputters, {440} clamors, legislates, but it can effect nothing; and\nunless Christian charity takes the matter in hand, it is very evident\nthat, however much emancipation may benefit the white race, it can\nprove of little benefit to the emancipated, who will be emancipated in\nname, but not in reality.\n\nThe great difficulty with philanthropy is, that she acts from feeling\nand not reason, and uses reason only as the slave or instrument of\nfeeling. Wherever she sees an evil she rushes headlong to its removal,\nblind to the injury she may do to rights, principles, and institutions\nessential to liberty and the very existence of society. Hence she\nusually in going to her end tramples down more good by the way than\nshe can obtain in gaining it. She has no respect for vested rights,\nregards no geographical lines, and laughs at the constitutions of\nstates, if they stand in her way. Liberty with us was more interested\nin maintaining inviolate the constitution of the Union and the local\nrights of the several states, than it was even in abolishing negro\nslavery, and hence many wise and good men, who had no interest in\nretaining slavery, and who detested it as an outrage upon humanity,\ndid not and could not act or sympathize with the abolitionists. They\nyield in nothing to them in the earnest desire to abolish slavery, but\nthey would abolish it by legal and peaceful means--means that would\nnot weaken the hold of the constitution and civil law on conscience,\nand destroy the safeguards of liberty. The abolitionists did not err\nin being opposed to slavery, but in the principles on which they\nsought its abolition. Adam did not sin in aspiring to be God; for\nthat, in a certain sense, he was destined, through the incarnation,\none day to become. His sin was in aspiring to be God without the\nincarnation, in his own personal right and might, and in violation of\nthe divine command, or by other means than those prescribed by his\nCreator and Lawgiver, the only possible means of attaining the end\nsought.\n\nPhilanthropy commits the same error whatever the good work she\nattempts, and especially in all her attempts at political reforms. She\nfinds herself \"cabined, cribbed, confined\" by old political\ninstitutions, and cries out, Down with them. She demands for the\npeople a liberty which she sees they have not and cannot have under\nthe existing political order, and so proceeds at once to conspire\nagainst it, to revolutionize the state, deluges the land in blood, and\ngets anarchy, the Reign of Terror, or military despotism for its\npains. Never were there more sincere or earnest philanthropists than\nthe authors of the old French Revolution. The violent revolutions\nattempted in modern Europe in the name of humanity, have done more\nharm to society by unsettling the bases of society and effacing in\nmen's minds and hearts the traditional respect for law and order, than\nany good they could have done by sweeping away the social and\npolitical abuses they warred against. The French are not politically\nor individually freer to-day than they were under Louis Quatorze.\n\nThere are, no doubt, times when an old political order, as in Rome\nafter Marius and Sulla, has become effete, and can no longer fulfil\nthe duties or discharge the offices of a government, in which a\nrevolution, like that effected under the lead of Julius an Augustus\nCaesar, may be desirable and advantageous, for it establishes a\npracticable and a real government in the place of a government that\ncan no longer discharge the functions of government, and is virtually\nno government at all. The empire was a great advance on the republic,\nwhich was incapable of being restored. But revolutions properly\nso-called, undertaken for the subversion of an existing order and the\nintroduction of another held to be theoretically more perfect, have\nnever, so far as history records, been productive of good. No doubt\nEngland is to-day in advance of what she was under the Stuarts, but\nwho dares say that she is in advance of {441} what she would have been\nhad she not expelled them, or that she has become greater under the\nWhig nobility than she might have been under the Tory squirarchy?\n\nThere has been, I readily concede, a real progress in modern society,\nat least dating from the fifth century of our era; but, as I read\nhistory, the progress has been interrupted or retarded by modern\nsocialistic or political revolutions, and has in no case been\naccelerated by philanthropy as distinguished from Christian charity.\nMoreover, in no state of Christendom has charity ever been wholly\nwanting. Nations have cast off the authority of the church, and have\ngreatly suffered in consequence; but in none has divine charity been\ntotally wanting, and the influence of Christianity on civilization,\neven in heretical and schismatic nations, is not to be counted as\nnothing. I am far from believing that the nations that broke away from\nthe church are not better than they would have been if they had not\nhad the benefit of the habits formed under her teaching and\ndiscipline. I know that _extra ecclesiam nulla sit salus_; but I know\nalso that the church is as a city set on a hill, and that rays from\nthe light within her may and do extend beyond her walls, and relieve\nin some degree the darkness of those who are outside of them. How much\nthe church continues to influence nations once within her communion,\nbut now severed from it, nobody is competent to determine, nor can any\none but God himself say how many, in all these nations, though not\nformally united to the body of the church, are yet not wholly severed\nfrom her soul. The Russian Church retains the Orthodox faith and the\nsacraments, and is officially under no sentence of excommunication\nfrom the body of Christ, and only those who are individually and\nvoluntarily schismatic, are guilty of the sin of schism; and in other\ncommunions, though undoubtedly heretical, there may be large numbers\nof baptized persons who do really act on Christian principles, and\nfrom purely Christian motives. All I mean to deny is, that society or\nhumanity ever gains anything from violent or sentimental revolutions.\n\nThe impotence of philanthropy without charity, or pure humanism, is\ndemonstrable _\u00e0 priori_, and should have been foreseen. It is opposed\nto the nature of things, and implies the absurdity that nothing is\nsomething, and that what is not can act. It is an attempt to found\nreligion, morals, society, and the state without God; when without God\nthere is and can be nothing, and consequently nothing for them to\nstand on. It assumes that man is an independent being, and suffices\nfor himself; which, whether we mean by man the individual or humanity,\n\"the universal man,\" \"the one man\" of the Transcendentalists, or \"the\ngrand collective Being\" of the Positivists, we all feel and know to be\nnot the fact. Man in either sense is a creature, and depends\nabsolutely on the creative act of God for his existence; and let God\nsuspend that act, and he sinks into the nothing he was before he was\ncreated. Therefore it is in God _mediante_ his creative act he lives\nand moves and has his being. Hence it is, whether we know it or not,\nthat we assert the existence of God as our creator in every act we\nperform, every thought we think, every resolution we take, every\nsentiment we experience, and every breath we draw, for no human\noperation--physical, intellectual, or moral--is possible without the\ndivine creative act and concurrence.\n\nPhilanthropy, or the love of man, separated from charity, or the love\nof God and of man in God, is therefore simply nothing, a mere\nnegation, for it supposes man separated from God is something, and\nseparated from God he is nothing. Hence St. Paul, in his first epistle\nto the Corinthians, says: \"If I speak with the tongues of men and of\nangels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a\ntinkling cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and\nhave {442} all knowledge, and have all faith, so I could remove\nmountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should\ndistribute all my goods to feed the poor, and should give my body to\nbe burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.\" This is so\nnot by virtue of any arbitrary decree or appointment of the Almighty,\neven if such decree or appointment is possible, but in the very,\nnature of things, and God himself cannot make it otherwise. God is\nfree to create or not to create, and free to create such existences as\nhe pleases; but he cannot create an independent self-sufficing being,\nfor he cannot create anything between which and himself there should\nnot be the relation of creator and creature. The creature depends\nwholly, in all respects whatever, on the creator, and without him is\nand can be nothing. The creature depends absolutely on the creator in\nrelation to all his acts, thoughts, and affections, as well as for\nmere existence itself. God could not, even if it were possible that he\nwould, dispense with charity and count the love of man as independent\nof God, as something, because he is truth, and it is impossible for\nhim to lie, and lie he would were he to count such supposed love\nsomething, for independent of him there is no man to love or to be\nloved. Man can love or be loved only where he exists; and as he exists\nin God, so only in God can we possibly love him, that is, we can love\nour neighbor only in loving God. The humanitarian love or morality is,\ntherefore, a pure negation, simply nothing.\n\nMan is, indeed, a free moral agent, and he would not be capable of\nvirtue or a _moral_ action, if he were not; but he can act,\nnotwithstanding his moral freedom, only according to the conditions of\nhis existence. He exists and can exist only by virtue of a\nsupernatural principle, medium, and end. He exists only by the direct,\nimmediate creative act of God, and God in himself and in his direct\nimmediate acts, always and everywhere, is supernatural, above nature,\nbecause its creator, and, as its creator, its proprietor. The maker\nhas a sovereign right to the thing made. The creature can no more be\nits own end than its own principle or cause. Man cannot take himself\nself as his own end, because he is not his own, but is his creator's,\nand because independent of God who he is nothing. So God is both his\nprinciple and end. But the end is not possible without a medium that\nplaces it in relation with the principle, as theologians demonstrate\nin their dissertations on the mystery of the ever blessed Trinity, and\nas common sense itself teaches. As the principle and end are\nsupernatural, so the medium must be supernatural, for the medium must\nbe on the plane of the principle and end between which is the medium.\nThe medium, in the moral or spiritual order, the gospel teaches us, is\nthe grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which infused by the Holy Ghost\ninto the soul elevates her to the plane of her supernatural destiny,\nand strengthens her to gain or fulfil it. Hence, as says the apostle,\n_Ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia_--things are from him,\nand by him, and to or in him. These are the essential conditions of\nall life, alike in the natural or physical order, and in the moral or\nspiritual. In all orders God is the principle, medium, and end of all\nexistence, of all action.\n\nIn the moral or spiritual order, not in the natural or physical order,\nman is a free agent, and acts from free will, as Pope sings:\n\n  \"God, binding nature fast in fate,\n   Leaves free the human will.\"\n\nGrace assisting, man can conform to the essential conditions of his\nexistence--conditions determined and unalterably fixed by his\nrelation to God as his creator--by the free act of his own will; and\nby doing so he lives morally, or has moral life. He can also, by\nvirtue of his liberty or freedom, refuse to conform, or in theological\nlanguage, to obey God, but he cannot so refuse and live in the moral\norder. This refusal is not a living act, it is simply {443} the\nnegation of moral life, and therefore is moral death, as the\nScriptures call it. He does not necessarily cease to exist in the\nnatural or physical order, for in that order he cannot sever himself\nfrom God, even if he would; he may kill his body, but not the physical\nlife of the soul, immortal, except by the will of its creator. But he\ncan extinguish his moral life, or refuse to live a moral life, which\nis moral or spiritual death; and death is not a positive existence,\nbut the negation of existence, and therefore, nothing. Hence life and\ndeath in the moral order are set before us, and we are free to choose\nwhich we will. To choose, grace assisting, life, and freely of our own\nwill to conform to the conditions of life, to God as our principle,\nmedium, and and, is precisely what is meant by Christian charity, a\nvirtue that fulfils all the conditions imposed by our relation to God\nas his creatures, the whole law of our existence, and unites our will\nwith the will of God, and by so doing makes us morally or spiritually\none with God. He who refuses charity, or has it not, voluntarily\nrenounces God, separates himself morally, and so far as his own will\ngoes even physically, from God; and as severed from God he exists not\nat all; and therefore says the apostle, \"Without charity I am\nnothing.\" He only declares what is real, what is true in the nature of\nthings, and which God himself cannot alter.\n\nPhilanthropy is, therefore, necessarily impotent, for it tends to\ndeath, not life; and as there is no action, physical or moral, that\ndoes not tend to a real end, it is not action, but a negation of\naction, and is therefore in itself nothing positive. All the\nsentiments for this reason are negative, simple wants of the soul. The\nsoul may exert her powers to satisfy them, or to fill up the void in\nher being, which they all indicate, but they are in themselves\nnothing. They indicate not what the soul has, but what she wants or\nneeds to complete herself; and that can never the obtained from the\ncreature save in God, for the creature out of God, separated or turned\naway from God, is nothing; it is something only in God. Any morality,\nthen, built on the sentiments is as unsubstantial as castles in the\nair, and as unreal as \"the baseless fabric of a vision.\" The\nsentiments being wants, negative, with nothing positive in themselves,\nare necessarily impotent. They are unsatisfied wants, and incapable of\nattaining to anything that can satisfy them. They are a hungering and\nthirsting of the soul for what it is not and has not. Here is the\nexplanation of the misery and wretchedness of a sentimental age, why\nit is so ill-at-ease, so restless, so discontented in the midst of\nmaterial progress, and the accumulations of sensible goods. It\nexplains, too, why the damned, or those who fail in their destiny,\nmust suffer for ever. Death and hell are not positive existences or\npositive creations of God, but are the want of spiritual life, are the\nunsatisfied wants, the endless cravings of the soul for what can be\nhad only in God, and the lost have turned their backs on God.\n\nCharity is not negative, not a want, but a power; and it is easy,\ntherefore, to understand that while philanthropy is impotent it is\neffective. Charity grasps, as do all the rational affections, her\nobject, and is effective because she is positive not negative, living\nnot dead; and living, because she conforms to the real conditions of\nlife, and participates, through his creative act, in the life of him\nwho is life himself. She is less pretentious and more modest in her\nproceedings and promises than philanthropy, but makes up for it in the\nrichness and magnificence of the results she obtains. She works slowly\nand with patience, for she works for eternity, not time--without pomp\nor parade, in obscurity and silence, for she seeks the praise of God,\nnot the praise of men. To the onlooker she seems not to move, any more\nthan the sun in the heavens; but after a while we find that she has\nmoved, and has transformed the world. {444} Broad in her love and\nexpansive as the universe, and embracing all ages and nations in her\naffections, she yet wastes not her strength in vague generalities, nor\nin manifold projects of reform or progress of the race in general,\nfrom which no one in particular has anything to expect; but takes men\nin the concrete as she finds them, does the work nearest at hand and\nmost pressing to be done, and proceeding quietly from the individual\nto the family, from the family to society and the state, she works out\nthe regeneration of all in working out the regeneration of each. She\nworks as God works, without straining or effort, for her power is\ngreat and never fails. Power needs make no effort; it speaks and it is\ndone, commands and it stands fast. Let there be light, and there is\nlight. It is weakness that must strain and tug, as we see in the\nfeeble literature of the day, and philanthropy seems to the observer\nto be always more in earnest and far harder at work than charity, and\nattracts far more attention; but while she fills the world with her\nhollow sounds, charity, unheeded and unheard, fills it with her deeds.\n\nHistory is at hand to confirm the conclusions of reason, though the\nfull history of charity has never been written, and the greater part\nof her deeds are known only to him whose eye seeth all things, and\nwill be revealed, only at the last day. But something has been\nrecorded and is known. We in our day think we are doing much to\nrelieve the poor and oppressed, to console the suffering, and to bind\nup the broken-hearted; but the best of us would be put to shame were\nwe to study what charity did during the decline and fall of the Roman\nempire and the barbarous ages that immediately followed. We have\nboasted, and perhaps justly, of the services rendered to humanity\nduring our late civil war by our Christian Commissions and Sanitary\nCommissions; but what was done by them during four years is nothing in\ncomparison with what was done daily by Christian charity to relieve\nsuffering and distress far greater than were experienced by those even\nwho suffered most from the ravages of our civil war, and that not for\nfour years only, but for four centuries. I have here no room for\ndetails, or even for the barest outline of what charity did during the\nlong agony of the old world and the birth of the new; but this much\nmust be said, that it was everywhere present and energetic, and seemed\neverywhere to renew the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes; and\nwhen that old world had passed away, it was found that a new world on\na far broader and more durable foundation had taken it's place.\nCharity had to deal with poverty and want, with sickness and sorrow,\nand she relieved them; with captives and prisoners of war, and she\nransomed them even with the plate from the altar; with barbarians\nwhose highest vision of heaven was to sit in the halls of Valhalla,\nand quaff from human skulls the blood of their enemies--she tamed,\nhumanized, and civilized them, and made them the foremost nations of\nthe world; with slaves, for Europe was covered over with them--and\nshe mitigated their lot, lightened their oppression, secured for them\nthe moral rights of Christians, and finally broke their chains and\nmade them, not freedmen only, but freemen, Christian freemen, and\nbrothers of the noblest and proudest.\n\nWhat if it took centuries to abolish slavery? It did not take her\ncenturies to christen the slaves, to bring them spiritual freedom, and\nprovide for their souls. She did not wait till she had abolished the\nslavery of the body before abolishing the far more grievous slavery of\nthe soul, teaching the slaves the truth that liberates, incorporating\nthem into the church of God, and making them free and equal citizens\nof the commonwealth of Christ. With this spiritual freedom, of which\nphilanthropy knows nothing, but which is the basis of all real\nfreedom, and with ample provisions for the wants of the soul, {445}\nthe slave could wait in patience for the day of deliverance from\nbodily servitude. That day might be long in coming,  come it surely\nwould; and it did come, and peaceably, without civil war, social\nconvulsion, industrial or economical disturbance. But, unhappily, with\nus only a feeble portion of the slaves were really Christianized, and\nby their moral and spiritual training as free and equal members of the\nchurch, which makes no distinction between the bond and the free, the\nwhite and the black, fitted to take their position and play there are\nparts as free and equal members of civil society Moreover, we have not\nbeen able to emancipate them peaceably; we have done it only by a\nterrible civil war, in the midst of the clash of arms, as a means of\nsaving the life of the nation, or of perpetuating the union of the\nstates; and the most difficult problem remains to be solved, which the\nhumanitarians flatter themselves will be solved without trouble by\npolitical economy, or the general law of demand and supply; but which\nthey will find it will need more Christian Charity than the nation has\nhitherto possessed to solve, without the gradual extinction in this\ncountry of the negro race. The last thing to be relied on for\nadjusting any social question, elevating any class to social or civil\nequality, or making freedmen really freemen, is political economy,\nwhich treats man not as a free moral agent, or as a social being, but\nsimply as a producing, distributing, and and consuming machine, placed\nin the same category with the steam-plough, patent reaper,\nspinning-jenny, and the power-loom. If the question, What shall be\ndone with our freedman? be left to politics, political economy, or\nphilanthropy, without the intervention of Christian charity,\nemancipation will only have changed the form of their slavery, or\ngiven them all the cares and burdens of freedom with none of its\nblessings.\n\nIt is the same in all human affairs. No measured of reform or\nprogress, individual or social, domestic or political, ever succeed or\nsucceed without an overbalance of evil, unless inspired and directed\nby charity. They may and do succeed without perfect charity, but never\nwithout the principle of charity. Philanthropy is man's method, and\nleads to nothing; charity is God's method, and conducts to its end.\nBut we must not confound charity with weakness or effeminacy of\ncharacter, for that would be to confound it with sentimentalism.\nCharity is not credulity or mental imbecility; it is always robust and\nmanly, the rational soul raised above itself by divine grace, and\nendowed in the spiritual order with superhuman power.\n\nCharity loves peace, but follows after the things which make for\npeace, and shrinks not from following after them, when need is, even\nthrough war. Modern peace-societies are founded by philanthropy, not\nby charity, and though they have been in existence for half a century,\nand proudly boasted that there would be no more war, yet there have\nbeen more wars and bloodshed during the last twenty years than during\nany period of equal duration since modern history began. Charity\nfounds no anti-hangman societies for the abolition of capital\npunishment in all cases whatsoever, or prisoners' friends societies to\nconvert our prisons into palaces; yet recoils from all cruelty or\nundue severity, and seeks to prevent punishment by preventing crime.\nShe never forgets justice, nor sacrifices in her love for individuals\nthe protection of society or the safety of the state. Her great care\nis to save the soul of the criminal, and to this end she visits the\nmost loathsome cells, takes her stand on the scaffold by the side of\nthe condemned, and will not give him up till she has made his peace\nwith God. She fills the soul with love for enemies and forgiveness of\ninjuries, but they are _my_ enemies she bids me love, and my personal\ninjuries she bids me forgive. I cannot forgive injuries, done to my\nneighbor, to society, or to my country, for they are not mine; and she\nherself bids me, when summoned by the proper authority, to shoulder my\nmusket and march to the battle-field to defend public right and\nrepress public wrong. Charity is never weak, sentimental,\nlackadaisical, or cowardly. It is the principle of all true greatness\nand manliness, and the most charitable are the strongest, bravest, the\nmost heroic, wherever duty calls them to act as well as to suffer.\n\n------\n\n{446}\n\nFrom the London Society.\n\nCHRISTMAS WITH THE BARON.\n\n\nA RATHER REMARKABLE FAIRY TALE.\n\n\nOnce upon a time--fairy tales always begin with once upon a time, you\nknow--once upon a time there lived in a fine old castle on the Rhine,\na certain Baron von Schrochslofsleschshoffinger. You won't find it an\neasy name to pronounce; in fact, the baron never tried it himself but\nonce, and then he was laid up for two days' afterward; so in future\nwell merely call him \"the baron,\" for shortness, particularly as he\nwas rather a dumpy man. After having heard his name, you won't be\nsurprised when I tell you that he was an exceedingly bad character.\nFor a German baron, he was considered enormously rich; a hundred and\nfifty pounds a year wouldn't be thought much over here; but still it\nwill buy a good deal of sausage, which, with wine grown on the estate,\nformed the chief sustenance of the baron and his family. Now, you'll\nhardly believe that, notwithstanding he was the possessor of his\nprincely revenue, the baron was not satisfied, but oppressed and\nground down his unfortunate tenants to the very last penny he could\npossible squeeze out of them. In all his exactions he was seconded and\nencouraged by his steward, Klootz, an old rascal who took a malicious\npleasure in his master's cruelty, and who chuckled and rubbed his\nhands with the greatest apparent enjoyment when any of the poor\nlandholders couldn't pay their rent, or afforded him any opportunity\nfor oppression. Not content with making the poor tenants pay double\nvalue for the land they rented, the baron was in the habit of going\nround every now and then to their houses, and ordering anything he\ntook a fancy to, from a fat pig to a pretty daughter, to be sent up to\nthe castle. The pretty daughter was made parlor-maid, but as she had\nnothing a year, and to find herself, it wasn't what would be\nconsidered by careful mothers an eligible situation The fat pig became\nsausage, of course. Things went on from bad to worse, till at the time\nof our story, between the alternate squeezings of the baron and his\nsteward, the poor tenants had very little left to squeeze out of them.\nThe fat pigs and the pretty daughters had nearly all found their way\nup to the castle, and there was little else to take. The only help the\npoor fellows had was the baron's only daughter, Lady Bertha, who\nalways had a kind words, and frequently something more substantial,\nfor them, when her father was not in the way. Now, I'm not going to\ndescribe Bertha, for the simple reason that if I did, you would\nimagine that she was the fairy I'm going to tell you about, and she\nisn't. However, I don't mind giving yon a few outlines. In the first\nplace, she was exceedingly tiny--the nicest girls, the real lovable\nlittle pets, always are tiny--and she had long silken black hair, and\na dear, dimpled little face, full of love and mischief. Now then, fill\nout outline {447} with the details of the nicest and prettiest girl\nyou know, and you'll have a slight idea of her. On second thoughts, I\ndon't believe you will, for your portrait wouldn't be half good\nenough; however, it'll be near enough for you. Well, the baron's\ndaughter, being all your fancy painted her, and a trifle more, was\nnaturally much distressed at the goings on of her unamiable parent,\nand tried her best to make amends for her father's harshness. She\ngenerally managed that a good many pounds of the sausage should find\ntheir way back to the owners of the original pig; and when the baron\ntried to squeeze the and of the pretty parlor-maid, which he\noccasionally did after dinner, Bertha had only to say, in a tone of\nmild remonstrance, \"Pa!\" and pa dropped the hand like a hot potato,\nand stared very hard the other way, instantly. Bad as the disreputable\nold baron was, he had a respect for the goodness and purity of his\nchild. Like the lion, tamed by the charm of Una's innocence, the rough\nold rascal seemed to lose in her presence half his rudeness; and\nthough he used awful language to her sometimes (I dare say even Una's\nlion reward occasionally) he was more tractable with her than with any\nother living being. Her presence operated as a moral restraint upon\nhim, which possibly was the reason that he never stayed down stairs\nafter dinner, but always retired to a favorite turret, where he could\nget comfortably tipsy, which, I regret to say, he had got so in the\nway of doing every afternoon, that I believe he would have felt unwell\nwithout.\n\nThe hour of the baron's afternoon symposium was the time selected by\nBertha for her errands of charity. Once he was fairly settled down to\nhis second bottle, off went Bertha, with her maid beside her carrying\na basket to bestow a meal on some of the poor tenants, among whom she\nwas always received with blessings. At first these excursions had been\nundertaken solely from charitable motives, and Bertha thought herself\nplentifully repaid in the love and thanks of her grateful pensioners.\nOf late, however, another cause had led her to take even stronger\ninterest in her walks, and occasionally to come in with brighter eyes\nand a rosier cheek than the gratitude of the poor tenants had been\nwont to produce. The fact is, some months before the time of our\nstory, Bertha had noticed in her walks a young artist, who seemed to\nbe fated to be invariably sketching points of interest in the road she\nhad to take. There was one particular tree, exactly in the path which\nled from the castle gate, which he had sketched from at least four\npoints of view, and Bertha began to wonder what there could be so very\nparticular about it. At last, just as Carl von Sempach had begun to\nconsider where on earth he could sketch the tree from next, and to\nponder seriously upon the feasibility of climbing up into it, and\ntaking it from _that_ point of view, a trifling accident occurred,\nwhich gave him the opportunity of making Bertha's acquaintance, which,\nI don't mind stating confidentially, was the very thing he had been\nwaiting for. It so chanced, that on one particular afternoon the maid,\neither through awkwardness, or possibly through looking more at the\nhandsome painter than the ground she was walking on, stumbled and\nfell. Of course the basket fell too, and equally of course, Carl, as a\ngentleman, couldn't do less than offer his assistance in picking up\nthe damsel and the dinner.\n\nThe acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to drop; and handsome\nCarl and our good little Bertha were fairly over head and ears in\nlove, and had begun to have serious thoughts of a cottage in a wood,\net caetera, when their felicity was disturbed by their being\naccidentally met, in one of their walks, by the baron. Of course the\nbaron, being himself so thorough an aristocrat, had higher views for\nhis daughter than marrying her to a \"beggarly artist,\" and accordingly\nhe stamped and swore, and threatened Carl {448} with summary\npunishment with all sorts of weapons, from heavy boots to\nblunderbusses, if ever he ventured near the premises again. This was\nunpleasant; but I fear it didn't _quite_ put a stop to the young\npeople's interviews, though it made them less frequent and more secret\nthan before.\n\nNow, I'm quite aware this wasn't at all proper, and that no properly\nregulated young lady would ever have had meetings with a young man her\npapa didn't approve of. But then it's just possible Bertha mightn't\nhave been a properly regulated young lady; I only know she was a dear\nlittle pet, worth twenty model young ladies, and that she loved Carl\nvery dearly. And then consider what a dreadful old tyrant of a papa\nshe had! My dear girl, it's not the slightest use your looking so\nprovokingly correct; it's my deliberate belief that if you had been in\nher shoes (they'd have been at least three sizes too small for you,\nbut that doesn't matter) you would have done precisely the same.\n\nSuch was the state of things on Christmas Eve in the year----stay!\nfairy tales never have a year to them; so on second thoughts I\nwouldn't tell the date if I knew--but I don't. Such was the state of\nthings, however, on the particular 24th of December to which our story\nrefers--only, if anything, rather more so. The baron had got up in the\nmorning in an exceedingly bad temper; and those about him had felt its\neffects all through the day. His two favorite wolf-hounds, Lutzow and\nTeufel, had received so many kicks from the baron's heavy boots that\nthey hardly knew at which end their tails were; and even Klootz\nhimself scarcely dared to approach his master. In the middle of the\nday two of the principal tenants came to say that they were unprepared\nwith their rent, and to beg for a little delay. The poor fellows\nrepresented that their families were starving, and entreated for\nmercy; but the baron was only too glad that he had at last found so\nfair an excuse for venting his ill-humor. He loaded the unhappy\ndefaulters with every abusive epithet he could devise (and being\ncalled names in German is no joke, I can tell you); and, lastly, he\nswore by everything he could think of that if their rent was not paid\non the morrow, themselves and their families should be turned out of\ndoors to sleep on the snow, which was then many inches deep on the\nground. They still continued to beg for mercy, till the baron became\nso exasperated that he determined to kick them out of the castle\nhimself. He pursued them for that purpose as far as the outer door,\nwhen fresh fuel was added to his anger. Carl, who as I have hinted,\nstill managed, notwithstanding the paternal prohibition, to see fair\nBertha occasionally, and had come to wish her a merry Christmas,\nchanced at this identical moment to be saying good-by at the door,\nabove which, in accordance with immemorial usage, a huge bush of\nmistletoe was suspended. What they were doing under it at the moment\nof the baron's appearance, I never knew exactly; but his wrath was\ntremendous! I regret to say that his language was unparliamentary in\nthe extreme. He swore till he was mauve in the face; and if he had not\nprovidentially been seized with a fit of coughing, and sat down in the\ncoal-scuttle--mistaking it for a three-legged stool--it is impossible\nto say to what lengths his feelings might have carried him. Carl and\nBertha picked him up, rather black behind, but otherwise not much the\nworse for his accident. In fact, the diversion of his thoughts seemed\nto have done him good; for, having sworn a little more, and Carl\nhaving left the castle, he appeared rather better. After having\nendured so many and various emotions, it is hardly to be wondered at\nthat the baron required some consolation; so, after having changed his\ntr--s-rs, he took himself off to his favorite turret, to allay by\ncopious potations the irritation of his mind. Bottle after bottle was\nemptied, and pipe after pipe was {449} filled and smoked. The fine old\nBurgundy was gradually getting into the baron's head; and altogether\nhe was beginning to feel more comfortable. The shades of the winter\nafternoon had deepened into the evening twilight, made dimmer still by\nthe aromatic clouds that came, with dignified deliberation, from the\nbaron's lips, and curled in floated up to the carved ceiling of the\nturret, where they spread themselves into a dim canopy, which every\nsuccessive cloud brought lower and lower. The fire, which had been\nfiled up mountain-high earlier in the afternoon, and had flamed and\nroared to its heart's content ever since, had now got to that\nstate--the perfection of a fire to a lazy man--when it requires no\npoking or attention of any kind, but just burns itself hollow, and\nthen tumbles in, and blazes jovially for a little time, and then\nsettles down to a genial glow, and gets hollow and tumbles in again.\nThe baron's fire was just in this delightful \"da capo\" condition, most\nfavorable of all to the enjoyment of the \"dolce far niente.\" For the\nlittle while it would glow and kindle quietly, making strange faces to\nitself, and building fantastic castles in the depths of its red\nrecesses, and then the castles would come down with a crash, and the\nfaces disappear, with a bright flame spring up and lick lovingly the\nsides of the old chimney; and the carved heads of improbable men and\nimpossible women, hewn so deftly round the panels of the old oak\nwardrobe opposite, in which the baron's choicest vintages were\ndeposited, were lit up by the flickering light, and seemed to nod and\nwink at the fire in return, with the familiarity of old acquaintances.\n\nSome such fancy as this was disporting itself in the baron's brain;\nand he was gazing at the old oak carving accordingly, and emitting\nhuge volumes of smoke with reflective slowness, when a clatter among\nthe bottles on the table caused him to turn his head to ascertain the\ncause. The baron was by no means a nervous man; however, the sight\nthat met his eyes when he turned round did take away his presence of\nmind a little; and he was obliged to take four distinct puffs before\nhe had sufficiently regained his equilibrium to inquire, \"Who\nthe--Pickwick--are you?\" (The baron said \"Dickens,\" but as that is a\nnaughty word we will substitute \"Pickwick,\" which is equally\nexpressive, and not so wrong.) Let me see; where was I? Oh! yes. \"Who\nthe Pickwick are you?\"\n\nNow, before I allow the baron's visitor to answer the question,\nperhaps I had better give a slight description of his personal\nappearance. If this wasn't a true story, I should have liked to have\nmade him a model of manly beauty; but a regard for veracity compels me\nto confess that he was not what would be generally considered\nhandsome; that is, not in figure, for his face was by no means\nunpleasing. His body was in size and shape not very unlike a huge\nplum-pudding, and was clothed in a bright-green tightly fitting\ndoublet, with red holly berries for buttons. His limbs were long and\nslender in proportion to his stature, which was not more than three\nfeet or so. His head was encircled by a crown of holly and mistletoe.\nThe round red berries sparkled amid his hair, which was silver-white,\nand shone out in cheerful harmony with his rosy jovial face. And that\nface! it would have done one good to look at it. In spite of the\nsilver hair, and an occasional wrinkle beneath the merry laughing\neyes, it seemed brimming over with perpetual youth. The mouth, well\ngarnished with teeth, white and sound, which seemed as if they could\ndo ample justice to holiday cheer, was ever open with a beaming genial\nsmile, expanding now and then into hearty jovial laughter. Fun and\ngood-fellowship were in every feature. The owner of the face was, at\nthe moment when the baron first perceived him, comfortably seated upon\nthe top of the large tobacco-jar on the table, nursing his left leg.\nThe baron's {450} somewhat abrupt inquiry did not appear to irritate\nhim; on the contrary, he seemed rather amused than otherwise.\n\n\"You don't ask prettily, old gentleman,\" he replied; \"but I don't mind\ntelling you, for all that. I'm King Christmas.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" said the baron.\n\n\"Ah!\" said the goblin. Of course you've guessed he was a goblin.\n\n\"And pray what's your business here?\" said the baron.\n\n\"Don't be crusty with a fellow,\" replied the goblin. \"I merely looked\nin to wish you the compliments of the season. Talking of crust, by the\nway, what sort of a tap is it you're drinking?\" So saying, he took up\na flask of the baron's very best and poured out about half a glass.\nHaving held the glass first to one side and then the other, winked at\nit twice, sniffed it, and gone through the remainder of the pantomime\nin which connoisseurs indulge, he drank it with great deliberation,\nand smacked his lips scientifically. \"Hum! Johannisberg! and not so\n_very_ bad--for you. But I tell you what it is, baron, you'll have to\nbring out better stuff than this when _I_ put my legs on your\nmahogany.\"\n\n\"Well, you are a cool fish,\" said the baron. \"However, you're rather a\njoke, so now you're here we may as well enjoy ourselves. Smoke?\"\n\n\"Not anything you're likely to offer me!\"\n\n\"Confound your impudence!\" roared the baron, with a horribly\ncomplicated oath. \"That tobacco's as good as any in all Rhineland.\"\n\n\"That's a nasty cough you've got, baron. Don't excite yourself, my\ndear boy; I dare say you speak according to your lights. I don't mean\nVesuvians, you know, but your opportunities for knowing anything about\nit. Try a weed out of my case, and I expect you'll alter your\nopinion.\"\n\nThe baron took the proffered case, and selected a cigar. Not a word\nwas spoken till it was half consumed, when the baron took it for the\nfirst time from his lips, and said gently, with the air of a man\ncommunicating an important discovery in the strictest confidence, \"Das\nist gut!\"\n\n\"Thought you'd say so,\" said the visitor. \"And now, as you like the\ncigar, I should like you to try a thimbleful of what _I_ call wine. I\nmust warn you, though, that it is rather potent, and may produce\neffects you are not accustomed to.\"\n\n\"Bother that, if it's as good as the weed,\" said the baron; \"I haven't\ntaken my usual quantity by four bottles yet.\"\n\n\"Well, don't say I didn't warn you, that's all. I don't think you'll\nfind it unpleasant, though it is rather strong when you're not\naccustomed to it.\" So saying, the goblin produced from some mysterious\npocket a black, big-bellied bottle, crusted apparently with the dust\nof ages. It did strike the baron as peculiar, that the bottle, when\nonce produced, appeared nearly as big round as the goblin himself; but\nhe was not the sort of man to stick at trifles, and he pushed foreword\nhis glass to be filled just as composedly as if the potion had been\nshipped by Sandeman, and paid duty in the most commonplace way.\n\nThe glass was filled and emptied, but the baron uttered not his\nopinion. Not in words, at least, but he pushed forward his glass to be\nfilled again in a manner that sufficiently bespoke his approval.\n\n\"Aha, you smile!\" said the goblin. And it was a positive fact; the\nbaron was smiling; a thing he hadn't been known to do in the memory of\nthe oldest inhabitant. \"That's the stuff to make your hair curl, isn't\nit?\"\n\n\"I believe you, my b-o-o-oy!\" The baron brought out this earnest\nexpression of implicit confidence with true Paul Bedford unction. \"It\nwarms one--_here!_\"\n\nKnowing the character of the man, one would have expected him to put\nhis hand upon his stomach. But he didn't; he laid it upon his _heart_.\n\n{451}\n\n\"The spell begins to operate, I see,\" said the goblin. \"Have another\nglass.\"\n\nThe baron had another glass, and another after that. The smile on his\nface expanded into an expression of such geniality that the whole\ncharacter of his countenance was changed, and his own mother wouldn't\nhave known him. I doubt myself--inasmuch as she died when he was\nexactly a year and three months old--whether she would have recognized\nhim under any circumstances; but I merely wish to express that he was\nchanged almost beyond recognition.\n\n\"Upon my word,\" said the baron, at length, \"I feel so light I almost\nthink I could dance a hornpipe. I used to once, I know. Shall I try?\"\n\n\"Well, if you ask my advice,\" replied the goblin, \"I should say,\ndecidedly, don't. 'Barkis is willing,' I dare say, but trousers are\nweak, and you might split 'em.\"\n\n\"Hang it all,\" said the baron, \"so I might; I didn't think of that.\nBut still I feel as if I must do something juvenile!\"\n\n\"Ah! that's the effect of your change of nature,\" said the goblin.\n\"Never mind, I'll give you plenty to do presently.\"\n\n\"Change of nature! what do you mean, you old conundrum?\" said the\nbaron.\n\n\"You're another,\" said the goblin, \"But never mind. What I mean is\njust this. What you are now feeling is the natural consequence of my\nmagic wine, which has changed you into a fairy. That's what's the\nmatter, sir.\"\n\n\"A fairy! me!\" exclaimed the baron. \"Get out; I'm too fat.\"\n\n\"Fat! oh! that's nothing. We shall put you in regular training, and\nyou'll soon be slim enough to creep into a lady's stocking. Not that\nyou'll be called upon to do anything of the sort; but I'm merely\ngiving you an idea of your future figure.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said the baron; \"me thin! that's too ridiculous. Why, that's\nworse than being a fairy. You don't mean it, though, do you? I do feel\nrather peculiar.\"\n\n\"I do, indeed,\" said the visitor. \"You don't dislike it, do you?\"\n\n\"Well, no, I can't say I do, entirely. It's queer, though, I feel so\nuncommon friendly. I feel as if I should like to shake hands, or pat\nsomebody on the back.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the goblin, \"I know how it is. Rum feeling, when you're not\naccustomed to it. But come; finish that glass, for we must be off.\nWe've got a precious deal to do before morning, I can tell you. Are\nyou ready?\"\n\n\"All right,\" said the baron. \"I'm just in the humor to make a night of\nit.\"\n\n\"Come along, then,\" said the goblin.\n\nThey proceeded for a short time in silence along the corridors of the\nold castle. They carried no candle, but the baron noticed that\neverything seemed perfectly light wherever they stood, but relapsed\ninto darkness as soon as they had passed by. The goblin spoke first.\n\n\"I say, baron, you've been an uncommon old brute in your time, now\nhaven't you?\"\n\n\"H'm,\" said the baron, reflectively, \"I don't know. Well, yes, I\nrather think I have.\"\n\n\"How jolly miserable you've been making those two young people, you\nold sinner! You know who I mean.\"\n\n\"Eh, what? You know that, too?\" said the baron.\n\n\"Know it; of course I do. Why, bless your heart, I know everything, my\ndear boy. But you have made yourself an old pig in that quarter,\nconsiderably. Ar'n't you blushing, you hard-hearted old monster?\"\n\n\"Don't know, I'm sure,\" said the baron, scratching his nose, as if\nthat was where he expected to feel it. \"I believe I have treated them\nbadly, though, now I come to think of it.\"\n\nAt this moment they reached the door of Bertha's chamber. The door\nopened of itself at their approach.\n\n{452}\n\n\"Come along\" said the goblin, \"you won't wake her. Now, old\nflinty-heart, look there.\"\n\nThe sight that met the baron's view was one that few fathers could\nhave beheld without affectionate emotion. Under ordinary\ncircumstances, however, the baron would not have felt at all\nsentimental on the subject, but to-night something made him view\nthings in quite a different light to that he was accustomed to. I\nshouldn't like to make affidavit of the fact, but it's my positive\nimpression that he sighed.\n\nNow, my dear reader--particularly if a gentleman--don't imagine I'm\ngoing to indulge your impertinent curiosity with an elaborate\ndescription of the sacred details of a lady's sleeping apartment.\n_You're_ not a fairy, you know, and I don't see that it can possibly\nmatter to you whether fair Bertha's dainty little bottines were tidily\nplaced on the chair by her bedside, or thrown carelessly, as they had\nbeen taken off, upon the hearth-rug, where her favorite spaniel\nreposed, warming his nose in his sleep before the last smouldering\nembers of the decaying fire; or whether her crinoline--but if she did\nwear a crinoline, what can that possibly matter, sir, to you? All I\nshall tell you is, that everything looked snug and comfortable; but\nsomehow, any place got that look when Bertha was in it. And now a word\nabout the jewel in the casket--pet Bertha herself. Really, I'm at a\nloss to describe her. How do you look when your'e asleep?--Well, it\nwasn't like _that_; not a bit! Fancy a sweet girl's face, the cheek\nfaintly flushed with a soft warm tint, like the blush in the heart of\nthe opening rose, and made brighter by the contrast of the snowy\npillow on which it rested; dark silken hair, curling and clustering\nlovingly over the tiniest of tiny ears, and the softest, whitest neck\nthat ever mortal maiden was blessed with; long silken eyelashes,\nfringing lids only less beautiful than the dear earnest eyes they\ncover. Fancy all this, and fancy, too, if you can, the expression of\nperfect goodness and parity that lift up the sweet features of the\nslumbering maiden with a beauty almost angelic, and you will see what\nthe baron saw that night. Not quite all, however, for the baron's\nvision paused not at the bedside before him, but had passed on from\nthe face of the sleeping maiden to another face as lovely, that of the\nyoung wife, Bertha's mother, who had, years before, taken her angel\nbeauty to the angels.\n\nThe goblin spoke to the baron's thought. \"Wonderfully like, is she\nnot, baron?\" The baron slowly inclined his head.\n\n\"You made her very happy, didn't you?\" The tone in which the goblin\nspoke was harsh and mocking. \"A faithful husband, tender and true! She\nmust have been a happy wife, eh, baron?\"\n\nThe baron's head had so upon his bosom. Old recollections were\nthronging into his awakened memory. Solemn vows to love and cherish,\nsomewhat strangely kept. Memories of bitter words, and savage oaths,\nshowered at a quiet uncomplaining figure, without one word in reply.\nAnd last, the memory of a fit of drunken passion, and a hasty blow\nstruck with a heavy hand; and then of three months fading away; and\nlast, of her last prayer--for her baby and him.\n\n\"A good husband makes a good father, baron. No wonder you are somewhat\nchary of rashly entrusting to a suitor the happiness of a sweet flower\nlike this. Poor child! it is hard, though, that she must think no more\nof him she loves so dearly. See! she is weeping even in her dreams.\nBut you have good reasons, no doubt. Young Carl is wild, perhaps, or\ndrinks, or gambles, eh? What! none of these? Perhaps he is wayward and\nuncertain, and you fear that the honied words of {453} courtship might\nturn to bitter sayings in matrimony. They do, sometimes, eh, baron? By\nall means guard her from such a fate as that. Poor tender flower! Or\nwho knows, worse than that, baron! Hard words break no bones, they\nsay, but angry men are quick, and a blow is soon struck, eh?\"\n\nThe goblin had drawn nearer and nearer, and laid his hand upon the\nbaron's arm, and the last words were literally hissed into his ear.\nThe baron's frame swayed to and under the violence of his emotions. At\nlast, with a cry of agony, he dashed his hands upon his forehead. The\nveins were swollen up like thick cords, and his voice was almost\ninarticulate in its unnatural hoarsness.\n\n\"Torturer, release me! Let me go, let me go and do something to forget\nthe past; or I shall go mad and die!\"\n\nHe rushed out of the room and paced wildly down the corridor, the\ngoblin following him. At last, as they came near the outer door of the\ncastle, which opened of itself as they reached it, the spirit spoke:\n\n\"This way, baron, this way; I told you there was work for us to do\nbefore morning, you know.\"\n\n\"Work!\" exclaimed the baron, absently, passing his fingers through his\ntangled hair; \"oh! yes, work! the harder and the rougher the better;\nanything to make me forget.\"\n\nThe two stepped out into the courtyard, and the baron shivered,\nthough, as it seemed, unconsciously, at the breath of the frosty\nmidnight air, The snow lay deep on the ground, and the baron's heavy\nboot sank into it with a crisp, crushing sound at every tread. He was\nbareheaded, but seemed unconscious of the fact, and tramped on, as if\nutterly indifferent to anything but his own thoughts. At last, as a\nblast of the night wind, keener than ordinary, swept over him, he\nseemed for the first time to feel the chill. His teeth chattered, and\nhe muttered, \"Cold, very cold.\"\n\n\"Ay, baron,\" said the goblin, \"it is cold, even to us, who are healthy\nand strong, and warmed with wine. Colder still, though, to those who\nare hungry and half-naked, and have to sleep on the snow.\"\n\n\"Sleep? snow?\" said the baron. \"Who sleeps on the snow? why, I\nwouldn't let my dogs be out on such a night as this.\"\n\n\"Your dogs, no!\" said the goblin; \"I spoke of meaner animals--your\nwretched tenants. Did you not order yesterday, that Wilhelm and\nFriedrich, if they did not pay their rent tomorrow, should be turned\nout to sleep on the snow? a snug bed for the little ones, and a nice\nwhite coverlet, eh? Ha! ha! twenty florins or so is no great matter,\nis it? I'm afraid their chance is small, nevertheless. Come and see.\"\n\nThe baron hung his head. A few minutes brought them to the first of\nthe poor dwellings, which they entered noiselessly. The fireless\ngrate, the carpetless floor, the broken window-panes, all gave\nsufficient testimony to the want and misery of the occupants. In one\ncomer lay sleeping a man, a woman, and three children, and nestling to\neach other for the warmth which their ragged coverlet could not\nafford. In the man, the baron recognized his tenant, Wilhelm, one of\nthose who had been with him to beg for indulgence on the previous day.\nThe keen features, and bones almost starting through the pallid skin,\nshowed how heavily the hand of hunger had been laid upon all. The cold\nnight wind moaned and whistled through the many flaws in the\nill-glazed, ill-thatched tenement, and rustled over the sleepers, who\nshivered even in their sleep.\n\n\"Ha, baron,\" said the goblin, \"death is breathing in their faces even\nnow, you see; it is hardly worth while to lay them to sleep in the\nsnow, is it? They would sleep a little sounder, that's all.\"\n\n{454}\n\nThe baron shuddered, and then, hastily pulling the warm coat from his\nown shoulders, he spread it over the sleepers.\n\n\"Oho!\" said the goblin, \"bravely done, baron! By all means keep them\nwarm to-night, they'll enjoy the snow more to-morrow, you know.\"\n\nStrange to say, the baron, instead of feeling chilled when he had\nremoved his coat, felt a strange glow of warmth spread from the region\nof the heart over his entire frame. The goblin's continual allusions\nto his former intention, which he had by this time totally\nrelinquished, hurt him, and he said, rather pathetically, \"Don't talk\nof that again, good goblin, I'd rather sleep on the snow myself.\"\n\n\"Eh! what?\" said the goblin, \"you don't mean to say you're sorry? Then\nwhat do you say to making these poor people comfortable?\"\n\n\"With all my heart,\" said the baron, \"if we had only anything to do it\nwith.\"\n\n\"You leave that to me,\" said the goblin, \"your brother fairies are not\nfar off, you may be sure.\"\n\nAs he spoke he clapped his hands thrice, and before the third clap had\ndied away the poor cottage was swarming with tiny figures, whom the\nbaron rightly conjectured to be the fairies themselves.\n\nNow, you may not be aware (the baron wasn't until that night) that\nthere are among the fairies trades and professions, just as with\nordinary mortals. However, there they were, each with the\naccompaniments of his or her particular business, and to it they went\nmanfully. A fairy glazier put in new panes to the shattered windows,\nfairy carpenters replaced the doors upon their hinges, and fairy\npainters, with inconceivable celerity, made cupboards and closets as\nfresh as paint could make them; one fairy housemaid laid and lit a\nroaring fire, while another dusted and rubbed chairs and tables to a\nmiraculous degree of brightness; a fairy butler uncorked bottles of\nfairy wine, and a fairy cook laid out a repast of most tempting\nappearance. The baron hearing a tapping above him, cast his eyes\nupward and beheld a fairy slater rapidly repairing a hole in the roof;\nand when he bent them down again, they fell on a fairy doctor mixing a\ncordial for the sleepers. Nay, there was even a fairy parson who, not\nhaving any present employment, contented himself with rubbing his\nhands and looking pleasant, probably ably waiting till somebody might\nwant to be christened or married. Every trade, every profession or\noccupation, appeared, without exception, to be represented; nay, we\nbig pardon, with one exception only, for the baron used to say, when\nafterward relating his experiences to bachelor friends, \"You may\nbelieve me or not sir, there was every mortal business under the sun,\n_but devil a bit of a lawyer_.\"\n\nThe baron could not long remain inactive. He was rapidly seized with a\nviolent desire to do something to help, which manifested itself in\ninsane attempts to assist everybody at once. At last, after having\ntaken all the skin off his knuckles in attempting to hammer in nails\nin aid of the carpenters, and then nearly tumbling over a fairy\nhousemaid, whose broom he was offering to carry, he gave it up as a\nbad job, and stood aside with his friend the goblin. He was just about\nto inquire how it was that the poor occupants of the house were not\nawakened by so much din, when a fairy Sam Slick who had been examining\nthe cottager's old clock, with a view to a thorough repair, touched\nsome spring within it, and it made the usual purr preparatory to\nstriking. When lo and behold, at the very first stroke, cottage,\ngoblin, fairies, and all disappeared into utter darkness, and the\nbaron found himself in his turret-chamber, rubbing his toe, which he\nhad just hit with considerable force against the fender. As he was\nonly in his slippers the concussion was unpleasant, and the baron\nrubbed his toe for a good while. {455} After he had finished with his\ntoe he rubbed his nose, and finally, with a countenance of deep\nreflection, scratched the bump of something or other at the top of his\nhead. The old clock on the stairs was striking three, and the fire had\ngone out. The baron reflected for a short time longer, and finally\ndecided that he had better go to bed which he did accordingly.\n\nThe morning dawned upon the very ideal, as far as weather was\nconcerned, of a Christmas day. A bright winter sun shone out just\nvividly enough to make everything look genial and pleasant, and yet\nnot with sufficient warmth to mar the pure unbroken surface of the\ncrisp white snow, which lay like a never-ending white lawn upon the\nground, and glittered in myriad silver flakes upon the leaves of the\nsturdy evergreens. I'm afraid the baron had not had a very good night;\nat any rate, I know that he was wide-awake at an hour long before his\nusual time of rising. He lay first on one side, and then on the other,\nand then, by way of variety, turned on his back, with his magenta nose\npointing perpendicularly toward the ceiling; but it was all of no use.\nDo what he would, he couldn't get to sleep, and at last, not long\nafter daybreak, he tumbled out of bed, and proceeded to dress. Even\nafter he was out of bed his fidgetiness continued. It did not strike\nhim, until after he had got one boot on, that it would be a more\nnatural proceeding to put his stockings on first; after which he\ncaught himself in the act of trying trying to put his trousers on over\nhis head (which, I may mention for the information of lady readers,\nwho of course, cannot be expected to know anything about such matters,\nis not the mode generally adopted). In a word, the baron's mind was\nevidently preoccupied; his whole air was that of a man who felt a\nstrong impulse to do something or other, but could not quite make up\nhis mind to it. At last, however, the good impulse conquered, and this\nwicked old baron, in the stillness of the calm bright Christmas\nmorning, went down upon his knees and prayed. Stiff were his knees and\nslow his tongue, for neither had done such work for many a long day\npast; but I have read in the Book of the joy of the angels over a\nrepenting sinner. There needs not much eloquence to pray the\npublican's prayer, and who shall say but there was gladness in heaven\nthat Christmas morning?\n\nThe baron's appearance down-stairs at such an early hour occasioned\nquite a commotion. Nor were the domestics re-assured when the baron\nordered a bullock to be killed and jointed instantly, and all the\navailable provisions in the larder, including sausage, to be packed up\nin baskets, with a good store of his own peculiar wine. One ancient\nretainer was heard to declare, with much pathos, that he feared master\nhad gone \"off his head.\" However, \"off his head\" or not, they knew the\nbaron must be obeyed, and in an exceedingly short space of time he\nsallied forth, accompanied by three servants carrying the baskets, and\nwondering what in the name of fortune their master would do next. He\nstopped at the cottage of Wilhelm, which he had visited with the\ngoblin on the previous night. The labors of the fairies did not seem\nto have produced much lasting benefit, for the appearance of\neverything around was as wretched as could be. The poor family thought\nthat the baron had come himself to turn them out of house and home;\nand the poor children huddled up timidly to their mother for\nprotection, while the father attempted some words of entreaty for\nmercy. The pale, pinched features of the group, and their looks of\ndread and wretchedness, were too much for the baron. \"Eh! what! what\ndo you mean, confound you? Turn you out! Of course not: I've brought\nyou some breakfast. Here! Fritz--Carl; where are the knaves? Now then,\nunpack, and don't be a week about it. Can't you see the people are\nhungry, ye villains? Here, lend me the corkscrew.\" This last {456}\nbeing a tool the baron was tolerably accustomed to, he had better\nsuccess than with those of the fairy carpenters; and it was not long\nbefore the poor tenants were seated before a roaring fire, and doing\njustice, with the appetite of starvation, to a substantial breakfast.\nThe baron felt a queer sensation in his throat at the sight of the\npoor people's enjoyment, and had passed the back of his hand twice\nacross his eyes when he thought no one was looking; but his emotion\nfairly rose to boiling point when the poor father, Wilhelm, with tears\nin his eyes, and about a quarter of a pound of beef in his mouth,\nsprang up from the table and flung himself at the baron's knees,\ninvoking blessings on him for his goodness. \"Get up, you audacious\nscoundrel!\" roared the baron. \"What the deuce do you mean by such\nconduct, eh! confound you?\" At this moment the door opened, and in\nwalked Mynheer Klootz, who had heard nothing of the baron's change of\nintentions, and who, seeing Wilhelm at the baron's feet, and hearing\nthe latter speaking, as he thought, in an angry tone, at once jumped\nto the conclusion that Wilhelm was entreating for longer indulgence.\nHe rushed at the unfortunate man, and collared him. \"Not if _we_ know\nit,\" exclaimed he; \"you'll have the wolves for bedfellows to-night, I\nreckon. Come along, my fine fellow.\" As he spoke he turned his back\ntoward the baron, with the intention of dragging his victim to the\ndoor, the baron's little gray eyes twinkled, and his whole frame\nquivered with suppressed emotion, which, after the lapse of a moment,\nvented itself in a kick, and _such_ a kick! Not one of your Varsoviana\nflourishes, but a kick that employed every muscle from hip to toe, and\ndrove the worthy steward up against the door, like a ball from a\ncatapult. Misfortunes never come singly, and so Mynheer Klootz found\nwith regard to the kick, for it was followed, without loss of time, by\nseveral dozen others, as like it as possible, from the baron's heavy\nboots. Wounded Lyons proverbially come badly off, and Fritz and Carl,\nwho had suffered from many an act of petty tyranny on the part of the\nsteward, thought they could not do better than follow their master's\nexample, which they did to such a good purpose, that when the\nunfortunate Klootz did escape from the cottage at last, I don't\nbelieve he could have had any _os sacrum_ left.\n\nAfter having executed this little act of poetical justice, the baron\nand his servants visited the other cottages, in all of which they were\nreceived with dread, and dismissed with blessings. Having completed\nhis tour of charity, the baron returned home to breakfast, feeling\nmore really contented then he had done for many a long year. He found\nBertha, who had not risen when he started, in a considerable state of\nanxiety as to what he could possibly have been doing. In answer to her\ninquiries he told her, with a roughness he was far from feeling, to\n\"mind her own business.\" The gentle eyes filled with tears at the\nharshness of the reply; perceiving which, the baron was beyond measure\ndistressed, and chucked her under the chin in what was meant to be a\nvery conciliatory manner. \"Eh! what, my pretty? tears? No, surely.\nBertha must forgive her old father. I didn't mean it, you know, my\npet; and yet, on second thoughts, yes I did, too.\" Bertha's face was\novercast again. \"My little girl thinks she has no business anywhere,\neh! Is that it? Well, then, my pet, suppose you make it your business\nto write a note to young Carl von Sempach, and say I'm afraid I was\nrather rude to him yesterday, but if he'll look over it, and come and\ntake a snug family dinner and a slice of the pudding with us to-day--\"\n\"Why, pa, you don't mean--yes, I do really believe you do--\" The\nbaron's eyes were winking nineteen to the dozen. \"Why, you dear, dear,\ndear old pa!\" And at the imminent risk of upsetting the breakfast\ntable, Bertha rushed at the baron, and flinging two soft white arms\nabout {457} his neck, kissed him--oh! how she _did_ kiss him! I\nshouldn't have thought, myself, she could possibly have had any left\nfor Carl; but I dare say Bertha attended to his interests in that\nrespect somehow.\n\n* * * * *\n\nWell, Carl came to dinner, and the baron was, not very many years\nafter, promoted to the dignity of a grandpapa, and a very jolly old\ngrandpapa he made. Is that all you wanted to know?\n\nAbout Klootz? Well, Klootz got over the kicking, but he was dismissed\nfrom in the baron's service; and on examination of his accounts, it\nwas discovered that he had been in the habit of robbing the baron of\nnearly a third of his yearly income, which he had to refund; and with\nthe money he was thus compelled to disgorge, the baron built new\ncottages for his tenants, and new-stocked their farms. Nor was he the\npoorer in the end, for his tenants worked with the energy of\ngratitude, and he was soon many times richer than when the goblin\nvisited him on that Christmas-eve.\n\nAnd was the goblin ever explained? Certainly not. How dare you have\nthe impertinence to suppose such a thing? An empty bottle, covered\nwith cobwebs, was found the next morning in the turret chamber, which\nthe baron at first imagined must be the bottle from which the goblin\nproduced his magic wine; but as it was found, on examination, to be\nlabelled \"Old Jamaica Rum,\" of course that could not have had anything\nto do with it. However it was, the baron never thoroughly enjoyed any\nother wine after it; and as he did not thenceforth get drunk, on an\naverage, more than two nights a week, or swear more than eight oaths a\nday, I think King Christmas may be considered to have thoroughly\nreformed him. And he always maintained, to the day of his death, that\nhe was changed into a fairy, and became exceedingly angry if\ncontradicted.\n\nWho doesn't believe in fairies after this? I only hope King Christmas\nmay make a few more good fairies this year, to brighten the homes of\nthe poor with the light of Christmas charity. Truly we need not look\nfar for almsmen. Cold and hunger, disease and death, are around us at\nall times; but at no time do they press more heavily on the poor than\nat this jovial Christmas season. Shall we shut out, in our mirth and\njollity, the cry of the hungry poor? or shall we not rather remember,\nin the midst of our happy family circles, round our well-filled\ntables, and before our blazing fires, that our brothers are starving\nout in the cold, and that the Christmas song of the angels was,\n\"Good-will to men?\"\n\n--------\n\nOriginal.\n\nEPIGRAM.\n\n\"Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.\"\n\n\n  Dear heart! and is it thus thou didst lament\n  His absence for a day? How different\n  Thy grief from mine! Absent from Him for years,\n  I sorrowed not: and only found my tears\n  In finding Him. Then, to my bitter cost,\n  I knew the priceless treasure I had lost!\n\n------\n\n{458}\n\nOriginal.\n\nTHE CHRISTMAS TREE.\n\n  Christmas comes but once a year;\n  'Tis come at last, O glorious day!\n  Let every cross that mortals bear\n  Be for the moment flung away.\n\n  \"Yes,\" says the cricket from his hole\n  Beside the flame-lit kitchen hearth,\n  \"It is a time for every soul\n  To give himself to joy and mirth,\"\n\n  \"Christmas comes but once a year,\"\n  Returns the timid pantry mouse.\n  \"The cat has told me not to fear;\n  To-night I'll scamper through the house.\"\n\n  So, blow ye winds, and you, Jack Frost,\n  Come in the dark and do your worst;\n  How wild soe'er the night may be,\n  It shall not stir my Christmas Tree.\n\n  Then let us dance and laugh and sing,\n  And form in all one happy ring;\n  The Yule log never burned so bright.\n  Hurrah! hurrah! 'tis Christmas night.\n\n  It is a time to seek the poor,\n  And bid them welcome round our door;\n  The alms we give, to Christ are given.\n  And hung on Christmas Trees in heaven.\n\n  The Christmas Tree is evergreen:\n  The hand of time may change the scene,\n  The child a gray-haired man may be,\n  But memory keeps the Christmas Tree.\n\nW.S., Jr.\n\n------\n\n{459}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF CONVERSION.  [Footnote 144]\n\n  [Footnote 144: Trials of a Mind in its Progress to Catholicism, etc.\n  By L. Stillman Ives, LL.D. Boston. 1865.\n\n  The Path which led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church. By\n  Peter H. Burnett. New York and Cincinnati: Benziger Brothers. 1866\n\n  The Convert; or, Leaves from my Experience. By O. A. Brownson. New\n  York. 1857.\n\n  Apologia pro Vita Sua: being a Reply, etc. By John Henry Newman,\n  D.D. New York. 1865.]\n\n\nIt is a fact, to which the Catholic heart cannot recur without\nemotions of the deepest gratitude, that Christ's holy church is ever\ngathering some of the select out of the mad waves of heresy and schism\naround us into the safety of her maternal bosom. It is a fact, too,\nwhich every conscientious and thoughtful Protestant must view with\nfeelings of disquietude and insecurity, that men of unimpeachable\npiety and learning are thus ever leaving the external wilderness where\nthey have walked with him, and seek and find true refuge in the\nCatholic ark of God.\n\nThe number of these converts it seems almost impossible to estimate.\nThere can be but little doubt, however, that it far exceeds the\nreckonings of the denominations out of which they come, and equally\nsurpasses our own most sanguine calculations. Reliable statistics show\nus that within the last fifty years no less than forty-one clergymen\nof the American Episcopal Church alone have laid down the honors and\nemoluments they there enjoyed, and have espoused poverty and\ninsignificance with the Catholic faith.  [Footnote 145] Many of these\nwere men of eminence in their former sphere of action, and one, at\nleast, held the highest and most responsible position which his\nco-religionists could bestow upon him. Some of them have risen since\ntheir conversion to posts of ecclesiastical dignity and power. Others\nhave died and rest with God. All of them, with but few exceptions,\nhave remained faithful, and have endorsed, in life and in death, the\nwisdom and sincerity of that step which brought them, after many\nwanderings, into the apostolic fold.\n\n  [Footnote 145: See Church Review, July, 1860, p. 254. There have\n  been several conversions from the Episcopal clergy since that date.]\n\nHow far the clerical ranks of other sects of Protestants in the United\nStates have been invaded by God's converting grace, no data that we\ncan command are able to determine. Our personal recollections of their\nvarious ministers, who at one time and another have laid down their\nown will for the will of Christ, lead us to the belief that the number\nfrom each will fall little short of that contributed by the\ndenomination to which we first referred. And as for laymen, they have\ncome to us from every known religious name and creed, and full as\noften from no name and creed at all, until the throng has swelled from\nhundreds into tens of thousands, and gone beyond the possibility of\nour enumeration or discovery.  [Footnote 146]\n\n  [Footnote 146:  Judging from the statistics of the past few years in\n  the dioceses of New York, the number of converts in the United\n  States must exceed 30,000.--Ed. C.W.]\n\nMoreover, this work is on the increase. Year by year, almost, the\nchurch is doubling on herself in these triumphs of her toil. Where\nindividuals once tremblingly isolated themselves from old\nassociations, and cut the vital cord of earthly friendships and\nfamiliarities by submitting to her guidance, now families and\ncommunities fly together to her arms for safety; while those upon\nwhose personal decisions her labors and the grace of God seemed to\nmake no impression, have ceased to persecute and almost ceased to ban\nthose who have followed {460} her, and recognize conversion from\nProtestantism to Catholicity as a change equally legitimate and\nrational with conversion from idolatry to God. Nay, more: the very\nbrain of Protestant America itself is sloughing off the narrow coils\nof illogical and degrading error which three hundred years of folly\nand of falsehood had woven round it under the name of Christian\ndoctrine; and, in spite of its self-conceived antagonism between\n\"_Rome or Reason_,\" is drinking in long draughts of Catholic theology,\nand pouring out broadcast over this great hemisphere the fundamental\ntenets of the Roman faith as the indisputable truths of human reason\nand divine philosophy.\n\nThe tide of popular prejudice thus turning, and the way thus opened to\nthe American intellect by the instrumentality of those who claim to be\nher adversaries, it is no arrogation of prophetic foresight to predict\nthat the progress of the church in this country must, in the future,\nbe rapid beyond all precedent, and that the age may not be far distant\nwhen this vast \"_Continent of Mary_\" shall, with one heart and under\none name, obey the Holy Spouse of Mary's Son.\n\nWhen such realities are around us and such possibilities before us,\nthe study of those mental and moral changes in the individual by which\nall has been done that is done, and by which also all that shall be\ndone must be accomplished, cannot be uninteresting or unprofitable. No\nreligious subject of so much practical importance to non-Catholics is,\nprobably, so little understood among them; and of none have more false\ndefinitions been given or more inaccurate theories been entertained.\nEven Catholics themselves have generally failed in their attempts to\nrealize the logical processes through which the Protestant mind must,\nconsciously or unconsciously, find its way before it can receive\nCatholic truth with the dear, living faith of a Catholic heart. It is\nto correct these errors and to scatter these difficulties, as well as\nto justify seeming inconsistencies, and above all, to assist, if\npossible, the wavering minds of some who long for a light which they\nknow not how or where to find, that we devote these pages to a\ndiscussion of those changes in the human soul which make up the actual\nconversion from Protestantism to the Catholic Church.\n\nThe materials for this discussion are both abundant and satisfactory\nThe first of the four works upon our list is from the pen of Dr. Ives,\nwho was for more than twenty years the Protestant Episcopal bishop of\nthe Diocese of North-Carolina, and one of the acknowledged leaders of\nthe High church party in the United States. It is a concise and\nluminous rehearsal of the reasons which led him to abandon his exalted\necclesiastical station for that of a mere layman in the Catholic\nchurch, and presents a vivid picture of the \"trials\" and perplexities\nwhich extreme Tractarians must inevitably undergo, when the\nincompatibility of their position with their principles is once fully\napprehended. The second is a voluminous and formal treatise on the\nrules of evidence as applicable to revelation, and on those\nfundamental axioms which underlie all legislation, human or divine. It\nis, obviously, what the title-page professes, the work of a legal mind\nwhich views the whole question of religion as open two, and able to\nabide the most thorough tests of reason and philosophy, and brings the\ngreat issues which it raises, in every case, to actual demonstration\nfor denial. The writer, now a Catholic, was formerly a member of the\nso-called \"_Disciples;_\" a sect which lies on the outskirts of\nChristianity, and from which to Catholicity the path must have been\nalmost as long and devious as that from infidelity itself. The author\nof the third is Dr. Brownson, one of the most _positive_ of modern\nmen; whose range of doctrinal experience has reached from Deism to an\nultramontane Catholicism, and who in every phase of his religious\nlife, has {461} been a living power, dealing with realities, and\nstripping all imaginations and delusions from the realities with which\nhe dealt. The last is Dr. Newman's, than whom no one knows better,\nnone can describe so well, that _Via Dolorosa_ which all converts\ntread? To these, if we would, the works of Manning, Wilberforce, and\nothers might be added, each a reflection of the changes which the\ninner lives of their writers underwent in the great struggle after\nultimate, unquestionable truth; while, beyond even these, the\ninexhaustible volume of experience remains; a volume in which the dark\nthings of these books find an infallible interpreter, and on whose\nhidden leaves the hand of God has written the same history of which\nthese human pages are the reflection and the shade.\n\nIt is not an unreasonable hope, that, out of such materials, we may be\nable to construct an accurate definition of that work of grace which,\nin the convert's memory, has overshadowed and embraces all other gifts\nof God.\n\nBefore proceeding, however, with our examination of that change, by\nwhich alone the word \"_conversion_\" can be properly defined, it will\nbe necessary to consider and refute those definitions of it which are\nfalse. Conversion is a transformation in itself so simple, yet\ninvolving so many and such vast collateral changes in the inner and\nexterior man--it is at once so definite in its own nature, and yet as\nwidely and, in point of time, so intimately knit together with its\nantecedents and its consequences, that a clear view of it apart from\nthese is almost impossible, until, by a process of negation, it is\nseparated from its surroundings, and stands out alone, defined as well\nby what did is _not_ as by what it _is_. And this is, above all,\nimportant, when we desire to present this subject to the\nunderstandings of non-Catholics. The lines between their religious\nbodies are so faintly drawn, and depend so much upon the social and\npolitical circumstances by which the members of those bodies are\ncontrolled, that conversion from one denomination to another is not\nregarded as reaching to the very marrow of the spiritual being, or\ncompassing the salvation or destruction of the soul. Such changes are\noften matters of taste or policy or friendship; sometimes of personal\npride and pique, and sometimes, but more rarely, of actual principle;\nthough even this principle never rests upon higher ground than\nindividual points of faith or systems of ecclesiastical organization.\nIt thus seems almost impossible that, left to their own definitions of\nthat to which we give the technical name \"_conversion_,\" persons\noutside the church could ever arrive at an appreciation of its extent\nand power. And this is especially true in this country, where the\nCatholic Church externally occupies the position of a sect among\nsects; the most numerous, perhaps, certainly the most prosperous and\naggressive of them all, but in their view ranking as but one of many\nforms of Christianity, and but one of many branches of Christ's\nearthly fold. No care that we can take can be superfluous, no\nprecision we can use can be in vain when we attempt to define the\nposition of the church on any question which interests our age, or to\ndelineate the relations which she occupies to that great chaos of\nreligions in the midst of which she dwells. At the risk, therefore, of\nconsuming time unnecessarily for some, we feel it none the less our\nduty to leave upon the minds of others no doubt upon this subject\nwhich we can remove, and no obscurity around it which it is in our\npower to thrust away.\n\n(1.) First, then, the adoption of the articles of the Catholic faith\ninto the individual's creed is not conversion.\n\nThe idea of conversion entertained by nine-tenths of Protestants is\nprecisely that which we have here denied. It has hardly ever been our\nlot to meet one, either in print or conversation, whose arguments and\nreasonings with {462} us did not presuppose this definition to be\ntrue. It is very natural, for the reasons before mentioned, that this\nshould be so. From Unitarian to Methodist, from Methodist to Anglican,\nis but a journey from one set of doctrines to another. The same grand\nunderlying features of Christianity remain. The organic existence is\nan accident arising from substantial doctrinal affinity. And, judging\nby their own experience and observations, Protestants almost\ninvariably conclude that we became converts to Catholicity as a\nlogical result of our faith in individual Catholic doctrines; and that\na so-called Protestant, who holds any or all of these distinctive\ndogmas, is not a Protestant in reality, and has no right or title to\nthe name. Of how much petty persecution this mistake has been the\ncause, and how many parishes and pastors it has kept in perpetual\ncommotion during the past thirty years, hundreds of the unfortunate\nvictims can remember.\n\nYet no definition of conversion could be more totally erroneous.\nBelief in Catholic doctrines is often chronologically precedent to a\nreal conversion; but it is not always so. It certainly operates as a\npowerful antagonist of prejudice, and determines the interest and\nsympathies of the believer toward the church. Candor, humility, and\nearnestness being equal, such a believer is far more likely to become\na Catholic than another who does not believe. But, for all that, such\nfaith does not result in conversion as its necessary, scarcely as its\nprobable, consequence. We have in our memory, just now, a clergyman\nwho has for years openly professed his firm belief in\ntransubstantiation, purgatory, and other equally extreme Catholic\narticles of faith. He goes into our churches, and adores the holy\neucharist upon our altars. He venerates the Mother of our Lord, and\nsupplicates God's mercy on the faithful dead. In all these he is\nperfectly sincere, and of the truth of what he believes, and of the\npiety of what he does, he is as well convinced as any Protestant can\never be. Still he is not a Catholic, and we are almost satisfied he\nnever will become one. Years have found him and left him as we find\nhim now, and other years will probably work no change upon him in the\nnature of conversion. Nearly the same maybe said of Dr. Pusey. His\nsymbolism in many, if not in most, particulars is Catholic. His tastes\nand sympathies are Catholic. Those who have been his nearest and\ndearest friends are Catholics. If similarity of doctrine were all that\nconstitutes conversion, the venerable father of Tractarianism would\nlong ere this have found the rest we tremble now lest he should never\nfind. But his life rolls away, and years and honors multiply upon his\nhead; yet who can say that he is nearer than in the distant and more\nhopeful days, when his, now our, \"_beloved_\" struggled and prayed with\nhim for the light of God? The reasons for this are perfectly apparent\nto us, and will be reached and dealt with by-and-bye. At present it\nsuffices, by these statements and illustrations, to have made it clear\nthat belief in Catholic doctrine is not conversion to the Catholic\nChurch. No, not if a man can tell over on his fingers, one by one, the\ndefinitions of the councils and the traditions of the fathers, and\npronounce a _credo_ over every one of them, is he necessarily a\nCatholic, nor must he have passed through that vital transformation\nwithout which there never has been and never can be a true conversion.\n\n(2.) Second: the adoption of our extreme ritualism in worship is not\nconversion.\n\nThere is but one denomination of Protestants among whom this false\ndefinition is likely to obtain. That one is the Episcopal; and by\nlarge numbers of its members (if we may judge their opinions from\ntheir words), it is actually believed that a fondness for rites and\nceremonies is evidence of Catholicity. Some years ago the church of\nthe Holy Innocents, and the {463} Madison Street mission chapel of New\nYork, and the church of St. James the Less, Philadelphia, were, by\nthis class of persons, uniformly regarded and denounced as Romanizing;\nas the church of St. Albans in this city and some others are to-day.\nCandles and flowers upon the altar, crosses and paintings on the\nwalls, the bowed head at the name of Jesus, the cassock-skirted coat,\nand other innumerable minutiae, are to these people indubitable\nevidence of Popery, and have often served, as they do now, for a\nsufficient cause of congregational disunion and parochial decline. It\nwould seem foolish, in a discussion like the present, to notice an\nerror so shallow and so reasonless as this, were it not for the\nmagnitude of its results, and were it not, also, that so many of these\nvery ritualists themselves imagine that, in mimicking Catholic forms\nand ceremonies, they have secured in Anglicanism all that the Catholic\nChurch can give.\n\nBut ritualism is not Catholicism: nor is Catholicism so vitally\nconnected with ritualism that it may not exist in the entire fulness\nof its powers and graces independent of external magnificence and\nshow. St. Antony in his desert, St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar,\nwere as true Catholics as St. Ambrose in his basilica, or St. Leo on\nhis throne. Even the public worship of the church, when stripped to\nits essentials, is almost devoid of any outward sign or sound that can\nproperly be characterized as ceremonial. And the same priest who\nstands today before the gorgeous altar of a metropolitan cathedral\namid clouds of incense, will start to-morrow on a year's missionary\njourney through the wilderness, with all the \"_pomp and circumstance\nof Romanism_\" contained within the narrow limits of his carpet-bag.\nRitualism is a means used by the church to accomplish certain ends;\nand so used, because the example of the divinely instituted Jewish\nchurch, and her own ages of experience, have convinced her that by it\nthose ends can most surely be attained. But it is no more an essential\nelement of her being than royal robes are of the being of a king; and\nthe weak caricature of her stately ceremonial, in which some\nProtestant experimentalists indulge, converts them into Catholics as\nlittle as the tinsel crown and sceptre of the stage gives royal birth\nand power to the actor in a play.\n\n(3.) Third: union with the visible body of the Catholic Church is not\nconversion.\n\nThis is the definition which most of those who are born Catholics\nwould give. Unconscious, as they happily are, of the religious state\nof mind in which pure Protestantism rears its children, it is\ndifficult for them to imagine that a man can be, or can become,\nnominally Catholic for any other reason than the simple one that binds\nthem to their faith; and this habitude of thought leads them\ninevitably to confound the outward consequence of an internal change\nwith that internal change itself.\n\nThey also are in error. External union with the church is the best\npossible _prim\u00e2 facie_ evidence of conversion, but it alone is not\nconversion. That men have came into the body of the Catholic Church\nfrom motives of business, or of politics, or of family sympathy there\ncan be no doubt. But in these cases there was no real conversion. The\ndeep, radical changes which so thoroughly unmake and then remake the\nspiritual man, never could have taken place in such souls as these.\nTheir outward act was perfect, their visible communion with us was all\nwe could demand; but in their inmost heart they were as much\nProtestants as ever; and, when they went, acted on the same principles\nas when they came. Such examples are not numerous, it is true; but\nstill they are sufficient to demonstrate that \"_joining the church_\"\nis not conversion, and to deny the minor premise of those who argue\nthe church's incapacity to satisfy our nature from the fact that these\nhave tried her and found her wanting. {464} When one man can be cited\nwho, in his soul of souls, has undergone the work of grace which we\nnow pass on to consider, and who, in calmness and in piety, and not in\nrashness _or in mortal sin_, has voluntarily apostatized, and who, in\nlife and in death, has adhered to his apostasy, and has died in the\nconfident and humble hope of heaven; then, and not till then, can such\nan argument be worth our while to meet.\n\n\n\nThe change we call \"_conversion_\" thus residing neither in the\ntransfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth\nof ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption\nof Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere\nof action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet\nexplored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls\nof men. \"_Give me thine heart_,\" is her, is his demand, confident that\nif this be given all else is also gained. The change she seeks in\nthose whom God would make her children is a change, not of opinion,\nnot of tastes, not of behavior, but of _heart and will_; a change\nwhich reaches to the citadel of life, and thoroughly and permanently\nconverts the man. With nothing less than this can she be satisfied. On\nnothing less than this can she securely build.\n\nAnd this change is conversion.\n\nProtestantism, so far forth as it is a religious system, is based upon\ntwo principles, from which have been developed all its influence and\npower, and to which may be traced the numerous and immeasurable evils\nwhereof for many ages it has been a fruitful source. The first of\nthese is: That the church, founded by our Lord, is an _invisible_\nchurch, to which every man who believes he is saved by Christ is _by\nthat sole belief_ united, whatever else his creed and religious\nobservance may be. The second is: That every man, by his own reason\nworking on the text of Scripture, is able to, and must determine for\nhimself what his religious faith and moral code shall be. The\ninevitable consequence of the first principle is--that the doctrine\nand moral law of one man, so long as they embrace the Saviourship of\nChrist in any sense whatever, are matters in which his brother\nChristian can have no concern. The inevitable consequence of the\nsecond is--that the self-eliminated creed and rule of observance of\neach Christian are as correct and reliable as those of any or even of\nall others, and will be the only standard of his judgment at the bar\nof God.\n\nThis first principle and its logical deductions have resulted in\nsimple religious individualism. \"_The communion of saints_,\" in that\nsense in which St. Paul describes it, as a Christian society, whose\nmembers mutually depend upon each other, think the same things,\nbelieve the same things, speak the same things, preserving the unity\nof the Spirit as well as the bond of peace, has been rendered\npractically impossible; while for it has been substituted an ideal\n\"_Christian union_\" which consists either in the abnegation of all\ndistinctive doctrines as mere human opinions, or in the toleration of\nthem all as different methods of expressing the same religious truth.\nAnd even this \"_union_\" which might be possible if pride and self-will\nwere eradicated from the heart of man, has become so far from a\nreality, that the very theories on which it is based have sected and\nbisected the original divisions of Protestant Christianity, until from\nfive they have become five hundred, with every prospect of a similar\nmultisection to the end of time.\n\nThis principle has done more. It has entered the bodies of the sects\nthemselves, and repelled member from member, minister from flock. It\nhas destroyed, in the collective sect, all sense of responsibility for\nthe faith and conduct of its members; and, in the members, all sense\nof responsibility for their personal belief and morals to the sect at\nlarge. It has overturned {465} every tribunal established for the\npreservation of Christian discipline, and has abrogated \"_church\nauthority_\" as wholly incompatible with purity of conscience and\nreligious freedom. It has reduced the conditions of admission to the\necclesiastical fellowship to \"_the minimum of Christianity_\" and has\nabolished \"_terms of communion_\" and \"_professions of faith_\" as\nutterly subversive of denominational integrity.  [Footnote 147] In\nthis way it has made each man not only _de jure_, but _de facto_ a\nspiritual autocrat, and has erected him into an isolated, independent\nreligious body, depriving the sect of all real organic life, and\ndegrading it from a church with head and members to a mere aggregation\nof discordant particles.\n\n  [Footnote 147: _Vide_ New Englander for July, 1866, pages 477 to 487\n  et seq.]\n\nThe individual, being thus debarred of all external aid, is thrown\nupon his own resources for religious guidance. There is no living man\nupon the earth from whom he can receive an an authoritative\nenunciation of eternal truths. There is no set of men upon whose\nteachings he can rely as more perfect for more ultimately certain than\nhis own. The common mouth of Christendom utters no voice that puts to\nrest the questions of his soul. All stand, like him, upon one level\nplain of human fallibility; a fallibility which no diffusion, however\nuniversal, can ever make infallible. All, whether singly or\ncollectively interrogated, can answer his appeal for light only by\ngiving their own human judgments in exchange for his.\n\nAnd hence arises the necessity for that second principle on which, as\nwell as on the first, the foundations of Protestant Christianity were\nlaid; a principle which recognizes the intrinsic individualism that\nthe first produces, and perfects it by removing from man every hope\nbut one. That one hope is the Bible; a dead and speechless book; a\nbody whose spirit hides itself in the interminable labyrinth of\nlanguishes long since unspoken; a star which gathers its reflected\nrays through paraphrases and translations as chromatic as the\nintellects that framed them or the pens that wrote them down.\n\n\"_The Bible, and the Bible only_,\" has been the banner-cry of\nProtestantism from the dawn of its existence. The first work of\nLuther, after his apostasy, was the publication of such parts of the\nNew Testament as he considered best suited to his purposes; and the\ngreat aim of his successors, in all countries and in all ages, has\nbeen to flood the world with copies of the Scriptures, in such guise\nand such proportions as should soonest and most surely undermine the\nprinciples of church authority, and establish their version of the\nBible as the sole acknowledged teacher of the truth of God. From the\nbeginning, also, as a part of the same work, they have denied that God\nhas furnished to mankind other interpreters of his revelation than the\nunaided intellect of man, and have declared the private judgment of\nthe individual to be his all-sufficient and his only guide to the true\nmeaning of the written law. It will not, therefore, nay, it cannot be\ndisputed, that every man to whom the name of Protestant belongs,\ndepends entirely for his knowledge of the truth which God commands him\nto believe, and of the laws which God commands him to obey, upon what\nhe can learn, unled by note or comment, from that collective\ntranslation of ancient books to which he gives the name \"[Greek\ntext],\" or \"_The Bible_.\"\n\nNow, were it certain that the Bible contained the entire canon of holy\nscripture, with every book and paragraph complete; were it certain\nthat that Scripture was in every syllable the utterance of God; were\nit certain that no error in translation had modulated the clear voice\nwhich spoke from heaven; were it certain that no pride of\nself-opinion, no prejudice of early education, no ignorance of the\ntrue meaning and construction of the language, were able to distort\nthe {466} spiritual vision; then might this principle, to some extent,\nsubserve the purposes which Protestants allege it to fulfil. But,\nwhile no evidence, by them admissible, can determine beyond cavil the\ncompleteness of their canon, while divine inspiration remains a fact\nbeyond the power of human testimony to establish; while that confusion\nof tongues which the centuries of barbarian incursion wrought has\nrendered more or less questionable all translations from ancient Greek\nor Hebrew to a modern dialect; while human pride and prejudice have\nlost none of their hold upon the heart of man; it is not in our nature\nto believe that God has left us to such a guidance as this principle\nasserts, and still holds us responsible for the truth of our opinions\nand the purity of our conduct at the peril of our eternal damnation.\nAnd thus each of these principles practically affirms and corroborates\nthe other, and both unite to overthrow all definite revealed religion,\nand to prostrate at the feet of human reason the _dicta_ of the\neverlasting God.\n\nThe state of heart and will which these principles engender no\nlengthened paragraphs are needed to describe. Previous to the age of\ndiscretion, the Protestant child, in spite of these principles, is\ncompelled to recognize, in religion, an authority external to himself.\nHis parents, his masters, his catechisms are, in his sight, equally\nwith the Bible, the teachers of divine truth; and, by their aid and\ninfluence, he arrives at maturity with certain more or less distinctly\nformed notions of Christian doctrine, and with certain rules of life\ngrained into his character by the long course of years. At this period\nhe is emancipated, in theory, from all external direction, and placed\nunder the sole guidance of his reason and the Bible. That sacred book\nhe opens. It has no voice to him of its own. Its pages offer to him\nthe same words as to all men before him; but those words contain no\nmeaning independent of the meaning that he gives them. It places\nbefore him the formal statement of all doctrine; but teaches him, as\nabsolutely and infallibly true, no one specific dogma which, whether\nconsistent with his present views or not, he must receive. That which\ninterprets, not that which is interpreted, is ever the real teacher;\nand, in his case, his privates judgment, trained and biassed by the\nprejudices and conclusions of a lifetime, utters the only voice and\ndefines the only doctrine which it is possible for him to hear or to\nreceive. The Scripture does not teach him new and otherwise\nundiscoverable truth. It rather confirms and expresses the truth,\nwhich is already accepted and declared. The oracle, whose utterance is\nthe indisputable law, speaks from the depths of his interior being.\nThe Bible is a mere \"phrase-book,\" in which it finds the words and\nsymbols fitted to convey its thought. The divine authority dwells in\nthe _man_, not in the _volume_. He holds the sacred book before the\nmirror of his reason. The image it presents, however imperfect or\ndeformed, becomes to him the truth of the Eternal Word. He casts the\npure wheat of God between the millstones of his human judgment and his\nhuman loves. The grist they grind is all the bread he has whereon to\nfeed his soul. It is not difficult to see that, by the process of\ninvestigation, every man must become the worshipper of a God who is as\ntruly his own handiwork as is the brazen idol of the Hindoo or the\nliving Buddha of Sha-Ssa.\n\nSome of the better class of Protestant minds have perceived this. A\nfew of the most fearless have declared it, and received, in\nconsequence, the name of \"_infidels_\" from their less logical and less\nconsistent brethren. \"_Belief_,\" says Mr. Emerson, \"consists in the\nacceptance of the affirmations of the soul; unbelief in their denial.\"\nThe English language might be exhausted and no better definition given\nof Protestant belief than this. When once the soul--that is, the\nreason, {467} the affections, and the will--when once the _soul_\naffirms; when once those affirmations are _expressed in Scripture\nphraseology_, no Protestant can venture to pronounce them ultimately\nuntrue without destroying the hold principle on which his own faith\nhas been built. That many have done so is only evidence that the grace\nof God within them rebels against this degradation of a Gospel which\nthe Eternal Son died in order to inaugurate, and which his church has\nbattled earth and hell for fifty generations in order to preserve.\n\nThe office which the heart and will perform in this religious work is\nsimply one of _choice_. The element of submission to divine authority\nis only so far exercised as consists in the acceptance of Scripture\nphrases as the vehicle of individual conclusions. To no extent is the\n_formal, detailed idea_ indebted for existence to other than the\nintellect, the affections, the will of the believer. He _chooses_ his\ndogma for his precept according to the dictates of his reason;\nreceiving this, denying that, on the sole ground of their consistency\nwith preconceived ideas; and, anon, discarding old faiths and adopting\nnew as time and circumstances operate upon his heart and mind. And it\nis nothing singular to see him wandering from Tractarianism down to\nUnitarianism--from Calvinism to Universalism--and back again,\nstopping perchance at Methodism or Congregationalism on the way;\nclinging to his Bible all the while, triumphantly pointing to this\nparagraph as proving that he is right at last, and as triumphantly\ndeclaring the reverse when a few steps forward have landed him upon\nthe other side. All this and more--unless, indeed, his inner life\nlays at the door of his professions the charge of conscious falsehood,\nand underneath his soul is bent the arm of an authority whose very\nexistence his theory has totally denied.\n\nNo truer definition, no better example of _heresy_ than such a\nspectacle affords, has any age of Christianity presented. \"[Greek\ntext]\" meant \"choice.\" The grand distinction between the heretic and\nthe Christian resides in this: that the one chooses doctrine to suit\nhimself, the other receives doctrine on the authority of God. That\nProtestantism is choice--nay, that it logically _compels_ choice to\nevery individual in it, cannot admit a question. It is, therefore,\nheresy; not, perhaps, in the most odious sense of the word, but still\nin that strict etymological signification which is the best clue to\nthe appropriate application of the name. Like all other heretics, of\nwhatever sect, the Protestant relies upon himself. He is his own\nBible-maker, his own doctrine-monger, his own law-giver. Faith and\ntheology and moral law are only the result of his own private judgment\nand divine command, moulded and digested into one confused and\ncontradicting mass of good and evil.\n\nIt is to his deliverance from this spiritual state that the name\n_conversion_ alone properly belongs.\n\nCatholicity, on the other hand, is also based upon two principles,\nwhich are the logical postulates of its existence, and whose necessary\ndevelopments will account for the immeasurable contrast which its\nsevere and holy tranquillity presents to the seething and tumultuous\nincoherency around it. The first of these is this: that the truths\nwith which alone revealed religion deals, are in their nature _above_\nhuman reason, and though never _contradicting_ it, cannot by it be\nestimated, comprehended, or discerned, but rest upon the sole veracity\nof a revealing God. The second is: that God has chosen and appointed,\nas the medium of this unerring revelation, a visible, organized\nsociety, founded by Jesus Christ, presided over by the Holy Ghost,\nperpetuated through all ages by his own impregnable decree; and that\nthis society is the Catholic Church. The inevitable consequence of the\nfirst principle is: that revealed truth, as such, is ultimately and\ninfallibly true, and whether or not consistent {468} with private\njudgment, prejudice, and present conviction, must be received and\nheartily believed. The inevitable consequence of the second is: that\nwhatever the church teaches as revealed truth, is so revealed, is\ntherefore ultimately true, and must be rested on implicitly as the\ninfallible utterance of God.\n\nThe result of this first principle has been that the wonderful, and\noften ludicrous, admixture of divine and human truth, which may be\nfound in the religion of many Protestants, is utterly impossible to\nCatholics. With all the questions of natural religion, as\ndistinguished from revealed; with all the theorems of science and of\nart; with the dark mysteries of nature and the still darker mysteries\nof man; nay, even with those inferences from divine truth which make\nup systems of theology, reason is competent to deal. It may pierce the\nglittering nebulae of the Milky Way; it may fathom the recesses of the\nocean and cleave the crystal bowels of the world; it may climb the\ndizzy heights of intellectual philosophy; it may conquer the vast\nproblems of political and social happiness. But here its journey ends.\nWhen it stands beside that boundless sea which rolls between the\nfinite and the infinite, it finds no bark to bear it outward. Of all\nthat lies beyond, its eye, its ear, its touch remains insensible. It\ncan but sit down on the hither shore and wait for light--the light of\nrevelation.  [Footnote 148]\n\n  [Footnote 148: The able writer of this article certainly does not\n  intend to deny the competence of reason to judge of the evidence of\n  revelation, or to judge that any proposition evidently contradictory\n  to reason cannot be a revealed truth.--Ed. Catholic World.]\n\nReason is limited from above. Revelation is limited from below. In the\nmysteries of God, in the supernatural, and in questions of _faith_,\nher voice is law: and where it is law, it is absolute, unconditional,\nindisputable. Free as the thought of God is man's thought everywhere\nbut there. There he must put his shoes from off his feet and listen\nand obey. The ground he treads is holy. The voice he hears is that\nwhich spoke of old out of the burning bush. He cannot gainsay God.\n\nAnd thus it is that, practically, Catholics are so free in all matters\nexcept those pertaining to religion. The line is drawn so clearly and\nso definitely between what _is_ and what _is not_ of faith, that not\nin one mind in ten thousand is there ever the slightest doubt as to\nwhat must be received and what may be disputed. The consolation given\nby this simple maxim: \"_If God has not revealed it, I need not believe\nit; but if God has declared it, whether or not I understand it, it is\nsurely true_.\"--when once incorporated into the guiding principles of\nthe heart, as in the case of every true Catholic it entirely is,\nrepays the soul for those dark hours of Protestant doubting and\nperplexity, by contrast with which it can alone be truly valued.\n\nThe result of the second of these principles has been the perfect\nunity of Catholics in doctrine and in morals. The voice of the church\nis the voice of God. She is a living teacher. She does not hide her\ntruths in languages whose meaning sages only can unfold. She speaks to\nevery man _in his own vernacular_, and proposes to him not only the\n_formularies_, but _the exact ideas_ which make up the Christian\nfaith. She is not confined to general statements, under whose vague\nphraseology notions the most opposite may be concealed. She enters\ninto all the infinite details which every proposition of divine truth\nembraces, and prints it in the same unvarying form upon the souls of\nmen. With the millions who are gone before she has thus labored. With\nthe millions who are yet alive she is thus laboring to-day. And all,\nin their submission to her teaching, have found that perfect concord\nof doctrine which the gospel promised to the faithful flock of Christ,\nand testify to the eternal wisdom of that God who placed his church\nupon the earth to set at naught the foolishness of man.\n\n{469}\n\nIn a religion such as this there can be no room for _choice_. To the\nchurch heresy is evermore a name of execration and of horror. The\nheart and will of her disciples have but one exercise, and that is\nsubmission. Unconditionally, unquestioningly, unprotestingly, they bow\nbefore her voice and echo its decrees. Reason is quiescent. Where it\ncannot comprehend, it passes by. Faith grasps the mystery and lays it\non the heart to be its law for ever. The soul has but one inquiry for\nevery dogma, for every precept: \"_Teacher of God, what hast thou\nspoken?_\" The teacher answers and the soul obeys.\n\nSuch is Catholicity. It is the antithesis of Protestantism. Whatever\nsimilarity may exist in certain of their doctrines, in their ultimate,\nessential natures they are simple opposites. The void between them is\nas vast as that through which the First-born of the morning fell; the\ndividing lines as sharp and as precipitate as the high cliffs which\nbound the tides of Acheron. That  \"_via media_,\" along which the easy\ntraveller may walk secure, rejoicing in the sunlight of both earth and\nheaven, is a fond, foolish dream. The church knows but two modes of\nexistence in reference to herself, submission and rebellion; and even\nreason teaches that her judgment, on this point, is unimpeachable.\n\nThrough all that weary journey which lies between these nether worlds\nof spiritual being the convert's feet must tread. When God's grace\nfinds him, he is a Protestant--perhaps so pure and logical as to be\nstanding on the shores of rationalism and looking at his own soul as\nhis source of light--perhaps so inconsistent and so self-deceived as\nto acknowledge an authority which his fundamental Protestantism\ndenies. But whether from the external Saharas of Christian scepticism,\nor whether from beneath the shadow of the truth itself, the path he\nfollows leads him to one goal, the goal of unconditional submission.\nConversion may come to him through the successive adoption of Catholic\ndogmas, through fondness for external rites and forms, through\npersonal friendship and familiarity, through any of those myriad ways\nby which God leads the steps of his elect toward heaven; but, when it\ncomes, it is the same change for each, for every one--the abnegation\nof all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection of the\nheart and will to the obedience of faith. Then, and then only, is the\nwork ended and conversion made complete. What the church teaches is,\nfrom that hour, the faith of that Christian heart. What the church\ncommands is the law of that Christian will. Doubt and hesitation and\nself-following are of the days gone by, and his devotion to the\nchurch, as God's teacher, is only rivalled by his love for her as the\nhome of God's elect. The waters of the deluge roar and dash around his\nmighty ark of safety, and men and women, as they clamber up the rugged\nmountains of their own devices, laugh at him for his ignorance and\nfolly; but he abides in peace, when the dark waves have overtopped\nthem and engulfed them, and will live to offer sacrifice on Ararat\nwhen the days of divine searching have passed by.\n\n\n\nThe utter falsehood of those definitions of conversion which we have\ndenied, becomes apparent from this description of what conversion is.\nThere is no inherent impossibility that a pure Protestant, exercising\nto the fullest extent the right of private judgment, should arrive at\ndoctrines identical with those which the church teaches, and should,\nas a result of this identity, accept even her formularies as\nexpressive of his faith. The mystery of the Trinity, than which no\nmystery is greater, is thus received by the majority of Protestants;\nand there is nothing in the doctrines of Transubstantiation.\nPurgatory, and the like, which is unreachable by the same process of\nscriptural investigation, unaided by the conscious teachings of the\n{470} church. There can be no doubt that men have, by this method,\napproximated closely to Catholic doctrine, who yet were wholly\nactuated by Protestant principles, and never dreamed of submitting\nheart and will and reason to the dictation of any authority whatever.\n\nThese men apparently hang over the church, ready to drop like ripe\nfruit into her open bosom. Nevertheless, whatever of her symbolism\nthey may cherish, they cherish, not because it is _hers_, but because\nit is _their own_. It is not truth which _she_ has taught them; _they_\nhave discovered it themselves. It brings them no nearer to her in\nheart. It does not subject their _will_ to hers. On the contrary; it\noften begets in them an arrogance of her divine security, as if their\nsimilarity to her constituted them her equals in the authority of God.\nSuch men are not with the church, whatever proximity they seem to\nhave. Their boast of Catholicity deceives many, and most frequently\nthemselves, but can delude none who realize to what humility her true\nchildren must descend, and how unquestioningly, when God speaks, man\nmust hear. The prayers of the faithful are more needed for such souls\nthan for any others, that God would send them the disposition, as well\nas the light of faith.\n\nOf the various corollaries which might be drawn from this\ndemonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which\ntime and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole\nquestion between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not\nprimarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated\nand proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith\nand morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no\nsource of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture,\ninterpreted and judged by reason. On the other side, it is claimed\nthat whatever God has revealed must be received without question or\ncontradiction, and that the organized society known as the Catholic\nChurch is the mouthpiece and medium of that revelation. This covers\nthe whole point in issue. If, as a matter of fact, the first assertion\nis correct, Protestants are secure in their acceptance or denial of\nany or of all articles of specific Christian doctrine. If the second\nis true, the teachings of the Catholic Church must be received\nimplicitly, under peril of disobedience to God. The question of the\ntruth of particular dogmas, or of the obligation of certain codes of\nlaw, is entirely foreign to this issue. If the church is right,\ntransubstantiation, the immaculate conception, the seven sacraments,\nare matters not to be _discussed_ or _proven_, but to be _believed_.\nIf she is wrong, they are simply of no consequence whatever. Any\ninvestigation which escapes this only real point in controversy will\nbe in vain. Inquiry must begin here and end here, or else result in\nmaking men either bad Catholics or stronger Protestants than ever.\n\nThis \"question of questions\" is to be answered by logical\ndemonstration based on certain facts. As a historical work, the Bible\nis a sufficient witness of the visible and audible facts which it\nrecords; and the miracles of of Christ therein related establish his\npersonal divine commission and the entire reliability of the\ndeclarations which he made. As historical works also, the writings of\nhis immediate disciples are a sufficient witness of their\nunderstanding of his teachings, and of the actions which, in pursuance\nof that understanding, they performed. If Christ stated that doctrines\nand precepts are _not_ conditions of salvation, and placed in the\nhands of man the book known as the Bible, with the assurance that he\ncould safely follow whatever interpretation thereof his human judgment\nmight give, and if, as so directed, his disciples did _not_ insist on\nspecific creeds and laws, and _did_ receive and circulate the Bible as\nthe only organ of revealed truth, then that fact can be ascertained.\nIf, on {471} the other hand, Christ revealed a certain system of\ndoctrine, and established certain laws of conduct; if he founded a\nchurch and conferred on her the authority to teach and the right to be\nobeyed; and if his followers recognized such an institution, and\nuniformly submitted to its authority as divine, then this, as a fact,\ncan, in its turn, be proved.\n\nTo a fair, candid, and complete investigation of this question, in the\nlight of history, the Catholic Church invites all Protestants\nthroughout the world; confident that, by the good help of God's grace,\nthis simple examination, properly conducted, would lead the many\nhundred jarring sects of Christendom into a Catholic unity of spirit\nand into the bond of a true gospel peace.\n\n--------\n\nFrom Once a Week.\n\n\nCHRISTMAS BELL.\n\n  In broken notes of sound,\n    The voice of distant bells\n  Falls fitfully around,\n    Borne o'er the rimy dells.\n  Anon in wailing tones\n    It breaks against the breeze,\n  Or in sad accents moans\n    Amidst the shivering trees.\n  In fragments o'er the glades\n    It falls, or floats aloft;\n  Then trumulously fades\n    In echoes low and soft.\n  But other, nearer chimes,\n    In laughing octaves run,\n  In memory of old times.\n    And what the days have done.\n  Then changing, clang and wail\n    Up in their prison high.\n  And sob and groan and rail\n    At their captivity.\n\n  Ringing:--flinging wild notes everywhere!\n  Clanging:--hanging discord in the air!\n  Chiming:--rhyming words from brazen throat!\n  Pealing:--stealing o'er the meadows and the moat!\n  Dying:--sighing gently as a child!\n  Floating:--gloating o'er their tumult wild!\n  Swinging:--springing suddenly to life!\n  Surging:--urging nature into strife!\n  Laughing:--quaffing the sweet and eager air!\n  Groaning:--moaning in a weird note of despair!\n\n{472}\n\n      Yes, how they sigh,\n      And seemed to die:\n  But like expiring ember,\n      At slightest breath\n      They leap from death,\n  And wrestle with December!\n\n      Oh, 'tis strange\n      How they change,\n  In rhythmus and in measure,\n      Now tolling sad.\n      Now almost mad,\n  With throbbing pulse of pleasure.\n\n  But not long thus,--the ringers soon\n    Will catch the proper metre,\n  Staccato first; then rippling tune\n    Grows every moment sweeter.\n\n  Away, away, the music flies.\n    O'er mead and wold and river,\n  Arpeggio movement shakes the skies.\n    And makes the belfry quiver.\n\n  Away, away, the cheerful sound\n    Flies with its Christmas greeting.\n  And laughs along the icy ground.\n    Where snow-drops pale are peeping.\n\n  The crocus, hearing chimes of mirth.\n    Puts on her brightest yellow,\n  What cares she for the frosty earth.\n    When peals ring out so mellow?\n\n  The blackbird, in a love-lorn mood,\n    Is pecking at red berries.\n  But hark! those joy-bells make her food\n    As sweet as summer cherries.\n\n  In truth all nature hears the strains,\n    With heart of honest gladness;\n  They ring surcease of human pains,\n    And ring--a death to sadness.\n\n  They ring of friendship, and the grasp\n    Of hands in manly greeting;\n  They ring the softer tender clasp\n    Of Love and Psyche meeting.\n\n  They ring oblivion of the years\n    Whose sunset was in sorrow;\n  They drown in waves of sound, the fears\n    That cloud the dawn to-morrow.\n\n{473}\n\n  They ring the affluent table spread.\n    They ring of that sweet maiden\n  Who comes, with modest silent tread,\n    With gifts for poor folk laden.\n\n  They ring in tones more sweet than all\n    Of hopes the Cross has given,\n  And then their glad notes rise and fall.\n    Like Christmas bells in Heaven.\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nHESTER GODFREY IN SEARCH OF PERFECTION.\n\n\"Papa,\"' said Hester one morning, as she passed from the lawn into the\nlibrary, and threw her arms round her father's neck, \"papa, I am\nthoroughly resolved never to be married.\"\n\n\"Time enough, my darling, to think of that; but why this sudden\nresolved?\"\n\n\"Because married women are so unhappy. Adelaide and Annie were has\nmerry as crickets when they were single, and now how serious and\nunhappy they appear.\"\n\n\"Seriousness is not unhappiness. Age makes one sedate.\"\n\n\"Nay, but I am sure they are miserable, and I tell you I will not\nmarry; so do not promise my hand to any one\". And she put a very\nlovely one into her father's hand as she spoke.\n\n\"I will not, my dear Hetty; but you may live to alter your mind.\"\n\n\"I shall not, and I will tell you why. I have considered this matter\nvery closely and I have discovered that a married woman is but a slave\nto a man. She must have no will of her own, no purse of her own, and\nthough she has all the trouble and anxiety with the children, they are\nhis--not hers--as soon as they begin to reason. I love freedom, papa;\nI will be no mere tool to any man. No art, no science, no refinement,\nno practical improvement can flourish in slavery; and the reason women\nhave shown less aptitude for intellectual cultivation than men is,\nthat they are mere slaves--domestic drudges, for the most part--with\nno higher interest than to procure food and clothing.\"\n\n\"Where did my Hester pick up Mary Wolstonecroft's writings?\"\n\n\"Mary Wolstonecroft--who is she, papa?\"\n\n\"A lady who advocates woman's rights, my love. I thought you had been\nreading her book.\"\n\n\"There is no need if all she says is that which I feel, namely, that\nall women are slaves. I learned this from simple observation. I wonder\nall women do not feel it so.\"\n\n\"Women are supposed to live in their affections; and those whom we\nlove we serve willingly.\"\n\n{474}\n\n\"Yes, but you know that soon becomes a mere supposition, even if it be\nnot so at first. How snappish wives usually are! I notice it in the\ncottagers, in the tradesfolks; everywhere, where manners are not\ntaught to enable one to _sham_ before company. And the husbands are\nsurly, unmanageable bears; there must be something wrong in marriage\nto produce these effects so frequently.\"\n\n\"And what remedy do you propose?\" asked Mr. Godfrey, greatly amazed.\n\n\"Nay, that I have not considered. I only know that something is wrong\nnow, and that I will not marry 'till it is set right.\"\n\n\"Wait 'till you fall in love, my dear.\"\n\n\"Fall in love, indeed! What a ridiculous thing to do! No, papa, I\nintend no fall; that is just why I will not marry. I might admire and\nrespect a man as my equal; I might even venerate him as my superior,\nif he were my superior in mind; but bind myself to him as a slave I\nwould not. No Grecian hero in all antiquity could inspire me with love\nenough to commit a moral suicide.\"\n\n\"The Grecian women claimed no equal rights,\" said Mr. Godfrey.\n\n\"No; I marked that well, papa. History is a treatise on men--on their\ndeeds, their daring, their wisdom, their improvement or retrogression.\nNow and then, as if by accident, a woman's deeds were recorded, but\nvery rarely. Why this has been, I cannot divine. Woman ought, could,\nshould, and must rebel. This is the age of freedom. Does freedom\nconcern only half of the human race?\"\n\n\"No; it concerned the horde of women who forced their way into the\nroyal apartments at Versailles. My Hester should have headed the\nprocession?\"\n\n\"Now, papa, that is not fair. You know well I do not wish to\ncountenance rude and vulgar proceedings. Only I do not see why woman\nshould not cultivate her intellectual and moral powers, and march\nonward in the career of perfectibility as well as man.\"\n\n\"What is that long word you used, Hester?\"\n\n\"Now, papa, how provoking you are! Have you not yourself taught me to\ncultivate every faculty to perfection, as a duty? Have you not often\nsaid that the world has yet to learn the results of an equipoised,\nmany-sided development? That hitherto too strong a bias has been\ngiven, and that a one-sided training has made a one-sided character?\"\n\n\"I have said this. Hester, but what is this to the purpose?\"\n\n\"Why, perfectibility must mean the tendency toward perfection produced\nby this equipoised, by this many-sided development; and woman must be\nthe chief operator in effecting this equipoised development, because\nwoman is the exclusive educator of the young of either sex; and it is\nwhen young, when very young, that the germs are laid of ideas which\nperish not. Physiologists say that though character is modified\nafterward, the form is, for the most part, given ere the seventh year\nhas been attained.\"\n\n\"It may be so, but what of that?\" asked the father.\n\n\"Why, I think, then, that woman's especial vocation is to the study of\nthis perfectibility: that is, how to procure a due development--how to\nteach the race to aspire. It seems to me that, generally speaking, the\naims of the world are very grovelling and sensual. If we could once\nfire the race with the desire of reaching the utmost perfection of\nwhich there nature is capable, methinks a glorious work would be\nbegun, and after ages might be brought almost to doubt of the misery\nthat now exists, their own position would be so different.\"\n\n\"It is a glorious project,\" said the father turning to the animated\ngirl, \"but a difficult one; the world is large, and every one thinks\nhis own ideas the right ones.\"\n\n\"I know it; but I know, too that that thought must not check an\ninspiration. Individuals have changed the face of nations before now.\nHad they suffered their enthusiasm to be checked by dwelling on how\nlittle one {475} person can do, nothing would ever have been done. An\nindividual who feels an intense interest in any subject, and a full\nconviction that such a subject is likely to benefit his co-patriots,\nis bound to carry forward his views to the utmost of his power.\"\n\n\"You may be right--nay, the principle is right; but what can my little\nHester do?\"\n\n\"She can study and think and experimentalize and observe and have the\nbenefit of her father's advice through all, if only he will give it\nher, if only he will put it out of his head that every girl is born to\nbe married, and that a girl cannot think and act for herself, and\ncherish ideas of philanthropy and work for the public good.\"\n\n\"Lycurgus would not sanction this, my little Spartan girl.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not, papa; but times have altered. Legislators used to seek\nfor a numerous population. Now, Dr. Malthus says the world is\nover-peopled.\"\n\n\"Why, Hester, I did not think these were subjects that you cared for\nat all.\"\n\n\"But I do care for them, papa--more, much more than you think; and\nwhat I ask of you is to forget that I am a girl, and let me think and\nstudy everything--political economy, social economy, natural\nphilosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. I want to know how each of these\nbears upon the condition the race, to see what man might be. I want to\nknow why man is created--to what he tends.\"\n\n\"Man is created to enjoy life, my child.\"\n\n\"Then why are so many miserable? Why have we disease, plague, famine,\nwar, and bloodshed?\"\n\n\"'These are partly the result of man's ignorance.\"\n\n\"And yet man has existed nearly six thousand years, and every kind of\nexperience and teaching has been his; and philosophers, sages,\nreligionists, lawgivers have been trying to instruct him, and he is\nignorant still.\"\n\n\"You forget, Hester, that every individual that is born into the world\nis born ignorant and helpless; and yet every individual must realize\ninstruction ere ignorance can be banished. Where you have an educated\npeople to work upon, you may propound improvements and be understood,\nand then you will find instruments who will co-operate with you; but\nnow look at the population. Occupied in daily toil, as the price of\nlife, how can they comprehend high theories, or study experimental\nphilosophy. If they go into it at all, it must be to take upon trust a\nfew ideas, and they are as likely to take the wrong ideas as the right\nones, by that means.\"\n\n\"And is there no remedy for this? Is all this toil necessary? It seems\nto me as if a great deal of unnecessary work is always being\nperformed. Spartan frugality would disapprove of much of modern\nluxury; and is not half the toil for luxury merely?\"\n\n\"Some of it is; but Spartan pride refused all toil, even for\nnecessaries. The laborers of the present day do the work of the helots\nin Sparta. To work was beneath the dignity of a Spartan.\"\n\n\"And we have no helots in England now,\" said Hester.\n\n\"Would you wish to have?\" asked Mr. Godfrey.\n\n\"No! Why should one part of mankind be sacrificed to the happiness of\nthe other? I would have no men slaves, no women slaves. Let all be\nfree and equal. If there is work to be done, let all do a portion, and\nlet all have a portion of rest, or rather of leisure, for the\nimprovement of the mental faculties.\"\n\n\"No man will work, unless compelled, at hard, daily labor. Those who\nhave property are not compelled. How will you compel them? For\ninstance, my neighbor, the blacksmith, has a wife and six children to\nsupport. He works from twelve to fourteen hours daily. His wife keeps\nno servant; she scrubs, washes, cooks, and attends to all herself.\nNow, you {476} and I, being people of leisure, should do half their\nwork for them. Suppose you go and help the wife, and I go and help the\nblacksmith half of every day; they might then study perfectibility the\nother half.\"\n\nHester laughed. \"We might do worse than that,\" she said; \"but that\nwould only be helping two individuals, whereas I wish to place society\non a right principle. I no longer wonder at the French revolution. Had\nI to toil hard and to live hard, seeing all the while some few\nprivileged beings do nothing at all but revel in luxury, I should be a\nrevolutionist too; only I should not know how to set the matter right.\nOne thing is clear from all history, luxury is an injury to the\nindividual who uses it, and all states have been weakened when luxury\nhas become common; therefore, father, I will make myself hardy, that I\nmay not be corrupted in my own proper person.\"\n\nAnd true to her resolution, Hester, regardless of public opinion,\nbecame simple in her habits. A hard bed, plain diet, an uncarpeted\nroom, with singular plainness of dress, distinguished this young\naspirant after perfectibility. Her mother would willingly have seen\nher dress in a manner becoming her station; but Hester \"did not choose\nto make herself a peg on which to hang dressmakers' fancies. Clothes\nwere for two purposes,\" she said, \"for warmth and decency; when these\ntwo objects were attained it was enough.\" Her mother's remonstrances\navailed nothing, and her father laughed: the eccentricities of the\nspoiled child amused him, and daily he became more accustomed to\ngratify every wish that she expressed.\n\nHester was in earnest. She founded schools, she formed societies in\nwhich adult laborers might receive instruction in the evenings; she\nestablished libraries and promoted the scientific associations\nafterward more fully developed under the name of \"Mechanics'\nInstitutes.\" Hester visited the lowly that she might form an estimate\nof their real position, observe their improveable points, and\ncultivate these latter to good purpose; but the intricacies thickened\nupon her. She heard complaints that the poor were improvident and\nwasteful.\n\n\"How can that be,\" said she, \"when a man pays rent, and provides fuel,\nclothing, and food for himself, his wife, and four children, out of\nwages at twelve shillings a week? How much does our mere board cost?\ntwenty times that sum at least, and mamma is called economical. Oh! it\nmust be a miserable life they lead on such a poor pittance as that!\nPapa, a man must have food; he gets it from the ground: he must have\nshelter; a few trees chopped down will give him that: he must have\nclothes; these also he can grow: why not place man on land where they\ncan get these, rather than let them half starve at home?\"\n\n\"It is being done in or colonies; but an emigrant's life, my Hester,\nwould scarcely assist your perfectible theories. Every moment is\nemployed in drudgery of some kind. A large proportion of the emigrants\ndie of hardship.\"\n\nHester turned round impatiently, \"Ever, ever an obstacle! Yet I will\nnot give up. There must be a way of improving mankind, and I will find\nit yet.\"\n\nThese discussions were frequently renewed, but with little better\nsuccess. On one occasion Eugene was present, and he said with a smile,\n\"So you, too, are seeking the philosopher's stone, sister? I doubt you\nwill not find it in exterior relationships or in material\ncircumstance; evil is in the world--evil to a larger amount than you\nhave any conception of, and no exterior arrangement will suffice to\nbanish it. Set man free, as you term it, from the restraint of\noverlabor, without awakening the interior impulse to realize a higher\nlife, and the chances are that the ale-house or gin-shop will be his\nschool.\"\n\n\"But will not education affect this awakening?\"\n\n{477}\n\n\"Education on a right basis would undoubtedly do much, but not\neducation on a selfish basis; not if the highest aim is to improve in\ntemporalities, not if virtue is proposed as the best policy to forward\nearthly views. This would be merely teaching a system of selfish\ncalculation that would make man neither wiser nor better, and\nconsequently not happier.\"\n\n\"And what other motive would you suggest, brother?\"\n\nEugene glanced at his father and hesitated. After a moment's pause, he\nsaid: \"Some philosophers, and among them the divine Plato, have\nthought that within man dwelt an essence called a soul, and that its\nculture furnished motives superior to all others in enlightening man.\nThere are other theories respecting the soul worth studying too, I\nthink. That which has influenced Europe during eighteen hundred years\nhas been the religion of Christ. Have you ever studied that, Hester?\"\n\n\"No! I thought it was a superstition akin to, though distinct from,\nthe ancient pagan mythology.\"\n\n\"You will not find it so.\" rejoined her brother, \"or rather you will\nfind it the opposite. Paganism is the worship of self, of sensuality,\nof self-aggrandizement, and of physical power. Christianity is the\nworship of spirituality; it triumphs over selfishness by divine love,\nand elevates the soul by the same influence above the paltry views\nemanating from an exclusive adhesion to man's lower nature.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey's lowering brow betokened a rising storm. Eugene made his\nescape, and Hester laid her hand on her father's shoulder, and said\ncoaxingly, \"Did you not say I might study every influence, papa, that\nhas affected humanity? Why not study this of which Eugene speaks?\"\n\n\"Hester, there is a serpent in the East which has the power of fixing\nhis eye on the bird he marks for his prey, and his fascination is such\nthat by merely continuing to gaze he draws his victim straight into\nhis mouth.\"\n\n\"What of this, father?\"\n\n\"It is so of superstition also; it strikes a chord in the human heart,\nwhich, once awakened, becomes restless evermore. Let it but once\nattract your notice, it fascinates, monopolizes every faculty, and the\nstrongest minds have fallen victims to its baneful power of\nconcentrating the attention. Let it alone, my child.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTHE DEATH-BED OF THE DUKE OP DURIMOND.\n\n\n\nThe illness of the Duke of Durimond became more and more serious.\nAdelaide's friends offered to join her, but she said the duke's mind\nrequired peculiar treatment, and that more company in the house might\nannoy him. From the time of his leaving England the duke's associates\nhad observed a great alteration in his manners and habits. Whereas he\nwas formerly the gayest of the gay, he now shunned society. Soon after\nhis arrival at Vienna he had engaged an Italian servant of seemingly\nunusual education and seriousness, and him he admitted into his\nconfidence; to him he entrusted the direction of his private affairs.\nWhen he returned home, at those different intervals we have mentioned,\nthis servant accompanied him, and was treated by the duke less as a\nhumble dependent than as a valuable friend. The man held aloof from\nthe other inmates of the castle, and was waited on in his own\napartment by the duke's express order. Now, when the duke returned\nhome, he was accompanied not only by this Italian gentleman or\nservant, whichever he might be, but by two other Italian valets, very\nserious for their state in life, who waited on the duke and on his\nfriend to the exclusion of the English menials who had formerly access\nto the ducal apartments.\n\n{478}\n\nThe duke was a prisoner in his own room, rarely could he ever leave\nhis bed. Adelaide came at stated intervals to inquire after the state\nof his health, and in all formality took her seat at his side. Madame\nde Meglior often accompanied her, and to the surprise of both ladies a\nrequest was urgently preferred that Euphrasie might be induced to pay\ndaily morning visits to the sick chamber, at a time when none were\nusually admitted.\n\nThe duchess looked her astonishment, but the duke took her hand with\nmore kindness and less of ceremony than usual, and said:\n\n\"Nay, do not be surprised, your grace; I am a poor man, now about to\nappear before my Maker. I need all the assistance I can get, and I\nhave faith in the prayers of Euphrasie. The hour named for her is the\nhour of prayer: if you will come also, believe me you will be\nwelcome.\"\n\n\"Prayer, what prayer?\"\n\n\"The most solemn prayer that can be offered, that which accompanies\nthe most holy sacrifice of the new law.\"\n\nAs the duke spoke, M. Martigni, the man of business we have spoken of,\npulled aside a curtain which had been hung before an alcove opposite\nto which the duke's bed had been placed, and there a beautiful little\nmarble altar, appropriately adorned, became visible. Adelaide gazed in\nmute surprise.\n\n\"What am I to infer from this, your grace?\"\n\n\"That at the last hour, I, a miserable sinner, dare to hope pardon\nfrom an outraged God, because he sent his Son to die on the cross for\nme! O Adelaide! the gods of this world, as your father so justly calls\nthem--the gods of this world, pride, lust, sensuality, love of power,\nand ambition, but rise to reproach us when we draw near to our end.\nLong, too long did I resist my sweet Ellen's lessons! I felt, indeed,\nthat something within me said we could not utterly die; but I was\nleading a life for self--I could not see the truth; but at last, late,\ntoo late I knew my duty. Adelaide, for two years past I have been\nreconciled to the Catholic church!\"\n\n\"It is to attend Mass, then, I presume, that your grace desires\nEuphrasie's company?\" said Adelaide.\n\n\"It is,\" replied the duke; \"if any will accompany her, they will be\nwelcome.\"\n\nBut this the duchess took especial care to prevent. She whispered to\nMadame de Meglior, as they quitted the apartment:\n\n\"The malady has touched his brain; say nothing of what has happened.\"\n\nThis was the cause of Adelaide's reluctance to have more company in\nthe house. On this account she declined alike the visits of the duke's\nrelatives and of her own. She wish the matter to be kept a profound\nsecret from all; and though she permitted Euphrasie to comply with the\nduke's request, it was on the express condition of her keeping the\nfact unknown. But such precautions as these, though feasible for a\ntime, are useless in the end. The duke's disorder was of a painful,\nlingering, and variable nature. Sometimes he would be confined to his\nroom, and even to his bed for weeks together, then he would rally a\nlittle, go into the adjoining sitting-room, and once or twice even\ntook an airing in his carriage. No excuse could be framed, then, for\nexcluding relations so rigorously. Mr. Godfrey became annoyed at the\nattempt, and at length, suspecting some latent motive, sent Eugene to\nthe castle to find out the secret, if there were one.\n\nEugene, on his entrance, met and recognized Martigni, and by him was\nintroduced into the duke's apartment before Adelaide knew he was in\nthe house. He found the duke propped up by pillows and seated near the\nwindow. He greeted the young man cordially, though with a half\nreproach that he did not come before.\n\n\"I have been very ill, Eugene\" he said; \"sometimes I hardly thought to\nbe alive till morning, and I wished to say a few words to your father\nabout my wife, but none of you came near me!\"\n\n{479}\n\nEugene looked, as his felt, surprised. \"We were given to understand\nthat a visit from us would not be agreeable to your grace\" he said;\n\"and being hurt at the intimation, especially as the exclusion lasted\nso long, I came to-day to ascertain the cause.\"\n\n\"I gave no such intimation, I wished for no such exclusion, rather the\ncontrary; but perhaps Adelaide--I think I divine the cause; you must\nexcuse your sister, Eugene. Perhaps she is more annoyed than she\nshowed to me. To me she is ever polite, but doubtless she is annoyed;\nperhaps it is natural that she should be so,\" and the duke hesitated.\n\n\"Annoyed! At what, may it please your grace? You cannot think that\n'annoyed' is a term applicable to my sister's feeling at your\nillness?\"\n\n\"No! no! not at my illness, no! But, Eugene, I have spent a long life\nof vanity before the world, and ere I die I should like the world to\nknow what perhaps the duchess would fain conceal, that I repent of my\niniquities, that I thankfully before the chastising hand that has laid\nme low, that I prize my sufferings as the greatest blessing, as a\ntoken that God has not forsaken me, though for so many years I forsook\nhim. Eugene, I am a Catholic!\"\n\n\"God be thanked!\" involuntarily escaped from the young man's lips, as\nhis hand was clasped in that of the duke, and tears started to his\neyes, \"God be thanked!\"\n\nThe door opened and the duchess entered. At one glance she understood\nall, and that her surmises of Eugene had also been correct.\n\n\"The duke is better to-day,\" she coldly said. \"We have had a long time\nof anxiety, but perhaps even yet he may rally and be himself again.\"\n\n\"I dare not flatter you, sister,\" answered Eugene. \"His grace's looks\nare not those of a convalescent.\"\n\n\"No! no!\" said the duke. \"No health for me again. Suffering, perhaps,\nfor a long time yet, but no health; but I know not why my illness\nshould induce your grace to lead so lonely a life as you have lately\nchosen. Let me beg of you to surround yourself with your family;\nEugene says they wait but your bidding.\"\n\nAdelaide colored. \"I fear the disturbance will be too much for your\ngrace's repose.\"\n\n\"Not at all, not at all; the house is large, many might be in it and I\nnot hear a sound. I should be gratified by knowing that you had\nfriends with you when I depart. Send for your friends, I beg of you.\nEugene, perhaps you will write to Mr. Godfrey in my behalf, to inform\nhim of my wishes?\"\n\n\"I will, your grace.\"\n\nAnd the family came; and still Adelaide tried to conceal from her\nfather a secret which was already known to Eugene. She scarcely hoped\nto be able to do so long; but the annoyance to her was so excessive\nthat she could not bring herself to speak of it, and she hoped others\nwould decide, as she tried to decide in her own mind, that the duke's\nintellect was affected. But then Eugene! he was smitten with the same\nmania! She felt sure of that, though no words had ever passed on the\nsubject.\n\n* * * * *\n\n\"Mr. Godfrey,\" said the duke, when at length there was an interview\nbetween the two--\"Mr. Godfrey, tell me what you wish me to do more for\nyour daughter. A handsome jointure is secured to her; the estates are\nentailed; but tell me anything else I can do to promote her happiness,\nand it shall be done.\"\n\nThis was the spirit in which the invalid conversed, and in which he\nexecuted all that was proposed to him for Adelaide. She had no cause\nof complaint, and his manifest care of her softened that haughty heart\na little. Had he not been a Catholic she could have been grateful to\nhim; but she was the more irritated at this fact, that now she dared\nnot set up the plea of imbecility to account for it, for that {480}\nplea would have invalidated the newly drawn up documents in her favor;\nall her hope consisted in concealment.\n\nEugene was often with the duke, who at length ventured to speak to him\non a subject which caused him great mental anguish. He had never been\nable to trace Ellen, nor to transmit to her any pecuniary aid. He\nsuspected, indeed, that the Catholic bishop could have afforded him\ninformation, but he was inflexible in refusing to do so. A\nconsiderable sum of money had been set apart for Ellen's use, and a\nfortune provided for the boy. \"Perhaps,\" said the duke, \"after my\ndeath the bishop might enable you, Eugene, to trace the mother and\nchild, and induce them to accept the provision. Will you undertake the\ncommission?\"\n\n\"Most willingly,\" said Eugene.\n\n\"When I am dead, let it be,\" said the duke. \"Ellen will take nothing\nfrom me living--when I am dead she will be more easily persuaded. I\nknow she must wish a high education for her son. She will not, I hope,\nrefuse assistance for that. But even if she does, I have settled his\nmoney separately, that he may be sure of getting it. Tell Ellen, too,\nthat I died a Catholic; I know she has long prayed for this; and tell\nher that I rejoice now that I have no child save hers, my only son.\nLet strangers take the estate that had so nearly wrecked my soul. O\nEugene! none but Catholics can understand the benediction pronounced\nby our Lord on poverty! The possession of power, of wealth, of glory,\nfan our egotistical feelings, and lead us more and more astray. I\nthink I should not dare to trust myself with them again, had I still\npower to use them. And I thank God I have not the power, lest the\ntemptation should again prove too strong for my virtue.\"\n\nThe duke lingered on for months, long months. How tediously did those\nmonths pass to the Godfrey family--to the duchess in particular--to\nall, save Eugene. In the sick-chamber he passed most of his time. To\nAdelaide's joy, her father had not yet discovered the fatal secret. He\nwas so busy, acting for the duke, transacting business, arranging\ntenantry, etc.; and then he spent long hours in the glorious pagan\ntemple, the gods of which he had taken care to secure as Adelaide's\npersonal possession, and for the reception of which he was building a\nlarge hall at the jointure-house, that when the castle they now\ninhabited should pass to the heir-at-law, he might be able to take\npossession of these trophies of art at once.\n\nSuch was the friendship and delicacy of the man of the world! The\nsummer passed, the winter came, and a wintry change came over the\ninvalid. One evening he called his wife, his friends, his domestics,\nevery inmate of the house, into his presence, and, one by one, begged\ntheir forgiveness for every uneasiness he had caused them, for every\nbad example he had set them, and begged of them to pray for him as for\none who was about to appear before God, to give account of a mis-spent\nlife. To Adelaide, and to her father, mother, and sister, this\nappeared like a well-acted scene; but the domestics, nay, even Madame\nde Meglior retired in tears.\n\nNight came. An oppression was over the household. None cared to retire\nto rest, and yet none dared again approach the duke's apartment. Mrs.\nGodfrey sat in Adelaide's room that night while Hester was with Madame\nde Meglior. Euphrasie was missing, but, as usual, was forgotten. Even\nMr. Godfrey partook in some measure of the excitement. He had asked\nthe physician that evening more anxiously than usual, how the patient\nwas; and though the response had been, \"Somewhat better,\" he, with the\nhousehold, did not give it credence.\n\nHe paced his chamber, lay down on a sofa, rose, and paced it again;\nlooked at his watch--one, two, three, four o'clock; how long the hours\nwere that night! He opened his door, walked out, and paused at the\ndoor of his daughter's room. He heard speaking, {481} gently he\ntapped, his wife opened the door to him; neither she nor the daughter\nhad been in bed.\n\n\"Any news? whispered he.\n\n\"No! All is quiet in the duke's chamber.\"\n\n\"I will go and see,\" he said.\n\nHe passed through the whole retinue of domestics in the galleries. Not\none had gone to bed, yet all were hushed; not one had ventured to make\ninquiries at the sick-room door.\n\nMr. Godfrey passed silently on, his foot-fall was scarcely heard. A\ndull sound as of low continuous speaking came from the duke's\napartment. The door was not locked; he turned the handle gently and\nwent in without rapping. What a scene met his view! Candles were\nlighted on the altar. Beside it, rapt in prayer, knelt Euphrasie. The\nstranger, Martigni, robed in the sacred vestments, was in the act of\nplacing the Holy of Holies upon the tongue of the dying man, whom\nEugene was tenderly supporting in his arms. The sick man sank back on\nthe pillow as the priest left him, and the prayers continued; Mr.\nGodfrey paused. A sensation of wondering anger stole over him, yet he\nwaited for the benediction of the priest. Eugene was on his knees by\nthe bedside. The ceremony over, Mr. Godfrey approached him, shook him,\nand in a harsh whisper said:\n\n\"Boy, what mummery is this?\"\n\nEugene rose. The sick man opened his eyes. A bright smile broke over\nhis features. \"No mummery,\" he faintly said.\n\nThen again there was a pause, and a gasping for breath, and the eyes\nclosed. They opened again: \"Jesus have mercy; Mary help,\" were the\nlast words he uttered, and he died.\n\nIt was no time for explanation. Mr. Godfrey retired. On leaving the\nchamber he became aware that imprudently the door he had left half\nopen had partially revealed to the domestics, now assembled without\nthe chamber, that something unusual was taking place within. To their\nquestions, Mr. Godfrey replied: \"He is dead.\" And instantly the\nchamber was filled with weeping mourners. Good, kind, and liberal had\nbeen the master they had lost, and he was much beloved. To their\nwonder they beheld the altar on which stood the unextinguished\ncandles. Before it knelt the priest, chaunting, in a very low voice,\nthe office for the dead, which was responded to by the Italian valets\nkneeling beside the bed. Euphrasie had disappeared, but on the bed lay\nthe corpse, one hand grasping the crucifix. They stood rooted to the\nspot at the strangeness of the scene. They had not yet satisfied their\nwonder when the duchess entered. She cast one look on the bed; then\napproaching the priest, said:\n\n\"You will please to quit this chamber as soon as convenient, and\ndisencumber the room of these useless toys.\"\n\nEugene sprang to her side. \"Sister,\" said he, \"in the name of Heaven,\ndo nothing rashly. Leave these things to me; to me give your orders;\non my honor they shall be obeyed.\"\n\nThe duchess bethought herself one moment. \"Clear the room of these,\nthen,\" she said, pointing to the wondering domestics.\n\nEugene obeyed.\n\n\"Now,\" said the duchess, \"let there be an end of this foolery. In an\nhour I will send those hither whose duty it is to tend the dead. By\nthat time let no vestige remain of this offensive foreign trumpery;\nand let these strangers quit the house.\"\n\nThe tone was too decided to be disputed; the commands were obeyed; and\nso successfully did Mr. Godfrey assist his daughter in giving the lie\nto the reports that were spread through the neighborhood, that it came\nat last to be considered as an established fact that the whole scene\nof the death-bed was got up by a concerted plan of the Italian valets,\nwho hoped in this way to convert their master at his dying hour, and\nthe duke himself being insensible made no opposition! Thus can the\n\"great ones\" of the earth oft condescend to lie, though they would\n{482} challenge a man to a duel who dared to question the nicety of\ntheir honor.\n\nFor many days the duke lay in state in his ancestral hall; from far\nand near crowds came to gaze on the gorgeously fitted up apartment,\nhung with emblazoned hatchments, encircled round with all the\ntrappings of woe. Eugene had quitted the house at the time of the\nduke's decease, in company with the foreigners his sister had\ncommanded to depart. He reappeared on the day of the funeral, and\nrequested to speak with his mother. To his surprise he found her\nhaggard and worn, and traces of excessive weeping were on her\ncountenance. She greeted him kindly, made him sit down beside her,\ntook his hand in hers and held it, but wept instead of speaking.\nEugene was puzzled and alarmed, for all agitation was unusual with his\nmother. They were alone together, yet the silence was not broken.\nAfter awhile a servant came to say that the procession was forming for\nthe funeral, he supposing that Eugene came expressly to attend it.\n\n\"Shall I go, mother?\" said Eugene, but his mother held him fast, and\nshook her head.\n\n\"It would be better not,\" she said; \"they might be bitter even on a\nday like this. No, Eugene, do not see your father yet. Go home, I will\nbe there in a few days. We will talk matters over, and all will be\nright again. Your father and Hester will remain a short time with\nAdelaide. But you and I will go home. Do not stay here now, but meet\nme tomorrow at the post-house ten miles from this. I will be there at\nten o'clock. I will stop the carriage for you to ride home with me.\"\n\nEugene wonderingly assented; and as she seemed anxious to get him out\nof the house, he left as soon as the vast cortege had disappeared.\n\nCrowds of nobility, crowds of gentry, crowds of tenantry accompanied\nthe corpse as it was borne to the family vault. A collation was\nafterward spread for the guests; they partook of it, went home, and in\nless than a month were eager in paying court to a new duke, and the\nlate one was to them as though he had never been.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nTHE MOTHER AND SON.\n\nIt was a strange and certainly not a very pleasant feeling to Eugene\nto find himself thus secretly, as it were, in his mothers company. Her\nagitation, however, had subsided. During the journey she was even\ncheerful at times, and she made not the slightest allusion to the\nsubject which had disturbed her. On their arrival at home she busied\nherself more than had ever been her wont in domestic and tenantry\naffairs, and kept Eugene occupied in many ways. There was, he fancied,\na tenderness in her intercourse with him that he had rarely observed\nbefore, though she had ever been to him a most loving mother. Some\nweeks passed, and then a letter came which made Mrs. Godfrey turn pale\nas she read it. Eugene, alarmed, rose and placed himself beside her.\n\"Is anything the matter, dearest mother?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, no, yes! that is, they are coming home.\"\n\n\"And who are they who cause you this alarm?\"\n\n\"Your father and Hester.\"\n\n\"My father! he has ever love you dearly! Mother, my dear mother, do\nexplain yourself!\"\n\nThe poor lady laid her head on Eugene's shoulder, and wept. Eugene\ntried in vain to soothe her. At length he said, \"May I see the letter,\nmother?\"\n\n\"No, no; you will know its contents but too soon. Now, Eugene, answer\nme: have I not loved you well? have I not been a good mother to you?\"\n\n\"The best of mothers,\" said Eugene, caressingly.\n\n{483}\n\n\"Then you love me somewhat--you would do something for me!\"\n\n\"Anything in my power, dear mother. I would lay down my life for you.\"\n\n\"It is not your life I want you to relinquish, foolish boy, but your\n_fancies_. Your father has taken most serious offense at your\nreligious demonstrations, and swears he will disinherit you unless you\nrecant. Unfortunately, although some of the estate is entailed, much\nof it is not, and you will lose a princely fortune if you deny his\nwish.\"\n\n\"What does he wish?\"\n\n\"That you renounce _in toto_, all Catholic friends and all Catholic\nopinions.\"\n\nEugene made no reply.\n\n\"Eugene, my only son, my best hope, my greatest joy, did it depend on\nme I would not shackle your freedom of action; Christianity,\nMohammedanism, or any other _ism_, might be at your option. Your\nhappiness is my desire, and whatever I might think of your creed, I\nwould not let it stand between me and my love for you. But yet is not\nthus with your father. He will not suffer a Catholic in his house.\"\n\nShe paused; still Eugene replied not. She went on: \"Eugene, you would\nnot be the cause of my death! I feel you would not!\"' and she threw\nher arms about him. \"Yet these divisions will surely kill me; I dare\nnot tell you how I have suffered during the last few weeks.\"\n\n\"I have seen it, dear mother, and though I only partly guessed the\ncause, I deeply sympathize with your unhappiness.\"\n\n\"Then you will remedy it?\"\n\n\"I do not see how just yet. Thought must be free. I dare not bind\nmyself to think at another's pleasure.\"\n\n\"But you need not declare your thoughts\".\n\n\"Nay, mother, I must be free: free to think, free to act according to\nthe dictates of my conscience. I learned this necessity from yourself,\ndear mother; do not now belie your own teachings. You told me ever to\nseek the truth, and to act upon it when found. I will not bind myself\nto follow another course, were a kingdom to be the purchase of the\ncompromise.\"\n\n\"Or your mother's love, Eugene?\"\n\n\"My mother will but love me better for practising the lessons that she\ntaught me. I know my mother's principles, and I do not fear the loss\nof her love.\"\n\n\"Flatterer! but were it even so, your father is serious, Eugene. He\nwill not see you again, unless you accede to his demand.\"\n\n\"When is he coming home?\"\n\n\"On the day after tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Then I depart to-morrow; I will not encounter him in his present\nhumor. Besides, I promised the late duke to execute a commission for\nhim; it is time I set about it.\"\n\n\"And how will you live, rash boy?\"\n\n\"Will he not continue my allowance to me?\"\n\n\"I do not know, at least I do not want the question mooted just now.\nTo prevent the necessity of it, I had a deed drawn up the other day\nwhich will supply you with necessaries till you return to reason.\" And\nMrs. Godfrey took from her bureau a very business-like document, which\nproved to be a deed of gift of the principal part of the property\nsettled upon herself and her heirs. \"Use this,\" she said, \"until right\nreason returns to you.\"\n\n\"My mother!\"\n\n\"No words now; I did it to relieve my own mind, for I must consent to\nyour departure. We will hope for better times, for I see I cannot\nchange you at present.\"\n\nThe property thus settled on our young hero was but a modest portion\nfor one educated as Eugene had been; yet to those numerous middle\npeople who struggle daily with economy it would have seemed a fortune.\n\n{484}\n\nEugene departed with a gloom upon his feelings certainly, yet not with\nhopelessness. He proceeded at once to call on the bishop, from whom he\nhoped to obtain tidings of Ellen; but the bishop was gone to Rome, and\nM. Bertolot with him, and they were not expected back till the spring.\nIt was dull work spending that winter alone, for to return to\nCambridge was not to be thought of. At last the spring advanced, and\nthe buoyancy of youth restored hope to his spirit; he resolved to take\na pedestrian tour through Wales while waiting the bishop's return.\nSeveral months had passed since he left his home. His mother often\nwrote to him, but no invitation to return came with her letters.\nYoung, and desirous of knowledge, his projected expedition would have\nbeen acceptable to him but for this circumstance of domestic\nestrangement. However, he wandered on, with what courage he might, and\nfound himself already on foot, with knapsack on his back, pursuing his\ntravels. The rage for making tours was not at that time what it has\nsince become. The scenes were comparatively untrodden and undescribed,\nso that the pleasure and the charms of novelty at least were Eugene's.\nHe wandered on for some days, delighted with the picturesque scenery,\nand gathering health and vigor from his primitive mode of travelling.\n\nOne fine morning he rose particularly early, and had gone some miles,\nwhen he began to feel the need of some refreshment. He had neglected\nto inquire where this could be obtained, and began to wonder where he\nwas likely to obtain any breakfast. Feeling somewhat impatient at the\nlength of the road, he climbed a high bank on the right hand side, to\ngain a view of the country, and gladly perceived that immediately\nbelow lay a scattered village. It was the first of May, and children\nwere carrying garlands from house to house. The morning was lovely,\nand every thing wore the aspect of happiness. Our traveller sprang\ndown the bank, and made his way over fences into the village. He\nstopped at the first cottage he came to; it was the picture of\nneatness; the honey-suckle and sweet-brier climbed over the porch, and\nthe little garden-plot in front was the very embodiment of beauty. All\nthe early flowers were grouped in beds, most elegantly arranged. A\ndark-eyed boy stood in the porch, watching the garlands which the\nchildren were displaying. He caught sight of Eugene standing at the\ngate, and came forward. His open-heartedness was painted on his\ncountenance.\n\n\"Can I serve you, sir?\" said the boy. \"You appear to be a stranger\nhere.\"\n\n\"I am a stranger,\" replied Eugene, \"that is, I am a traveller. Can you\ntell me where I may find rest and a breakfast?\"\n\nThe boy opened the gate, and conducted Eugene into the porch, He then\nwent to call his mother.\n\nA middle-aged woman of superior manners came forward, and bade him\nwelcome:\n\n\"You will find no inn, sir, nearer this than a mile or two; pray walk\nis and partake of such fare as our cottage affords.\"\n\nGood tea, eggs, bread and butter were produced, and Eugene did them\nample justice; but during the meal and after it was over, he could not\nhelp being struck with the air of both mother and son, and the\nappearance of the place altogether. The walls were only whitewashed,\nand the floor uncarpeted, but on the said walls hung paintings of a\nhigh order, and in a small recess stood a beautiful marble statuette\nof our Blessed Lady. The features of the boy, too, seemed those of a\nface familiar to him. A thought glanced through his mind as he gazed\non the finely formed face. \"Thank you warmly for your hospitality,\nyoung sir,\" said he, taking the boy's hand and drawing him nearer to\nhim. \"Now, please to tell me by what name I M to remember you?\"\n\n{485}\n\n\"My name is Henry Daubrey,\" said the boy.\n\n\"Daubrey\" thought Eugene; \"can that the her maiden name? I almost\nforgot. Ellwood was the name he gave her.\" He hesitated; then, turning\nto the lady, remarked, in a somewhat embarrassed manner: \"Judging by\nthese paintings, madam, I should imagine you, like myself, are almost\na stranger here. These are no country daubs.\"\n\n\"Mamma did these herself,\" explained the boy. The lady signed to the\nboy to be silent. \"She had not lived there always;\" she said.\n\n\"Pardon my impertinence, madam,\" said Eugene, \"but this young lad's\nfeatures so strikingly resemble those of a friend I have lately lost,\nthat I can but fancy he must be in some way related to him.\"\n\n\"What was your friend's name?\"\n\n\"The Duke of Durimond.\"\n\nThe lady turned alarmingly pale, as she faltered forth, \"And is the\nDuke of Durimond is dead?\"\n\n\"He died in my arms, about four months ago.\"\n\nThere was a long pause, which no one seemed inclined to break. At\nlength Eugene resumed: \"The duke's life, latterly, puzzled many. He\nmarried, left his wife suddenly, went abroad, fell ill, for upward of\ntwo years suffered greatly, even tortures occasionally, which tortures\nhe endured with the patience of a martyr, being even thankful for his\nsufferings. He died in the sentiments of the most perfect contrition,\nimmediately after receiving the Holy Viaticum.\"\n\n\"The Viaticum! Was the duke a Catholic?\"\n\n\"He came so latterly, though this is not made public; the family\ncarefully conceal it.\"\n\nA look of thanksgiving, with clasped hands, upraised, as it were,\ninvoluntarily, confirmed Eugene's presentiment. After awhile he\ncontinued: \"When the duke was on his death-bed, he charged me to seek\nout a lady, for whom he entertained a high esteem. I have a letter for\nher in my knapsack. I will show it to you.\"\n\nThe letter produced was directed, \"To Ellen, from Colonel Ellwood on\nhis death-bed.\" The lady's hand closed on the lines. Eugene made no\nresistance. The lady retired to an inner apartment. The boy followed\nher. An hour elapsed; stifled sobs were heard, but the lady came not\nback. At length the boy returned with an open note. It contained these\nwords:\n\n\"You have guessed rightly: return in a few days; I cannot see you now.\nWhen you return, ask for\n\n  \"ELLEN DAUBREY.\"\n\n\"I will return on this day week, tell your mother so!\" was the verbal\nmessage Eugene delivered to the boy.\n\n\"I will,\" said the boy; and Eugene departed.\n\n* * * * *\n\nEllen's account of herself when Eugene did return, was, that she had\nmade a very comfortable subsistence by the sale of her paintings,\nwhich she had disposed of to a London dealer, to whom she was\nintroduced by the Comte de Villeneuve, who had watched over her\ninterests with a zeal truly fraternal. She and her boy had dwelt\ntogether in seclusion, he giving her what help he could in the garden\nand in her domestic affairs, she, in return, instructing him to the\nbest of her power.\n\n\"He loves learning, Mr. Eugene,\" she said, \"and will soon be beyond my\nteaching; besides, he wishes to become a priest, but how to get him\nthe necessary instruction in this most prejudiced country is a real\nenigma.\"\n\n\"The Abb\u00e9 Martigni, who was the duke's private chaplain, and who is\ncognizant of all the facts connected with his position, would, I doubt\nnot, take charge of his education, if you were willing,\" replied\nEugene; \"but how would you be able to bear the separation necessary in\nthat case?\"\n\n\"I should fix my abode near, and find some occupation for myself,\"\nsaid the mother. \"God forbid my selfish affection should stand between\nmy child and his vocation.\"\n\n{486}\n\nEllen might have said that her occupation was already found, for\nwherever there was an act of kindness to do, there Ellen found work.\nHad she admitted Eugene to the inner room of her own cottage, he might\nhave found an old paralytic woman, who, deserted by all her friends,\nwas taken care of by this good Samaritan and tended with the affection\nof a daughter. The duke's legacy to her was now employed entirely in\nacts of mercy and of charity, offered up for the repose of his soul.\nNot one penny was appropriated to her own use, for she still lived on\nthe product of her pencil. On the return of the bishop the Abb\u00e9\nMartigni was appointed to a mission, and Henry Daubrey resided with\nhim as his pupil, preparatory to his being sent to the seminary,\naiding his tutor in that semi-concealed fulfilment of his high duties\nwhich was then the characteristic mode of English Catholicity, induced\nby English semi-toleration of Catholic religious rites. The mother\nlived close by, and it was not long ere her house was known as a house\nof mercy, a refuge for the poor, a hospital for the sick, a haven of\nspiritual consolation to any who needed the kind offices practised\nbeneath its roof. Penitents, lovingly attracted by her angelic\nsweetness, often came, as it were, by stealth to inquire of her the\nway to God, and by her were led back into the fold whence they had\nstrayed while inquirers, touched by her life of self-denial, found the\nprejudices in which they had been brought up melt away, and many were\nled to embrace the saving truths which bind the children of the church\ntogether in the one fold of Christ, at the feet of one Lord, who gave\nus one faith, one baptism.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\n\n\nFREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND LIBERTY OF ACTION.\n\n\nWhen Eugene had fulfilled the commission of the late duke, and had\nmade the arrangement for Henry Daubrey with the Abb\u00e9 Martigni, spoken\nof in the last chapter, he bethought him of his own position. Whither\nshould he bend his own steps? As long as he had been busied in Ellen's\naffairs, the excitement had in some measure kept him up, and prevented\nhis realizing what it is to be homeless, to have relatives who wish\nyour absence, loved ones to whom your presence causes annoyance,\npositive annoyance. To be alone in this wide world of sin, without the\nsanction of family ties; to be disowned, voted an encumbrance, or,\nworse, an absolute incubus, crushing vitality and joyousness in the\nhome circle! what a feeling it produces! It requires a strong courage,\na courage that is the child of faith, that is sustained by grace, to\nenable one to bear it bravely, working hard the while. Eugene did bear\nit bravely, though he felted most acutely. He determined to seek M.\nBertolot, to take counsel respecting the future. His way lay past his\nsister Adelaide's present residents. The duchess was now settled in\nthe jointure-house. Decidedly, had Eugene thought she was alone, or\nwith those who to him were strangers, he would have passed quietly on\nhis way; but Euphrasie, did not Euphrasie live with the duchess? At\nleast he supposed so; and though with an effort he conquered his\nreluctance and announced himself at his sister's mansion.\n\nThe duchess received him coldly, almost haughtily. Still the young man\nwaited, in the hope of seeing her for whom the visit was intended. A\nlong two hours passed in painful and constrained conversation. Still\nneither Madame de Meglior nor her daughter appeared.\n\nEugene rose to take his leave; then, as if by a sudden impulse,\nexclaimed: \"But, my aunt, Adelaide, and Mademoiselle de Meglior, I\nmost not go without paying my respects to them. Will you not let one\nof your people tell them that I am here and wish to see them?\"\n\n{487}\n\n\"Neither the countess nor Mademoiselle Euphrasie are with me,\" replied\nthe duchess.\n\n\"No! where are they, then? at Estcourt Hall?\"\n\n\"I think not; they left me at Durimond Castle, before I came here at\nall. They went to Annie then; where they are now I do not know.\"\n\n\"Have they, then, left Annie?\"\n\n\"Yes! Sir Philip took some exceptions Euphrasie's Jesuitical\nprinciples, and the ladies disappeared one day.\"\n\n\"Disappeared! where did they go to?\"\n\n\"No one knows; truth to say, brother this is a very disagreeable\nsubject; these quarrels about religion are terrible, and have brought\nmuch unhappiness to all of us; the less we say about it the better.\"\n\n\"But my aunt and Euphrasie?\"\n\n\"I have already told you I do not know anything about them, and I must\nadd, I do not wish to know.\"\n\n\"Sister!\"\n\nBut Adelaide replied no more. Her stateliness and dignity, if they did\nnot awe Eugene, repelled him. He left the house in disgust.\n\nHis next visit was to his sister Annie; but it would be more in order\nwere we to relate the occurrences which had taken place with regard to\nEuphrasie and her mother since the duke's death. Immediately after\nthat event, the two ladies experienced a great change of demeanor\ntoward themselves in the persons of all by whom they were surrounded;\neven the menials caught the infection, and behaved with supercilious\ninsolence toward the abetter of popery and the female Jesuit, as they\ntermed the emigrant ladies. Madame de Meglior, mindful of Annie's\nformer invitation, wrote to express her willingness to except it now,\nif Annie still desired their company. The answer was most favorable,\nand within a week of the duke's funeral Madame and Euphrasie had\nquitted his haughty and to them now unfriendly widow.\n\nThey had not been long at their new abode ere another source of\nuneasiness arose. Alfred Brookbank had always vehemently disliked\nEuphrasie, and observing the real pleasure that her company afforded\nthe now too often desolate Lady Conway, he resolved to do his utmost\nto destroy that pleasure. The reason of the ladies' departure from the\nprotection of the duchess was not indeed guessed; so secret had all\ntransactions connected with the late duke's death been kept, the very\nword Catholic was suppressed where possible; it was not supposed, nor\nto be supposed, that they had been driven from so lofty a mansion.\nStill, Alfred Brookbank knew the religion of Euphrasie, and he deemed\nhe could so use that knowledge as to spite Annie.\n\nSir Philip had at first been pleased with the new-comers: their\nhistory interested him, and native good feeling prompted him to show\nthem kindness and hospitality as his wife's relatives; but Alfred soon\nworked on his horror of popery. Of all things, the worthy baronet\ndetested a Catholic the most, and Euphrasie was, suggested the lawyer,\na Jesuit in petticoats; an insinuating adventuress, one who would risk\nthe downfall of a noble house to make a convert, even of a cook-maid.\n\nAnnie found great relief in the society of her guests. She sympathized\nwith her aunt, and entertained her fondly; Euphrasie she had always\nliked, despite her taciturnity. She would gladly have induced them to\nprolong their visit to an indefinite period, and was greatly\ndisappointed when she first became aware of Sir Philip's revulsion of\nfeeling in their regard. This revulsion, indeed, soon mastered him so\ncompletely that he could scarcely bring himself to be civil to them in\nhis outward demeanor.\n\nAnnie remonstrated that as her relatives, and as the relatives of the\nGodfrey family, they were at least entitled to respect.\n\n{488}\n\n\"A respect that will place them at liberty to proselytize all the\nparish? No, no, my lady; private feeling must be sacrificed to public\nduty;\" and the baronet drew himself up in a very Brutus-like fashion.\n\n\"But my aunt is not a Catholic that I am aware of,\" pleaded Annie;\n\"and as for Euphrasie, she scarcely speaks, so how can she convert any\none?\"\n\n\"'Twere hard to tell, yet we know these silent people are the very\nones to be dreaded. One thing I am determined on, she shall not remain\nhere.\"\n\n\"But how can we turn them out of the house?\"\n\n\"That is your business, my lady; you invited them, now get rid of\nthem.\"\n\nThe speech was a cruel one, for although Sir Philip did not know they\nhad already been ejected from the other part of the family, he knew\nthat Mr. Godfrey and Hester were so taken up just now in establishing\nthe duchess in her jointure-house and in removing thither the\ndivinities of the far-famed pagan temple, that they could think of\nnothing else. Mrs. Godfrey was at home, but was said to be in delicate\nhealth, and Eugene was absent; none seemed to know where or why. A\nmoment's reflection might have told Sir Philip that just then the\nunfortunate emigrant ladies had no home save the one in which they now\nfound themselves; but he consulted only his own dogged temper, and\ntormented his wife at every private interview to get rid of them.\n\nBut Annie knew not how, and her obstinacy in not complying with his\ncommands enraged him; Sir Philip had a high idea of his marital\nauthority, though he knew not whence he derived it, nor, indeed, how\nto enforce it. In this latter particular, however, he sought counsel\nfrom his friend Brookbank, as he termed his lawyer, and this latter\nwas not slow in using every advantage he could obtain over Annie.\n\n\"Prudence and patience. Sir Philip, will accomplish all things.\" said\nthe lawyer; \"it would be unwise, as you perceive, to incur the odium\nof turning those ladies out of doors, until the grounds of complaint\nbecome ostnsible; wait awhile, they will become so. From my knowledge\nof the amiable character of the lady, your wife, Sir Philip, I should\nbe perfectly surprised at this resistance to your legitimate\nauthority, did I not fear that my lady herself is somewhat infected\nwith the opinions of the young French refugee. You, Sir Philip, are\nwell aware, attachment to that baneful creed overcomes every other\nsense of duty.\"\n\n\"My lady Conway a Catholic!\" ejaculated the now bewildered Sir Philip.\n\n\"Nay, I say not that--I think not that; only a favorer of her cousin's\nviews. No open profession of Catholicity, only a secret inclination\nthereunto.\"\n\n\"They shall be separated this very day,\" thundered the baronet.\n\n\"Pardon me. Sir Philip; I have the utmost confidence in your judgment;\nyour just antipathy to popish superstition fortifies my own. But if\nyou will allow me one word which appears to differ, but in fact agrees\nwith your opinion; may I be permitted to say, that it would be hardly\nprudent just now to give any air of martyrdom to this business. Weak\nwomen are flattered thereby. Your object is, of course, to detach Lady\nConway from every Catholic idea. Your strong good sense and powers of\nreasoning will effect this, provided that you do not rouse the strong\nobstinacy of female nature. Wait till the visit ends in a natural\nmanner, and then take measures to restore your lady wife to her\nsenses.\"\n\nAlfred knew well that in giving this advice he ran no risk of seeing\nit acted upon. The character of the man he addressed was too\nungovernable for that; he had but roused into fiercer play the\nhalf-dormant passion, the half-latent suspicion. Sir Philip appeared\n{489} to acquiesce, but, as Alfred intended, all his faculties were\nnow aroused to put and unfavorable construction on his wife's actions\nions. His tone became more churlish, and even more authoritative then\nwas its wont. Politeness and forbearance were at an end. To his two\nguests he scarcely behaved with decency.\n\nAnnie was too deeply hurt to feel all the indignation that this course\nwould naturally have led her to manifest. She used all her endeavors\nto shield from actual insult the bereaved emigrants, and to compensate\nby her own assiduous attentions for the rudeness of her husband. She\neven mastered herself so as calmly to remonstrate with him on the\nsubject, \"Sir Philip,\" said she, \"have you considered that the\nrevolution of France cannot, from the very nature of things, be\npermanent; that these ladies are of the haute noblesse, and one day\ntheir estates will be restored to them?\"\n\n\"I think not; nay, I hope not,\" said Sir Philip. \"As the French people\nhave had the good sense to banish priests, I hope they will also have\nwisdom enough to keep all Jesuits, male and female, at a distance.\nYour cousin is a female Jesuist, depend upon it. It would not surprise\nme to  that she is in actual correspondence with the Pope, or\nconnected with a second Guy Fawkes for the blowing up of this\nhousehold. Get rid of her, my lady.\"\n\n\"But how? Just now they can go neither to Estcourt Hall nor to\nAdelaide. Where am I to send them to?\"\n\nIn a towering passion, and in a thundering voice, the baronet replied:\n\"I don't care a d--n where they go to; but I can't bear the sight of\nthem here.\"\n\nAnnie's heart sank. The window was open, and as her husband spoke she\nbecame aware that the ladies in question were seated in an alcove\nnear, partially screened from view by the green boughs of the shrubs\nthat surrounded it. They must have heard the conversation. At this\nmoment they rose, passed the window, bowing as they passed to Annie.\nThere was something of melancholy compassion in that salute; at least\nAnnie thought so. She longed to run after them, to throw herself into\nher aunt's arms, and weep out the bitterness of her soul; but her\nhusband's eye was upon her, and he was watching her emotions with no\nfriendly feelings. She turned back into the library with him and\nendeavored to master her oppression. The time passed drearily away as\nshe awaited their return from their walk; but in vain she waited, they\ncame not; one hour, two hours, three hours; dinner was served and they\ncame not. The meal was taken silently; each one was too much absorbed\nin thought to speak. A long evening was gone through, and at length\nwhen Sir Philip went out to speak to his farm bailiff, Annie wandered\nin sadness on to the lawn. It was a fitful night, the clouds were\nchasing each other through the atmosphere, here and there revealing a\nstar, now and then disclosing the moon. A feeling of desolation came\nover her, her grief was too great for tears; but when she approached\nthe deep haw-haw that bounded the garden to the south, she felt as if\nshe could willingly lie down therein and die. \"Was the water there\ndeep enough to destroy life? What is life? Is it something we hold in\ncommon with cows, horses, dogs? That is easily destroyed! Is man only\nan animal? If so, I at least had better die, for what happiness can I\nexpect with such a mate as I have? But animal life cannot be all! What\nis it makes us so sure of this? O Euphrasie! where are you? You could\nanswer this; why are you so happy, why am I se wretched? If it is not\npoverty that makes unhappiness, what does make it? What has Euphrasie\nmore than I have? She is a wanderer, homeless, penniless, yet I feel\nsatisfied she is to be envied even now.\"\n\n{490}\n\nStrange that in her vexation and utter mortification, Annie felt no\nintense anxiety respecting the fate of her guests. She had a sort of\nbelief that Euphrasie bore a charmed life, and that under any\ncircumstances she was ever the happiest person in the circle in which\nshe might be placed. She thought her aunt privileged in having such a\ncompanion.\n\nThe deep night came, and Sir Philip, uneasy at Annie's prolonged\nabsence, went to seek her. She was still leaning over a rail close to\nthe water's edge. \"What are you doing there?\" he said, but his tone\nwas softer than usual, for his wife was trembling with emotion; and\nher eyes were filled with tears. He took one hand in his, and passed\none arm round her waist, to support her and draw her from her\nposition. \"Are you ill, Annie?\" he asked.\n\nInstead of replying, Annie asked in a faltering voice: \"What has\nbecome of them?\"\n\n\"It matters not; it was a providence that made them hear they were not\nwelcome. It saved us both some uneasiness. They will be taken care of,\nnever fear. There is a sort of free-masonry among such people. Only\ndon't let me see my wife, Lady Conway, make herself miserable about a\ncouple of papists: it would be too absurd.\"\n\nTwo days after, toward the evening, a stranger came, a poor Irishman,\nwith a cart; he brought a note to Annie. It was from Madame: she\nthanked Annie cordially and affectionately for her good wishes and\nkind attentions; pleaded that a sudden emergency had arisen which\nprevented her profiting longer from them; excused her informal\nleave-taking by the same necessity, and begged Annie would forward to\nher whatever she had left behind. Annie fairly cried with vexation;\nshe questioned the man as to where the ladies were, but the man had\nseen no ladies. A gentleman, whose name he had forgotten, had given\nhim the note and two keys, which he said would unlock two trunks,\nwhich were to be packed and sent back. That was all he knew. The\ngentleman would meet him at the same place, and receive the trunks\nfrom him. But he was sure the gentlemen did not live there; he was\ngoing further on. Annie could make out nothing more. She packed the\ntrunks herself, and enclosed a fifty pound Bank of England note, with\na deprecating letter in one of the boxes. It was all the money she had\nat that moment in hand.\n\nA week elapsed, and a letter came by a private hand; the bearer\nleaving the premises immediately on delivering it. The letter\ncontained no address, but it returned the fifty pound note, \"with\nthanks--it was not needed.\" Sir Philip was present when the letter was\nopened; his eyes were fixed on Annie, and he sternly demanded, \"From\nwhom?\" There was no alternative native but to hand the letter to him\nand he exclaimed in a fury, \"And is it thus you would waste my\nsubstance madam? To nourish vipers, Jesuits, beasts! I will take care\nfrom henceforth your means of doing this shall be lessened,\" and he\nstalked indignantly from the room, bearing the money and the letter\nwith him. This was a manifest injustice, as the money was Annie's\nprivate property, by right of her marriage settlements; but when was\nprejudice ever just?\n\n* * * * *\n\nIt was several weeks after this that Eugene made his appearance to\ninquire after the refugees. Annie would have greeted him warmly, but\nSir Philip's haughty and distant manner plainly told him he was not\nwelcome. Eugene waited till the baronet had quitted the apartment ere\nhe inquired for his aunt and her step-daughter. He heard the tale\nrelative to their withdrawal with undisguised indignation, and said:\n\n\"And you do not know what has become of them?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"And you say my father does not know?\"\n\n{491}\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Will he let his own sister and the orphan daughter of his friend\nsuffer for want?\"\n\n\"They cannot be suffering, they refused the fifty pound note.\"\n\n\"That says nothing; or rather it says they preferred suffering to\ninsult. O Annie! Annie! I had not dreamed you would lend yourself to\npersecution like this.\"\n\n\"Young man,\" said Sir Philip, who now entered the room, \"I am master\nin my own house; I have heard your conversation with Lady Conway in\nregard to your _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_. I will have no papists here, nor any\nencouragement given to them; and the day that Lady Conway holds\ncommunication again with papists, or with suspected papists, without\nmy sanction, that day she ceases to abide under one roof with me.\"\n\nAnnie looked as if she wished that day were already come, but she said\nnothing. Eugene was watching her and he whispered: \"Wives must obey\ntheir husbands, Annie, in all that is not sin. Adieu, I blame you no\nlonger; I see where the fault lies. Adieu once more.\" And Eugene\nhastened from the house without trusting himself to reply to the\nhaughty speech of it's master.\n\nThe whisper had been observed; a frown darkened Sir Philips brow,\n\"Your brother has forgotten the forms of good breeding,\" he said, \"to\nenter a gentleman's house and treat him with contempt. Is that what\nthe Catholic religion enjoins?\"\n\n\"The Catholic religion! What do I know of the Catholic religion? How\nshould that influence our actions?\"\n\n\"You do not favor Catholics in your heart, I suppose, my lady?\"\n\n\"Not as Catholics. My regard for Euphrasie had no reference to\nreligion at all.\"\n\n\"A nice distinction, learnt of the Jesuits, I suppose.\"\n\n\"I never saw a Jesuit that I am aware of,\" said Annie.\n\nAnd thus the pair parted, to meet again and jar, and live in jarring\ndiscord every day.\n\nHad Annie been able to make Mr. Godfrey understand how unjustly she\nwas treated, she would have applied for a separation; but Mr. Godfrey\nwould not hear of such a thing. \"He was glad, for his part,\" he said,\n\"that Sir Philip took so sensible a view of Catholic influence. It had\nraised his son-in-law in his esteem, and if Annie showed any\ndisposition to break through the salutary regulations laid down for\nher, it would be advisable rather to put her under restraint as a\nlunatic, than to emancipate her from marital control. Sir Philip had\nthe legal power of locking her up in his own house; and if he did so\nfor such a cause as that, Mr. Godfrey would hold him justified.\"\n\nMrs. Godfrey was in dismay. Her health visibly declined. A melancholy\nseemed to overspread her intellect, and at times to overpower her. All\nwas changed at Estcourt Hall now. The once fond, indulgent husband,\nseemed to take but little notice of the ailments of his faithful\npartner. He dreaded her taking part with Eugene and Annie, if the\nsubject were introduced, and he avoided all intimate conversation.\nHester was too much wrapt up in her own ideas to watch her mother\nclosely. She saw that the servants attended to her, that there was no\nfear of her suffering for want of care or nourishment; but unheedful\nof the power of affection and of sympathy, she gave her little\npersonal attendance. Annie's case she thought a hard one, and once\nventured to remonstrate with her father on the subject; but Mr.\nGodfrey justified his proceedings by painting to her the horrors of\npopery in glowing colors. He demonstrated to her that all sincere\nCatholics were fools, the wise ones hypocrites, of whom it might be\npredicted as it was of the soothsayers by Cicero, that it was a wonder\nhow one priest could look another in the face without laughing\ntogether at their success in gulling the public mind. \"Now,\" {492}\nsaid Mr. Godfrey, \"the object of these priests and rulers being to\nsubjugate the human will, and to level the human reason to their\nstandard, in order that themselves may rule supreme, it becomes the\nduty of every thinking mind to war with the system on principle. You,\nmy dear daughter,\" continued the fond father, for fond even to doting\nwas Mr. Godfrey of this one child, \"you, my dear daughter, would\nidolize the hero who fought and achieved his country's\nfreedom--external freedom merely; should you not unite with those who\nwould save the world from mental bondage of the most degrading order?\"\n\n\"Yes, if papistry be really this,\" said Hester; \"but that it is\ndifficult to conceive it to be. But, grant that it is so, Annie does\nnot seem to be in any way implicated in it. She disclaims all\nconnection with it, and certainly she never used to manifest any\nreligious propensities whatever.\"\n\n\"Even so, surely no harm can come of keeping her apart from papists\nfor awhile. If this is all she has to complain of, her grievances are\nnot great.\"\n\n\"I think the real grievance, father, is the shackling her liberty,\ndenying her freedom of intercourse. Trampling on her freedom is no\nlight matter.\"\n\n\"Hester, dear, listen: when two people are yoked together, and their\ninterests differ, one must give way; law and custom say this one must\nbe the wife. Now, if Sir Philip were thought to encourage Catholics,\nhis political interests would suffer; therefore he must not encourage\nthem; but if his wife encourage them, it would appear that the\nencouragement had his sanction; therefore his wife must not encourage\nthem: and if reasonable means fail in teaching her this lesson, others\nmay be resorted to. A wife is a wife, after all.\"\n\n\"I will never be a wife,\" said Hester.\n\n\"As you please,\" said her father. \"but Annie is one, and must\ntherefore submit. She has the less excuse for resistance, in that she\nhad her own choice. No one was more surprised than myself when Sir\nPhilip applied to me for her hand.\"\n\nMeantime the cause of all these disagreements was altogether\nsupposititious. Up to that time Annie had no acquaintance with the\nfirst principles of religion. Probably but for this annoyance she\nwould ever have remained equally ignorant; but, driven from\nfriendship, shut out from sympathy, her attention was naturally fixed\non the subject; she began to meditate on Euphrasie's practices, to put\ntogether the ideas she had allowed to escape her. A copy of the\nImitation of Christ had accidentally been left behind by Euphrasie; it\nwas found under the pillow on which she had slept. It was a book of\nmystery to Annie, wonderfully enigmatical; yet this book and the New\nTestament were her constant companions for months, and she learned to\ncherish them as friends.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\n\nEXPERIMENTS OF MORE KINDS THAN ONE.\n\n\n\"Papa,\" said Hester, \"did I not hear you say those pretty farms in\nYorkshire are about to change tenants?\"\n\n\"You did, my dear.\"\n\n\"Have you any tenants in view for them?\"\n\n\"No! Has any one applied to you for one, or all of them?\"\n\n\"I want to be the tenant myself.\"\n\n\"You?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed; there are good coals beneath the surface; the district\nis well watered; I want to try these new steam engines on a large\nscale. I will set up factories and form industrial associations,\ngoverning them myself. I will establish them on the principle of\nmutual assistance in forming and promoting a wide-spread intelligence:\nmy factories shall contain schools, reading-rooms, museums,\nobservatories, everything that can assist the onward progression of\nthe race.\"\n\n{493}\n\n\"You will at least spend money, Hester?\"\n\n\"Not more than if I kept race horses for Ascot, or frequented\nCrockford's, which you could well afford to let me do if I were a man.\nNot more then I might cost you if I insisted on taking a house house\nin town, and on becoming the belle of the season; this would the\nneither extravagant nor wonderful; and if I wanted diamonds and\nemeralds and sapphires and glittering toys, you would get them all for\nme, I know you would, for when did you refuse your Hester anything,\ndear father?\" said Hester, throwing her white arms around her father's\nneck. \"But now I want none of of these babyish fancies, I want to do\ngood in my generation, and my father must help me. We do not spend\nhalf our income in our present mode of living, and money is like\nmanure you know, it wants spreading. Think of the glory of aiding\n'progress.' Think of reigning over a population emancipated from\nignorance by your efforts. Think of forming a nucleus whence freedom\nand happiness shall spring, handing down your name as a benefactor\nthroughout all time; it is a project well fitted to my father s noble\nmind.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey gazed on his darling, and felt that he could refuse her\nnothing; still he paused. \"Supposing the necessary expenses incurred,\nmy Hester, your buildings erected, your villages formed, you have\nforgotten one thing; your schemes might be suddenly interrupted, when\nyou least expected it: those farms are all entailed.\"\n\n\"I forgot that,\" mused Hester. After awhile she said: \"Could not some\narrangement be made with my brother on this subject?\"\n\n\"I do not know. Is he a likely one, think you, to consent to the\ncatting off the entail?\"\n\n\"He might be,\" said Hester; \"he must be badly off now, though I\nsuppose my mother helps him. Offer him a handsome allowance for life,\nfrom this time out, on condition that the entail be cut off: he might\nbe induced to accept it.\"\n\n\"He would be a fool if he did,\" said Mr. Godfrey.\n\n\"Nay, father, that is not so certain, if you take into consideration\nhis present position. He is likely to suffer poverty for many years. I\nthink I would accept the alternative were I in his place.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey could deny nothing to Hester, so he replied:\n\n\"Well, I will think of it.\"\n\n. . . . .\n\nBut what had Eugene been doing all this time? Eugene, after his\ninterview with his sister, went straight to M. Bertolot to inquire\nafter his aunt and Euphrasie. He was not mistaken in supposing that he\nknew where they were, but he would tell nothing more than that they\nwere in good health and spirits. \"I have no authority,\" he said, \"to\ndivulge their place of abode; in fact, I promised secrecy.\"\n\n\"But how do they live? They have no means!\" said Eugene.\n\n\"How, but by their labor!\"\n\n\"Labor! my aunt labor?\"\n\n\"No, I was wrong in saying their labor; it is Euphrasie who does the\nwork. Euphrasie gives lessons in French, music, and drawing, and waits\non her mother. De Villeneuve has hopes of recovering their estates for\nthem. He is now in France negotiating with the emperor to that effect.\nHe took care of them when they left your sister's and procured\nEuphrasie the situation she required, as both she and Madame refused\nto live at his expense.\"\n\n\"And did he offer to support them?\"\n\n\"Well, yes; it appears that he and Euphrasie's father were sworn\nbrothers in friendship, and de Villeneuve made a solemn promise to the\nComte de Meglior to watch over Euphrasie's well-being. This promise\nkeeps him in Europe to this day, for he had always a misgiving that\nshe would not be permanently happy among those not of her faith. We\nare expecting de Villeneuve very shortly.\"\n\n{494}\n\n\"And if he succeeds, my aunt will go back to France?\"\n\n\"Probably; but I am not so sanguine about their success as de\nVilleneuve is. Madame is an English-woman, and that will not help her\ncause with the emperor just now.\"\n\n\"And meantime Euphrasie works for her daily bread?\"\n\n\"She does, and is happy in doing so. Euphrasie, my friend, is a\npractical Catholic; one whose delight it is to _realize_, to make her\nown, the life led by the holy family at Nazareth. I venture to say she\nis far happier in sweeping her mother's room and in cooking her\nmother's dinner than she would be in a glittering ball-room lit up\nwith its brilliant chandeliers.\"\n\n\"And does she really descend to these menial offices?\" asked Eugene,\nin a sort of stupefied amazement.\n\n\"Descend! Is it to descend when we aspire to imitate Jesus and Mary?\nYou are a Catholic, my young friend. You must not look at these things\nwith the eyes of the world: its false maxims are not the ones which\nmay guide your ideas. Labor, actual manual labor, was imposed on man\nin penalty for sin; its acceptance is part of man's atonement for that\nundervaluing of grace which led to the commission of that sin: which\nstill leads to the commission of daily sins. The avoidance of labor is\na child of pride, one which has occasioned multitudinous disorders\namong mankind. But Jesus accepted labor--real, genuine labor: he\nworked many years at his father's trade, and Mary kept no servant in\nher house at Nazareth; she labored, for she felt that in lowly labor\nthere is a sanctifying influence, and it is this thought that makes\nEuphrasie happy now.\"\n\n\"But she is so unused to actual toil!\" said Eugene.\n\n\"Not so much as you may suppose,\" replied his friend. \"The good nuns\ntaught her much that was useful, and even when she was at Estcourt\nHall and Durimond Castle she did much work that was unsuspected. The\nproduce of her needle clothed the poor, fed the hungry, and many times\ndefrayed the expense of a mission, when accident brought her in\ncontact with poor Catholics to whom such ministrations were acceptable\nand profitable. All this was done so quietly that I suppose your\nfamily knew nothing about it.\"\n\n\"At least I never heard of it,\" said Eugene.\n\nOur hero was much depressed by this interview, not merely because he\ncould gain no clue to abode of his friends, but also because he was as\nyet too new to the practice of Catholic principles to acquiesce\ncheerfully in the idea of the refined, elegant, accomplished daughter\nof a French nobleman toiling for her daily bread, and performing all\nthe menial services required in the household.\n\nIt was with right good-will that he greeted the Comte de Villeneuve on\nhis return, in the hope through him of seeing something accomplished\nthat would alter these circumstances. But the comte's embassy had been\nunsuccessful; all he had been able to effect was to leave the case\nwith such other friends as should introduce it at a more favorable\nperiod. But he was not so reserved respecting his friends as M.\nBertolot had been. He deemed that Eugene's position in his own family\nshould plead exemption for him from the ban of exclusion, and\nwillingly mediated to obtain an interview view for him with Madame.\nEuphrasie was not at home when he called; and Madame greeted him\ncordially, though she could not refrain from blaming him for running\ncounter to his friends about religion.\n\n\"What a fuss about a matter of opinion,\" she said. \"But perhaps in\nFrance, before the Revolution, a Protestant might have then as little\nacceptable to the aristocracy. They say, too, that this new man, this\nemperor, patronizes the Catholic religion also, so I shall not ask\nEuphrasie to become a proselyte to English notions; her faith is that\nof her country and of her kindred, and my brother ought to {495} have\nunderstood this; but why you, Eugene, should wish to adopt the French\nreligion, I cannot divine.\"\n\n\"Perhaps religion is neither exclusively French nor English, aunt.\nThere may be a faith necessary to every nation alike, if it be true\nthat every man has a soul to save.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so; I do not meddle with these matters,\" replied the lady. \"I\nthink everyone had better let everybody alone; it must be bad to\nquarrel about religion; and as to saving the soul, we know so little\nabout it that it is quite presumptuous for one person to dictate to\nanother on that subject. I hope we shall all meet in heaven at last,\nthough we go there by different roads; for my part, I keep nobody\nout.\"\n\nThe entrance Euphrasie prevent its the necessity of a reply.\nEuphrasie's greeting was that of one who appreciates high principal.\nThere were respect and kindness in her manner, but no familiarity, no\napproach to intimacy. Eugene felt disappointed, though certainly there\nwas nothing of which he felt he had a right to complain.\n\nEugene's visits to his aunt were now frequent, but never could he see\nEuphrasie alone; whether from design or accident she avoided receiving\nhim, save in her mother's presence. Yet daily did his reverence for\nher increase. To see the young French girl now, the supporter of the\nhousehold, the caterer for its wants, the tender minister to her\nmother's manifold demands, none would have dreamed that heretofore\ncontemplation had absorbed her faculties, and that she was making to\nduty the greatest sacrifice she could make in thus exchanging the\ncherished practices of devotion for the active employments of life.\nShe was so cheerful, so almost gay, so unusually animated when the\nstate of her mother's spirits required it; a stranger might have\nconcluded that all her life she had been accustomed to this manner of\nliving.\n\nSuddenly Eugene received a missive which had traced him to many\nplaces, requesting him to meet his father in London.\n\n\nTO BE CONTINUED.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nON ST. PETER'S DENIAL.\n\n\n\"And the Lord, turning, looked on Peter.\"\n\n\n  Lord! wilt thou that I also should deny\n        That I am thine?\n  Behold, my longing soul cries upward to the sky\n        For sight divine!\n  All through the silent night in livelong day--\n        O grievous lot!--\n  I seek to know thee more, and yet am forced to say\n        \"I know thee not\".\n  With Peter let these bitter tears confess\n        My treachery:\n  Yet, Lord, to know thee as thou art I need no less\n        A look from thee!\n\n--------\n\n{496}\n\n\nTranslated from the German of Hans Wachenhusen.\n\n\nCHRIST IS BORN.\n\n\n\n\"Really I take it unkindly of our pastor that he is continually\nspeaking ill of us thorns, in the church yonder,\" said the thorn-bush,\nstanding by a crumbling stable wall among the castle-ruins near the\nvillage church. \"It is very unfair in him. How can he know, for\ninstance, how the subject may affect me? On the bloody field of\nGolgotha, nearly two thousand years ago, there stood my ancestor, a\nbuckthorn, of whose branches they wove our Saviour's crown. But the\npastor yonder little thinks that I come of that same buckthorn;\n[Footnote 149] or that all its lineal descendants bear red blossoms\nand weep tears of blood on Christmas night; or that we thorns are ever\nrenewed like Christ's teachings, being woven in with them?\"\n\n  [Footnote 149: Kreuzdorn--Cross-thorn, literally.]\n\nSo spake the thorn-bush; and the wind blew through its branches, and\nshook them until the snow dropped off.\n\n\"Positively, this connection ought to be known!\" sighed the\nthorn-bush.\n\nBut it was just then Christmas eve, and midnight was drawing near.\nTherefore did the thorn-bush make these pious reflections, which\nshould have been cherished on other days too, if the lineage were\nreally so wonderful as it fancied. Meantime the church-bells were\nringing for the midnight mass, and the good priest passed by, going to\nthe service of God.\n\n\"See, now, how indifferently he goes past me,\" said the thorn-bush.\n\"And no wonder, since he knows nothing of my connections! And all the\nrest brush by me into the church; and if the Lord God could not see\nthe things that are hidden, yet would he know his faithful by the\nfootprints that lead from the houses to the church. But he knows them\nall, for he guides their steps. I know, though, two in the village who\nhave not been to church to-day nor yet this whole year, for they are\nright godless men: the gloomy lord of our castle, and Wild Stephen,\nwhom he turned out of his cottage yesterday because the rent was not\npaid. Here lie the poor wife and her half-naked children now in this\nruined stable before which I stand guard. Really I must take a peep\nand see how the poor woman and her sick child are getting on,\" said\nthe thorn-bush, and stretched up its bought to look in at the broken\nwindow.\n\nBut it was dark within, and the night-wind moaned through the damp\nwalls and the open window. \"O God! the creature is so good and so\nwretched. Here in this stable are tears and chattering teeth on this\nday of Christmas gifts. Now, that is too grievous,\" sighed the\nthorn-bush.\n\nAnd over the way the church-organ poured out its solemn tones. \"Christ\nis born,\" sang the people from the choir and benches. \"Christ is\nborn,\" cried the watchman from the tower. And our thorn-bush was\nright. In that old, deserted stable a poor woman knelt and prayed. Hot\ntears ran down her cheeks, her hands were convulsively clasped, and\nher eyes rested fixedly on the straw in the old stone manger; for in\nthat manger lay her youngest born, a half-year old child, sick, and\ntrembling with ague and cold. The moon shone through the\nwindow-opening upon this group. Her rays fell sympathizingly on the\nsick child, but they could not warm him; nor could the mother's breast\ndo it either, she was herself so icy cold. {497} And through the\nchinks of the rotting roof, gaps were covered with snow, fell by\nhundred thousands the little glittering snow-stars and played in the\nmoon-beams, but they gave no light or warmth either.\n\n\"Saviour of the world, thou who wert born this night, who didst live\nand die for us all, who didst lie to-day in a manger, like this poor\nhelpless creature, save, oh! save my sick child!\" So prayed this poor\nwoman, and the baby stretched out his little cold hands to his mother\nand wept. But her strengths was all gone. She let her weary head sink\non the icy edge of the stone manger; her eyes closed, and a heavy sigh\nburst forth from her breast. Days and nights had she watched; days and\nnights of bitter misery had she endured; but now she broke down, and\nsleep took pity on her wretchedness.\n\n\"Poor wife, where is thy husband? Poor baby, where is thy father?\"\nwhispered the thorn-bush pityingly, looking in at the window.\n\nYes, where was the husband, where was the father? Wild Stephen, for so\nthe villagers called him, had been turned out of his cottage with his\nwife and children the evening before, as we have already said. He\nsought a refuge among the neighbors, but they would have nothing to do\nwith him, for they were afraid of godless Stephen, who never had done\na good thing, so they said. And so he and his had come to this\ndeserted stable. Then he had rushed away breathless, in spite of the\nentreaties of his wife, who dreaded some misfortune. Where, then, was\nWild Stephen? The bells ring out, the organ sounded, the people sang\npious songs in the church, and the good priest stood before the altar\nand chanted: \"Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of\ngood-will.\"\n\nUp in the old castle, in a comfortless room, a man of dark, forbidding\naspect set near the long-extinguished fire. He was the lord of the\ncastle, a hard-hearted man, feared by every one within the limits of\nhis estate. The light before him on the table burnt low; his face\nlooked stiff and motionless, his eyes were closed. It seemed like\nsleep, only he looked so very pale. Now, while in the out-buildings of\nthe court-yard servants hurried to and fro, a man was stealing up the\nstairs and through the gloomy corridor. He softly opened the door of\nthe great room, crept lightly in, and up to the arm-chair where the\nlandlord slept. The stranger's eyes gleamed with passion, a sneering\nsmile disfigured his weather-beaten face. He cast one look stealthily\naround the room. A knife glistened in one hand, the other grasped that\nof the sleeping landlord. The blade quivered--\n\n\"Christ is born,\" saying the people in the church below.\n\nWild Stephen shrank back, for the hand was icy cold. He had touched a\ncorpse.\n\n\"Christ is born,\" cried the warder from the tower; for mass was over,\nand the people were hastening home.\n\nStephen's knife fell from his hand. He looked again at the dead man,\nand it seemed as if the cold eyes were opening to blast him. Covering\nhis face with both hands, he fled from the room. No one had seen him\nglide into the house; no one saw him now pause before the old stable\nand looked in the window--no one but the thorn-bush. Ashy pale,\nStephen gazed into the stable. There he saw his wife kneeling,\nmotionless as the dead man in the castle yonder, but more lovely; and\ngentle and pure as innocence, the child in the manger. Then Stephen,\nrushed forward, not knowing whither, rushed through the open\nchurch-door, and sank senseless on the steps of the altar.\n\nNow the pastor was just going home. He came to the thorn-bush and saw\ntwo little boys sitting beneath it in the snow. They were shivering,\nand hiding their little red hands in their rags.\n\n\"Take them with thee,\" said the thorn-bush to the pastor. \"They are\nWild Stephen's children; they dare not {498} go in-doors for fear\ntheir father may beat them because they have come home empty-handed.\nTake them with thee. I cannot warm them; I am so poor and naked.\"\n\nWe know not whether it was the pastor's heart or the thorn-bush that\nspoke; but he took the children home with him.\n\n\"So, now have I one care the less!\" said the thorn-bush to itself.\n\"Now they are beginning to light up the Christmas tree there--and\nthere--and again over yonder. What a pity that I'm not stationed under\nthe windows, for here in this dreary stable there will be nothing to\nsee.\"\n\nBut the thorn-bush was wrong, for just then the interior of the stable\ngrew bright with a piercing light. Still knelt the poor woman with\nclosed eyes, but the sick child waked up and stretched out its little\narms laughing; for the roof opened, and down fluttered, surrounded by\na light cloud, two lovely angels, one of them bearing a little\nChristmas tree gleaming with countless lights, the other bringing\ncostly gifts. And it grew warm in the stable, and the light threw such\na gleam into the street that the thorn-bush wondered within itself.\n\n\"There is no hut so poor but Christ is there to-night,\" it said.\n\nThe angels fluttered down, and while one offered the Christmas tree,\nthe other went to the sick child and laid his hand healingly upon its\nbreast. Then they flew upward again and vanished; but the light\nremained in the stable. In the mean time Wild Stephen lay upon the\ncold altar-steps. At last his consciousness returned, and he raised\nhis head from the stone. A wonderful vision had appeared to him in a\ndream, for he had seen two beautiful spirits who, blessing him, walked\nby his side: and now, on awaking, he saw them standing by him, and\nfelt each angel lay a little warm hand in his and lead him from the\nchurch.\n\nIt seemed to Stephen as if he still dreamed; as if it were in sleep\nthat the two little angels led him from the church to the stable where\nhe knew his poor wife and sorrowing children were. Willingly he let\nhimself be guided; but when they reached the wretched dwelling, and\neverything within looked so warm and bright and pleasant; when he saw\nthe Christmas presents, he rubbed his eyes, and look down at the\nangels who had brought him there and were still standing by his side.\nThen Stephen recognized his two other boys, grandly and beautifully\ndressed as he had never seen them before.\n\nStill it seemed like a vision. He raised both children in his arms; he\nheld them close and kissed them--no, it could not be a dream.\n\n\"Christ is born,\" cried the watchmen from the tower. \"Ay, born is he,\nand within my own soul too!\" exclaimed Stephen, and, still holding the\ntwo children, sprang to his wife. He drew her toward him and held her\nto his breast. \"Jenny,\" he said, \"wake up, Christ is indeed born!\"\n\nAnd she lifted her eyes and looked around in amazement, saying: \"What\nhas happened? Is it really thou, Stephen?--and all this light here! Is\nmy dream true? I saw two angels bringing a Christmas tree and\nbeautiful presents, and one of them went to the manger and laid his\nhand healingly upon my baby's breast. Yes, yes, it is true, for he is\nalive,\" she explained, taking the smiling child from the manger and\nclasping it to her bosom. \"Get is true, Stephen,\" she said, and laid\nthe baby in his arms. \"Our Saviour is born, and he will not let my\nchild die.\"\n\nAnd while they were all looking at the Christmas presents the pastor\nstepped from behind the tree, for he it was who had sent the gifts\nthrough two good children of his parish; he it was who had seen Wild\nStephen sink down upon the altar-steps; he it was who had dressed the\nlittle boys so beautifully, and led them to their father in the\nchurch.\n\n{499}\n\n\"Christ is born,\" said the pastor, \"and it is his will that even the\npoorest dwelling should not be without him to-day; but where he lodges\nfor the first time, Stephen, is in your heart; cherish him tenderly,\nfor you know that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that\nrepenteth than over ninety-nine just persons.\"\n\nAnd all this time the thorn-bush was looking in at the window, its\nbranches rustled with joy, and, like the cross-thorn on Christmas\nnight, its boughs put forth violet-red eyes, and wept tears of blood\nupon the snow.\n\nThe next morning Stephen went to church with his wife and children. In\nthe meantime something must have passed between them and the pastor,\nproducing a change in material as well as spiritual matters; for they\nwere seen clad in modest and suitable attire, going to the Lord's\ntable with deepest devotion. The villagers passed by the thorn-bush in\ntheir holiday dress, and when they saw the snow underneath it bedewed\nas if with ruddy pearls, they cried: \"See, now, the buckthorn has\nborne red blossoms during the night!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered the cross-thorn, \"for Christ is born indeed. These\nthorns know it, for we crowned him in death; and you men should know\nit also, for he was crucified for you.\"\n\n------\n\nFrom Chambers' Journal.\n\nTHE DYING YEAR.\n\n\n  Scant leaves upon the aspen\n    Shake golden in the sun;\n  Old Year, thy sins are many,\n    Thy sand is almost run.\n  The beech-tree, brazen-orange,\n    Burns like a sunset down;\n  Old Year, thy grave is ready;\n    Doff sceptre, robe, and crown.\n\n  The elm, a yellow mountain,\n    Is shedding leaf by leaf;\n  The rains, in gusts of passion.\n    Pour forth their quenchless grief;\n  The winds, like banshees mourning.\n    Wail in the struggling wood;\n  Old Year, put off thy splendor.\n    And don thy funeral hood.\n\n  Lay down thy golden glories;\n    The bare boughs bar the sky--\n  Skeletons wild and warning.\n    Quaking to see thee die.\n  Thou hast lived thy life, remember;\n    Now lay thee down and rest;\n  The grass shall grow above thy head,\n    And the flower above thy breast.\n\n------\n\n{500}\n\n\nFrom The Dublin University Magazine.\n\nTHE HOLY LAND.\n\n\nThere can be no doubt that the Mount Moriah where Abraham would have\nsacrificed his son is the same spot as the Moriah upon which Solomon\nbuilt the temple. \"Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord\nat Jerusalem in Mount Moriah\" (2 Chron. iii. 1).  [Footnote 150] It is\nalso probable that it is the same place as the Salem mentioned in\nGenesis xiv. 18, of which Melchisedek was king; for in Psalm lxxvi. 2\nwe read, \"In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in\nSion.\" Josephus calls Melchisedek King of Solyma, a name afterward\naltered to Hierosolyma. But the first mention of the name Jerusalem\noccurs in Joshua x. 1, where Adoni-zedec is spoken of as \"King of\nJerusalem.\" There are to be gathered from sacred and secular annals\nthe records of twenty-one invasions of this ancient city by hostile\narmies. The first attack was made upon her by the children of Judah,\nshortly after the death of Joshua. They fought against Jerusalem, took\nit, put it to the fire and sword (Judges i. 1-8); but they were unable\nto expel the Jebusites, nor were the children of Benjamin any more\nsuccessful, but they both dwelt with the Jebusites in the city; the\nJebusites being probably driven from the lower part to Mount Sion,\nwhere they remained until the time of David, who marched against\nJerusalem, drove them from Mount Sion, and called it the City of\nDavid.\n\n  [Footnote 150: Also confirmed by Josephus, Antiq i, 13-2.]\n\nThe Ark of the Covenant was conveyed there, an altar built, and\nJerusalem became the imperial residence, the centre of the political\nand religious history of the Israelites. Its glory was enhanced by the\nlabors of Solomon, but under his son Rehoboam ten tribes revolted, so\nthat Jerusalem became only the capital of Judah, with whom the tribe\nof Benjamin alone remained faithful. During the reign of this king,\nShishak, the Egyptian monarch, invaded the holy city and ransacked the\ntemple. Then about a hundred years rolled by, when Amaziah was king of\nJudah, and Joash of Israel; the latter marched against Jerusalem,\nthrew down the wall, and the temple was once more rifled of its\ntreasures. In the next century Manasseh the king was taken captive by\nthe Assyrians to Babylon but ultimately restored. In consequence of\nthe strange intermeddling of Josiah, a few years later, when\nPharao-necho, king of Egypt, was on his march, he was killed in\nbattle, and the latter directed his army toward Jerusalem, and placed\nEliakim on the throne by the name of Jehoiakim. The advance of this\nEgyptian king is confirmed by Herodotus.  [Footnote 151]\n\n  [Footnote 151: Herodotus, Euterpe, 159. He also mentions a victory\n  gained by him at Magdola, then says that he took the city of Cadytis\n  [Greek text]. This city Cadytis is generally accepted as Jerusalem,\n  which was called \"holy,\" \"_Hakkodesh_.\" The shekel was marked\n  \"Jerusalem _Kedusha_,\" a Syriac corruption of the Hebrew \"Kodesh.\"\n  Then the word Jerusalem was omitted, and \"Kedusha\" only used, which,\n  being translated into Greek, became [Greek text] as quoted by\n  Herodotus.]\n\nAgainst Jehoiakim, however, came Nebuchadnezzar, who ravaged the city\nmore than once, and after a siege of two years, in the reign of\nZedekiah, burned it down, took all the sacred vessels to Babylon with\nthe two remaining tribes (the other ten were already in captivity);\nand now that the temple was destroyed, the city in ruins, and {501}\nthe people all in bondage, it appeared as if the prediction of her\nprophets had already been accomplished. But a time of rejoicing was\nyet to come, and though the chosen people did writhe under Babylonish\ntyranny, and did hitting their harps on the willows, there was still a\nprophet of hope among them in the person of Daniel. This was the time\nalluded to in that beautiful psalm composed after their return, in\nallusion to an occasion when their persecutors had asked them\ntauntingly to sing one of their national songs for their amusement,\nthe Hebrew words of which, if we may be allowed the expression,\nglitter with tears:\n\n  \"By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down,\n  Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.\n  We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.\n  For there, they that carried us away captive required of us a song;\n  And they that wasted us required of us mirth,\n  Saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.\n    How shall we sing the Lord's song\n         In a strange land?\n         If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,\n         Let my right hand forget her cunning;\n         If I do not remember thee,\n  Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,\n  If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief Joy.\"\n\nIn the time of Cyrus their deliverance came; they were released from\ncaptivity, and there was a mighty \"going up\" to Jerusalem when the\ntemple was rebuilt and the sacred vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had\ntaken away were restored; money, too, was given them, and the works,\nafter being interrupted for a time by difficulties, were resumed under\nDarius Hystaspes and completed. Some time afterward another large body\nof Jews came up to the holy city with Ezra, and the capital was once\nmore active with busy life and once more became glorious.\n\nAlexander the Great marched against the Jews, but was prevented from\nentering the city by the intercession of the high priest--a scene\nwhich found its parallel in after-times, when the aged Leo went to the\ncamp of Attila, and by his entreaties diverted that semi-Christian\nbarbarian from Rome. After the death of Alexander, Ptolemy, king of\nEgypt, surprised the Jews on their Sabbath day, when he knew they\nwould not fight; he made an easy conquest, and carried off thousands\nof Jews into Egypt.\n\nFor a hundred years of comparative peace this fated city remained\nunder the Ptolemies, when it fell into the hands of the Syrians.\nAntiochus Epiphanes, their king, after his Egyptian campaigns, finding\nhis treasure-chest nearly empty, bethought him of sacking the temple\nof Jerusalem, marched his army upon the city, pillaged it, slew about\nforty thousand people, and sold as many more into slavery. He then\nendeavored to exterminate the ceremonial; a pagan altar was set up and\nsacrifice made to Jupiter. The Maccabaean revolution broke out, and\nthe city was ultimately recovered by the hero, Judas Maccabaeus, when\na new phase of priesthood was established, which we shall notice\nelsewhere. Things went on thus until about the year 60 B.C., when\nPompey seized the city and massacred twelve thousand Jews in the\ntemple courts. Thus it fell into the hands of the Romans, against whom\nit rebelled, and by whom ultimately, after the most terrible siege\nrecorded in history, it was taken and subjected to violations over\nwhich the mind even now shudders; its temple was ransacked, violated,\nand burned, its priests butchered, pagan rites were celebrated in its\nholy place, its maidens were ravished, its palaces burned down, an\nunrestrained carnage was carried on, Jews were crucified on crosses as\nlong as trees could be found to make them, and when the woods were\nexhausted they were slain in cold blood. Nearly a million of Jews are\nsaid to have fallen in this terrible conflict. For fifty years after\nthere is no mention of Jerusalem in history. They kept themselves\nquiet, watching eagerly and stealthily for an opportunity of throwing\noff the hated Roman yoke. About the year 131 A-D., Adrian, to prevent\nany outbreak, ordered the city to be fortified. The Jews rebelled at\nonce, but were so completely crushed by the {502} year 135 that this\ndate has always been accepted as that of their final dispersion. The\nholy city was then made a Roman colony, the Jews were forbidden to\nenter into its walls under pain of immediate death, the very name was\naltered to the pagan one of AElia Capitolina, a temple was erected on\nMount Moriah to Jupiter Capitolinus, and Jerusalem was henceforth\nspoken of by this pagan name until the days of Constantine, when\npilgrimages were rife, and the Christians began to turn their steps\ntoward the city whose streets had been hallowed by the footsteps of\nChrist. Helena, the emperor's mother, wandered there in penitence,\nbuilt a church on the site of the nativity, and agitated Christendom\nto its foundations by the announcement of the discovery of the true\ncross. Constantine then built a church on the site of the Holy\nSepulcher, and at last the Jews were admitted once a year into the\ncity of their glory to sing penitential psalms over their degradation.\nThe sorrows of the place were not yet ended, for in the year 614 the\nPersians fell upon Jerusalem, and this time the Christians suffered,\nninety thousand of whom were killed. Then it was retaken by the\nRomans, when the Emperor Heraclius marched in triumph through its\nstreets with the real cross on his shoulders. In 637, however, it fell\ninto the hands of Arabic Saracens, from whom the Turks took it in\n1079. Then came that marvellous agitation of Europe, when she poured\nout her millions of devotees to drive the Saracen from the holy land;\nand in 1099 Godfrey de Bouillon was proclaimed King of Jerusalem by\nthe victorious Crusaders. The Christians held it for eighty-eight\nyears, when Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, wrested it from them in\n1187, and they held it until the year 1517, when the Ottoman Turks\nseizing upon Jerusalem, made the twenty-first and last invasion which\nthis devoted city has undergone, and in their hands it still remains.\n\nIn the very earliest ages of Christianity people begin to bend their\nsteps toward Jerusalem and to write their travels. Some of these\nvariations are extant, and the earliest is called \"Itinerarium a\nBurdigala Hierusalem usque:\" it was written by a Christian of\nBordeaux, who went to the Holy Land in the year 333, about two years\nbefore the church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated by Constantine\nand his mother Helena. It is to be gleaned also from the works of the\nGreek fathers that pilgrimages to Jerusalem were becoming so frequent\nas to lead to many abuses. St. Porphyry, after living as a recluse in\nEgypt, went to the Holy Land, visited Jerusalem, and finally settled\nin the country as Bishop of Gaza. Toward the end of the fourth century\n(385), St. Eusebius of Cremona and St. Jerome went there and founded a\nmonastery at Bethlehem. St. Paula also visited it about the same time.\nIn the seventh century we have St. Antonius going there and telling us\nhe admired the beauty of the Jewish women who lived at Nazareth. In\nthe year 637, the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens interrupted the\nthe flow of visitors, but Areulf, a French bishop, went there toward\nthe end of the century. In the early part of the eighth century the\nAnglo Saxons began to go there. Willibald, a relative of Boniface,\npaid a visit to Jerusalem in 724. Then the war with the Greeks\ninterposed, and we do not hear much about the Holy Land until the end\nof the eighth century, when, through the friendship of Charlemagne\nwith Haroun al Raschid, the Christians were once more allowed to go to\nthe Holy Sepulcher. A monk, called Bernard Sapiens, went in 870, and\nwrote anon account of it. Then the celebrated Gerbert, who was\nafterward pope, under the title of Sylvester II., went to Jerusalem in\n986, came back and wrote a work, in which he made the holy city mourn\nher misfortunes and woes, her wasted temples and violated sacred\nplaces; then he appealed to the whole Christian world to go and help\nher. France {503} and Italy began to move. The Saracens heard of this\nagitation, and interdicted the Christians in their dominions from\nworshipping, turned their temples into stables, and threw down the\nchurch of the Holy Sepulcher and others in the year 1008. At the\ntidings of this devastation Europe was aroused, and in fact we may\nfairly say that Gerbert's book of travel was the first spark that\nfired the conflagration of the Crusades. The first narrative we have\nof any pilgrim who followed the Crusades is by Saewulf, a Saxon, and a\nvery interesting narration he has left; he went in the year 1102, was\na monk of Malmesbury Monastery, and is mentioned by the renowned\nWilliam of that abbey in his Gesta Pontificum. There are accounts also\nin the twelfth century by Benjamin of Tudela; in the fourteenth by Sir\nJohn Mandeville; in the fifteenth by Bertrandon de la Brocqui\u00e8re; and\nin the sixteenth by Henry Maundrell.  [Footnote 152]\n\n  [Footnote 152: See Early Travels in Palestine, An interesting\n  collection of itineraries and ancient visits to the Holy Land, by\n  Mr. Thomas Wright.]\n\nModern times have multiplied books on the Holy Land, but those\nmentioned above are nearly all that are extent of early periods. In\nour own day there is a tendency to revive the subject; we have had\nmany books lately, good, bad, and indifferent, upon Holy\nLand--Wanderings in Bible Lands and Scenes, Horeb and Jerusalem, Sinai\nand Palestine, Giant Cities of Bashan, Jerusalem as It Is, and many\nothers, of which we cannot stop to say more than that they are\ngenerally interesting and readable. It would take a wretched writer,\nindeed, to make a dull book upon the Holy Land; the subject itself and\nthe scenes enlist the attention at once. But the last pilgrim who has\nreturned from that sacred city and emptied his wallet for our\ninspection has produced a book not only valuable as an interesting\naccount of travel, but useful as an excellent commentary upon the\nincidents of the Bible and the life and work of our Lord. There have\nbeen many reviews of this book as a book of travel, but it is in this\nhigher light more particularly that we wish to examine Mr. Hepworth\nDixon's two volumes on the Holy Land. From the very earliest times\ndown to the present, Jaffa or Joppa seems to be the portal of\nPalestine to western travellers, who are, it appears, compelled to\nmake their _d\u00e9but_ in Palestine in no very dignified manner. The\nwater-gate of Jaffa, Mr. Dixon tells us, faces the sea, and is \"no\nmore than a slit or window in the wall about six feet square.\" Through\nthis narrow opening all importations from the west must be hoisted\nfrom the canoes; \"such articles as pashas, bitter beer, cotton cloth,\nnegroes, antiquaries, dervishes, spurious coins and stones, monks,\nMuscovite bells, French clocks, English damsels and their hoops,\nCircassian slaves, converted Jews, and Bashi Bazouks.\" Once safe\nthrough this slit in the wall, the stranger is ushered into a town\nwhose scenes recall to his imagination the Arabian Nights of his\nchildhood, so little has the Holy Land changed; the dress of the\npeople and their customs being so little altered that Haroun, if he\nwere allowed to take another midnight trip with his vizier, would be\nquite at home. Marvellous it is, too, that civilization has left\nanother peculiarity untouched in Palestine. Mr. Dixon tells us that\nafter \"three months of Syrian travel you will learn to treat a\nskeleton in the road with as much indifference as a gentleman in a\nturban and a lady in a veil.\" Whatever dies in the plain lies\nthere--asses, camels, or men. The travelling baggage of an Arab\nincludes a winding-sheet, in which he may be rolled by his companion,\nif he has one, and covered with sand; bodies are found, too, who, in\nthe last gasp, had striven to cover their faces with the loose sand.\nThere is no exaggeration in this statement--the Saxon Saewulf, who\nwent there in the year 1102, nearly eight centuries ago, draws the\nsame picture. He says:\n\n{504}\n\n \"Went from Joppa to Jerusalem, two days' journey by a mountainous\n road, very rough and dangerous on account of the Saracens, who lie in\n wait for the Christians to rob and spoil them. Numbers of human\n bodies lie by the wayside, torn to pieces by wild beasts, many of\n whom have been cut off by Saracens; some, too, have perished from\n heat, and thirst for want of water, and others from too much\n drinking.\"\n\nTravelling in the Holy Land is not mere sport; there are a myriad of\ndangers to be avoided and watched for, armed Bedaween are prowling\nabout, bands of horsemen scour across the plain like clouds over the\nsky.\n\n  \"Horsemen!\" cries Yakoub, reining in. \"Hushing the still night, and\n  with hands on our revolvers, bending forward toward the dim fields\n  on our left hand, we can hear the footfall of horses crushing their\n  way through stubble and stones. In a moment while they sounded afar\n  off, they are among us; fine dark figures, on brisk little mares,\n  and poising above them their bamboo spears. A word or two of parley,\n  in which Ishmael has his share, and we are asking each other for the\n  news. . . . . Perhaps they consider us too strong to be robbed, for\n  a Bedaween rarely thinks it right to attack under an advantage of\n  five to one.\"\n\nAt dawn of day they arrive at the spot where once stood Modin, the\nbirth place of the Maccabees, now a den of robbers, called Latrun.\nThis spot is a most interesting one, and Mr. Dixon rapidly sketches\nthe results of the events which were transacted here, showing how from\nthe Maccabaean revolt sprang the Great Separation, a new kind of\npriesthood, and also, for which the influence of the captivity had\nalready prepared them, the ignoring of the written law of Moses, and\nthe introduction and veneration of the oral law or tradition of the\nelders. The peculiar aspects of the Jews at the time of the Roman\ndomination and the advent of Christ, their hopes and opinions, may be\ntraced back to the drama which was played out on this spot. We\npropose, then, to pause for a moment to sketch the history of that\nperiod, as it is the keystone to the whole fabric of Jewish\ndegeneracy.\n\nAbout half a century before the birth of Christ the Jews had fallen\ninto the hands of the Romans, and in the writings of Tacitus we have a\ndescription of them, an attempt at investigation into their history,\nand a version of Roman opinion upon them, which is the more\ninteresting as it affords an admirable corroboration of what is\nrecorded in the Scriptures. Tacitus endeavors very ingeniously to make\nthem come originally from Crete, on account of their name, Idaeos or\nJudaeos, from Mount Ida, in Crete. We must bear in mind that it is\nscarcely probable that Tacitus could have read Genesis. Then he\nmentions other theories which were in vogue as to the origin of this\nstrange people, who were beginning to be very troublesome to the\nRomans. In the first theory we get a slight trace of the sacred\ntradition; certain people, he say, declare that a great multitude in\nthe reign of Isis overflowed Egypt and discharged themselves into the\nlands of Judea and the surrounding neighborhood, some call them a race\nof AEthiops, others Assyrians; and we are told there were some even\nwho claimed for them a far more renowned descent from the [Greek text]\nmentioned by Homer, whence they called their great city Hiero-Solyma.\nThese theories are very ingenious, but they only serve to prove that\nthe eye of the philosophical historian of the Romans had never rested\non the Jewish records. Still the character he gives of them is the one\nthey have universally borne in the world; he speaks also of \"Moyses,\"\nwho gave them a distinct legislation; he mentions \"circumcision\" and\ntheir abstinence from certain kinds of meet; he records their national\nexclusiveness, their immovable obstinacy, their notion of one God, so\nstrange to the a pagan mind, and the temple, _without images_, equally\nabsurd.\n\nThough the Romans treated the Jews, as indeed they did all the people\nthey conquered, with great forbearance, still they had a sort of\nsecret dislike for them, and in the {505} and they served them as they\nserved no other race of people subject to their power. And this\nfeeling was reciprocated by the Jews, who now more than ever longed\nfor the advent of the great Deliverer, whom they also more than ever\nfelt must come in the shape of a warrior, with power and majesty to\nsweep these Romans out of the country, and restore Jerusalem to her\nformer position of splendor and renown. There can be no question that\nthe political circumstances in which the Jews were placed at the time\nof the coming of Christ helped to unfit them for his reception, by\nfostering that idea of a great temporal sovereign which had been\nimplanted in their bosom. But this idea was of much older origin than\ntheir troubles with the Romans. It is an interesting fact that the\nMaccabaean revolution, which restored the priesthood, may be looked\nupon as the event which first taught the Jews that fatal error. Before\nthat time they had a more spiritual conception of the Messiah, but the\nevents which followed in the wake of the heroism of Judas Maccabaeus\nchanged the whole character of their hopes. Let us review those\ncircumstances, for it is only by doing so we can properly understand\nhow the Jews came to be so persistent in their expectations of a great\nomnipotent temporal sovereign. Antiochus Epiphanes, upon the death of\nhis brother, Seleucus Philopator, king of Syria, seized upon the\nvacant throne, although Demetrius, the son of Seleucus, was alive at\nRome, where he had been sent as a hostage. In Daniel xi. 21, we glean\nthat he obtained the kingdom by flattery, which receives some support\nfrom what Livy says about his extravagant rewards (Livy xli. c.20). He\nhad undertaken several campaigns against Egypt, and was on his return\nfrom one of these, with wasted army and exhausted treasury, when it\noccurred to him that if he could only plunder the temple of the Jews,\nit would go far to recruit his finances. He turned his army at once\ntoward Jerusalem, marched upon it, and sacked it. An altar was raised\nand sacrifice made to Jupiter in the holy place. Then he endeavored to\nabolish the ceremonial, and to introduce pagan worship, when the Jews,\nexasperated beyond endurance, were ripe all over the country for\nrevolt, but dared not rise. At this time, however, there dwelt in a\nlittle village called Modin, not far from Emmaus, a family who were\ncalled the Maccabees, for what reason it is now impossible to\nascertain; but this family, who had lived there in the peaceable\nobscurity of village life, were destined to become heroic. It\nconsisted of an aged father, Mattathias, and five sons. Antiochus\nEpiphanes had sent his officers to this village to erect an altar in\nthe Jewish place of worship for sacrifice to the gods, when Mattathias\nboldly declared that he would resist it. The altar was set up, and one\nmiserable renegade Jew was advancing toward it to make the pagan\noffering, when he was slain on the spot by Mattathias. The family then\nfled to the wilderness, and concealed themselves; they were soon\njoined by others; a band was formed, which gradually increased, until\nit became numerous enough to attack towns. Then Mattathias died, and\nhis son, even more memorable in the history of patriotism, came\nforward, and took the command of the gathering confederation, now a\ndisciplined army. Apollonius was sent against him, whom Judas met\nboldly on the field of battle, and slew. The same success attended him\nin his encounter with the Syrian general, Seron. Antiochus now saw the\nnecessity of vigorous measures to prevent the Jews from recovering\ntheir independence; he went to Persia to recruit his treasures, while\nLysias, the regent, sent an army to Judea of 40,000 foot and 7,000\ncavalry, which was reinforced by auxiliaries from the provinces, and\neven by Jews who were already becoming jealous of the fame of Judas.\nThe Jewish hero pointed out to his {506} followers the desperate odds\nagainst which they would have to contend, and resolved upon employing\na stratagem. By a forced march he reached a portion of the enemy\nencamped at Emmaus and surprised them, with complete success: several\nportions of the army were put to flight, and a great booty secured.\nAnother and more numerous army was sent against him, but with no\nsuccess. At the head of 10,000 followers, fired by fanaticism, Judas\nput to flight the army of Lysias, 60,000 strong, and marched on\nJerusalem to purify the temple and restore it to its glory. The\nfestival of Purification was then inaugurated. Day by day the\nsuccesses of Judas increased, when Antiochus Eupator, who had\nsucceeded Antiochus Epiphanes, invaded Judea, and only made peace with\nJudas in consequence of dissensions at home. He was murdered by his\nuncle, Demetrius, who seized the kingdom and confirmed the peace with\nJudas, but took possession of the citadel of Jerusalem, placing his\ngeneral, Nicanor, there with troops. Suspicions were then entertained\nthat treachery was being plotted between Judas and this general; the\nmatter was pressed, when Nicanor cleared himself, and Judas was\nobliged to flee. A battle took place, which he won, and another\nvictory followed at Beth-horon, in which Nicanor fell. Re-enforcements\nstrengthened the enemy, and Judas was compelled to retire to Laish\nwith 3,000 followers, where he was attacked at a disadvantage. Only\n800 of his men remained faithful to him, but with these he boldly\nencountered the avenging hosts of Demetrius, and found a hero's death\non the field. Though Judas was dead, yet the Maccabaean spirit was not\nextinct. Simon and Jonathan, his brothers, rallied their companions,\nand took the lead, fortifying themselves in a strong position in the\nneighborhood of Tekoa. Jonathan bid fair to equal Judas; he avoided an\nopen engagement with the Syrians, but kept his position, and harassed\nthe enemy for the space of two years, when events brought about what\nperhaps the slender forces of his army would have never accomplished.\nA pretender to the throne of Syria sprang up in the person of\nAlexander Balas, the reputed natural son of Antiochus Epiphanes, and a\nparty was soon found to promote his claim against Demetrius. By this\ntime Jonathan's little body of troops had been augmented by continued\nre-enforcements, and his position was such that to the contending\nparties in Syria it became clear that if either could win over this\nobstinate Jew to his cause it would decide the matter. Demetrius took\nthe first step, by making him at once general of the forces in Judea\nand governor of Jerusalem; but Jonathan was in no hurry, he suspected\nthe wily Demetrius, and having received overtures from Alexander\nBalas, that if he would espouse his cause he would make him high\npriest when he was on the throne of Syria, he yielded. These overtures\nwere accompanied by the present of a purple robe, and Jonathan, who,\ndoubtless, saw in the dissensions of his enemies the opportunity for\nJerusalem, accepted the proposition, joined Alexander, who slew\nDemetrius in battle, and ascended the throne of Syria. True to his\nengagement, he made Jonathan high priest, with the rank of prince, and\ndid all he could to ensure his fidelity. Jonathan afterward attended\nthe marriage of Alexander with a daughter of the King of Egypt, at\nPtolemais, where he received many marks of consideration from the\nSyrian and Egyptian monarchs. He ultimately fell, however, a victim to\ntreachery, and was succeeded by his brother Simon, who confirmed the\nJews in their independence in return, for which, in 131 B.C., they\npassed a decree, by which the dignity of high priest and prince of the\nJews was made hereditary in the family of Simon. Thus was founded the\nlong line of Asmonean priests, which remained unbroken down to about\nthirty-four years before Christ. The Mosaic principle was set aside,\nand {507} from this time the changes came over the Jews and their\ninstitutions which are admirably sketched by Mr. Dixon in the two\nchapters on the Great Separation and the Oral Law, which we recommend\nto the careful perusal of any one who wishes to form a clear idea of\nthe origin of the state of Judaism at the time of our Lord. He thus\nsums up in a sentence the results of the Maccabaean insurrection:\n\n  \"The main issues, then, as regards the faith and policy in Israel of\n  that glorious revolt of Modin, w the elevation of a fighting sect to\n  power; the general adoption of separative principles; the\n  substitution of an explanatory law for the Covenant; a change in the\n  divine succession of high priests, and a lawless union of the\n  spiritual and secular forces.\"\n\nThe Idyls of Bethlehem form a most interesting chapter: the death of\nRachel, the idyl of Ruth, the episode of Saul, the house of Chimham,\nthe idyl of Jeremiah, and the birth of our Saviour, are all sketched\nin a manner which tends to impress these well-known scenes upon the\nmind indelibly. A chapter on Syrian Khans, which throws much light\nupon the incident of the birth of Christ, we would like to extract did\nnot the exigencies of space forbid. The reader will find in the\nchapters, The Inn of Bethlehem, The Province of Galilee, Herod the\nGreat, John the Baptist, and Jewish Parties, an admirable introduction\nto those scenes of the life and wanderings of our blessed Lord which\nare contained in the second part of the book, and to which we wish to\ndevote the remainder of this paper.\n\nWhen speaking of the early life of Jesus, Mr. Dixon takes up the\nquestion of the obscurity of his origin, that favorite point with the\nsceptics of all ages, from the \"Is not this the carpenter's son?\" of\nthe Jews, down to puerile objections of the German Strauss. He has\nshown that it was the custom to teach the youth of all classes some\nuseful art; and the best born and greatest men in Jewish history had\nbeen instructed in such trades as weaving, tent-making etc. Beside,\ncertain trades were held in honor. We cannot understand this if we\nthink of carpentering by the contemptuous estimate of modern life.\nThat contempt for hand-labor was unknown in the early ages of\nScripture history. Adam dressed the garden, Abel was a keeper of\nsheep, Cain a tiller of the ground. Tubal Cain a smith; and so, among\nthe Jews, it was a reproach to any man if he had not been taught one\nof the useful mechanical arts. It was dignified by the Almighty\nhimself, who, we are told--\n\n  \"Called by name Bezaleel, . . . and he hath filled him with the\n  spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in\n  all manner of workmanship, and to devise curious works, to work in\n  gold and in silver and in brass, and in the cutting of stones to set\n  them, and in carving of wood to make any manner of cunning work. And\n  he hath put it in his heart that he may teach.\" Exod. xxxv. 30-34.\n\nThis reverence was cherished by the Jews; carpentering was always\nlooked upon as a noble occupation; the fact that the carpenter might\nhave to go into the temple to labor would have rescued that occupation\nfrom contempt. This is a striking peculiarity of eastern life; and\nelsewhere the objection of the sceptic to the humble origin of Jesus\nhas been well answered:\n\n  \"The princes of Turkey in Egypt are still instructed in the\n  mechanical arts, one being made a brazier, another a carpenter, a\n  third a good weaver, and so on. Said Pasha was a good mechanic,\n  Ishmael Pasha is not inferior to his brother. Much of the domestic\n  life of Israel has been lost to us, but still we know something of\n  the crafts in which many of the most famous rabbis and doctors had\n  been taught to excel. We know that Hillel practised a trade. St.\n  Paul was a tent-maker, Rabbi Ishmael was a needle-maker, Rabbi\n  Jonathan a cobbler. Rabbi Jose was a tanner. Rabbi Simon was a\n  weaver. Among the Talmudists there was a celebrated Rabbi Joseph who\n  was a carpenter. What then becomes of Strauss's inference that\n  Joseph must have been a man of low birth--not of the stock of\n  David--because he followed a mechanical trade?\"   [Footnote 153]\n\n  [Footnote 153: Athenaeum, 27th Jan., 1866.]\n\n{508}\n\nWe may conclude this point by adding that among the Jews the only\ntrades which could prevent a man from attaining to the dignity of high\npriest were weavers, barbers, fullers, perfumers, cuppers, and\ntanners.\n\nBut to return to the life and work of Jesus. His fame was gradually\nspreading, and he went about the small towns and hamlets:\n\n  \"Capernaum, Chorazin Magdala, Bethsaida, Dalmanutha Gerasa,\n  preaching in the synagogues, visiting the fishing-boats and\n  threshing-floors, healing the sick, and comforting the poor; gentle\n  in his aspect and in his life; wise as a sage and simple as a child;\n  winning people to his views by the charm of his manner and the\n  beauty of his sayings.\"\n\nHis first aim was to win the Jews from the Oral Law, to convince them\nof its emptiness; it is the key to the following scenes graphically\ndepicted by Mr. Dixon. Christ had gone to Jerusalem for the feast of\nPurim, and was walking by the Pool of Bethesda in the sheet market, a\nspot he had to pass daily. On the thanks of this pool were crowds of\nsick, the halt, aged, and blind, a spectacle sure to attract the eye\nof Jesus:\n\n  \"It was the Sabbath day.\n\n  \"In the temple hard by, these wretches could hear the groaning of\n  bulls under the mace, the bleating of lambs under the sacrificial\n  knife, the shouting of dealers as they sold doves and shekels.\n  Bakers were hurrying through with bread. The captain of the temple\n  was on duty with his guards. Priests were marching in procession,\n  and crowds of worshippers standing about the holy place. Tongues of\n  flame leaped faintly from the altars on which the priests were\n  sprinkling blood . . . but the wretches who lay around (the pool) on\n  their quilts and rugs, the blind, the leprous, and the aged poor,\n  drew no compassion from the busy priests. One man, the weakest of\n  the weak, had been helpless no less than thirty-eight years. Over\n  this man Jesus paused and said:\n\n  \"'Wilt thou be made whole?'\n\n  \"'Rabbi, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into\n  the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.\"\n\nThe Compassionate answered him:\n\n  \"'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'\n\n  \"At once the life leaped quickly into the poor man's limbs. Rising\n  from the ground he folded up his quilt, taking it on his arm to go\n  away; but some of the Pharisees seeing him get up and roll his bed\n  into a coil, run toward him crying: 'It is the Sabbath day; it is\n  not lawful for thee two carry thy bed.' It was certainly an offense\n  against the Oral Law.\"\n\nThe Jews had turned the blessing of the Sabbath into a curse.\n\n  \"From the moment of hearing the ram's horn, a sacred trumpet, called\n  the shofa, blown from the temple wall, announcing that the seventh\n  had commenced, he was not allowed to tight a fire or make a bed, to\n  boil him a pot; he could not pool his ass from a ditch, nor raise\n  and arms in defense of his life . . . A Jew could not quit his camp,\n  his village, or his city on the day of rest. He might not begin a\n  journey; if going along a road, he must rest from sundown till the\n  same event of the coming day. He might not carry a pencil, a\n  kerchief a shekel in his belt; if he required a handkerchief for\n  use, he had to tie it round his leg. If he offended against one of\n  these rules, he was held to deserve the doom awarded to the vilest\n  of sinners. Some rabbins held that a man ought not to change his\n  position, but that, whether he was standing or sitting when the\n  shofa sounded, _he should stand or sit immovable as a stone until\n  the Sabbath had passed away_.\"\n\nJesus broke the Oral Law that he might bring his followers to a sense\nof its degrading spirit, and announced the new truth that \"_The\nSabbath is made for man; not and for the Sabbath_.\" After two very\ninteresting chapters upon Antipas Herod and Herodias, we have once\nupon the Synagogue. Some writers have striven to claim the remotest\nantiquity for this institution, but in all probability it might be\ndated from the captivity. There would be a natural desire to meet\ntogether away from the pagans, by whom they were surrounded, to pray\nto their God, to sing their psalms, and to read the law. This gave\nrise to the synagogue, which means no more then a \"meeting together;\"\nbut after the Maccabaean insurrection it became a popular institution,\nand every little village had its synagogue. Now, as much of the work\nof Christ was done in the synagogue, as he loved to go into them and\nto take part {509} in their services, it is desirable that we should\nhave a clear notion of what a synagogue was:\n\n  \"A house of unhewn stones taken up from the hillside; squat and\n  square of the ancient Hebrew style, having a level roof, but neither\n  spire nor tower, neither dome nor minaret to enchant the eye; such\n  was the simple synagogue of the Jews in which Jesus taught. . .\n  Inside a Syrian synagogue is like one of our parish schools with\n  seats for the men, rough sofas of wood half covered with rushes and\n  straw; a higher seat stands in the centre like that of a mosque, for\n  the elders of the town, a desk for the reader of the day; at the\n  south end a closet, concealed by a hanging veil, in which the torah,\n  a written copy of the Pentateuch, is kept in the sacred ark. A\n  silver lamp is always kept burning, a candlestick with eight arms, a\n  pulpit, a reading-desk, are the chief articles of furniture in the\n  room. . . . . In olden times women were allowed to enter with the\n  men, though they were even then parted from father and son by a\n  wooden screen. . . . Before entering a synagogue a man is expected\n  to dip his hands into water. . . . Ten persons are necessary to form\n  a meeting; every town or city having a synagogue appointed ten men\n  called batlanim (men of leisure), who were bound to appear at the\n  hour of prayer. . . Higher in office was the chazzan, who took\n  charge of the house and scroll. . . The meturgeman was an\n  interpreter of the law, whose duty it was to stand near the reader\n  for the day, and translate the sacred verses, one by one, from the\n  Hebrew into the vulgar tongue. Above him were the elders. . . . When\n  the people came in they first bowed to the ark; the elders took\n  their places on the raised platform; the rich went up to high seats\n  near the ark; the poor sat on wooden sofas, matted with straw. . . .\n  A prayer was said, one of the Psalms of David sung. The chazzan\n  walked up to the veil, which he drew aside with reverence, lifted\n  the ark from its niche, took out the torah, carried the roll round\n  the benches, every one striving either to kiss or touch it with his\n  palm; the sheliach read the lesson for the day; at its close the\n  elder expounded the text in a sort of sermon, when the torah was\n  carried back, the prayers began. . . . Every hearer had in those\n  times a right to express his opinion of the sacred text, and of what\n  it meant.\"\n\nOur Lord availed himself of this right, which every Jew possessed, of\nspeaking in the synagogue upon the text which had been read; and Mr.\nDixon has worked up two scenes well known in the career of our Lord,\nwith all the surrounding incidents and scenery, so graphically and so\naccurately that no one could read these descriptions without rising\nfrom them with a clearer and more complete understanding of the simple\nstatement of the gospel. The gospels were not written as historical\nsketches, but as vehicles for the vital truth they contain;\nconsequently anything that resuscitates the scene and reproduces the\nincidents as they took place, with all their peculiar surroundings,\nmust be of great value in assisting us to comprehend more readily, and\nto retain in our minds more vividly the events of our Lord's career.\nWe think this is more preeminently the characteristic aim and\nachievement of this work than of the many others we have read upon the\nsubject, and we shall instance one, the scene in the synagogue of\nCapernaum. The first alluded to was the declaration of Jesus in the\nsynagogue at Nazareth; but as many of the incidents are included in\nthis of Capernaum, we content ourselves with giving it somewhat in\ndetail, as an illustration of the peculiarity we have already\nmentioned. Let the reader first peruse the simple statement in the\ngospel of St. John, vi. ch., 25 v., to the end, and then the\nfollowing; or better still the whole of chapter xvii. in the second\nvolume of Mr. Dixon's work, called The Bread of Life, and he will rise\nfrom it with a much more vivid conception of one of the most trying\nscenes in our Lord's history. On the steps of the synagogue a motley\ncrowd had collected, eager, excited, and curious, for it was just\nafter the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, and they were full of it;\nthey had heard of it in all its stupendous power; it was the miracle\nof all miracles most likely to overpower the Jewish mind; it recalled\nto them the words of Jehovah:\n\n  \"At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled\n  with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.\"\n\n{510}\n\nAnd this man, this son of Joseph the carpenter, had fed 5,000 people\non fire barley loaves and two small fishes. They saw the little boat\non the beach in which Jesus had come; they had heard of his walking on\nthe water that very night; and now the crowd was increasing, for the\ncountry was aroused, and people came flocking from all parts to see\nthis man who did such marvellous things.\n\n  \"Jesus sat in the synagogue in his usual place. The Jews poured in,\n  each man and woman making lonely reverence toward the ark. . . , The\n  service began with the prayer of sweet incense, after which the\n  congregation, the batlanim leading, sang Psalms of David; when these\n  were sung, the chazzan, going up to the ark, drew aside the veil and\n  took out the sacred roll, which he carried round the aisles to the\n  reader of the day, who raised it in his hands, so that all who were\n  present could see the sacred text. Then the whole congregation rose.\n  . . . Opening the scroll, the reader read out the section or chapter\n  for the day. . . . When the lesson was finished the chazzan took the\n  scroll from the reader and carried it back to its place behind the\n  veil. Then when the roll was restored to the ark, they sang other\n  psalms, after which the elder delivered the midrash, an exposition\n  of the text which had been read. The time now being come to question\n  and be question, all eyes turned on the Teacher who had fed the\n  5,000 men. . . . Their questions were Sharp and loud:\n\n  \"'Rabbi, when camest thou hither?'\n\n  \"'Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye ask me not because ye saw the\n  miracles, but because ye ate of the loaves and were filled. Labor\n  not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth\n  unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for\n  him hath God the Father sealed.\"\n\n  \"Then they asked him:\n\n  \"'What must we do that we may work the works of God?'\n\n  \"To which he answered, with a second public declaration, that he was\n  Christ the Son of God:\n\n  \"'This is the word of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath\n  sent.'\n\n  \"'What sign showest thou that we may see and believe thee! What dost\n  thou work?'\n\n  \"Full of the great act which many witnesses declared that they had\n  seen in the desert beyond the lake, they wished to have it repeated\n  before their eyes; so they said to him:\n\n  \"'Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, as it is written, he\n  gave them bread from heaven to eat.'\n\n  \"Jesus took up their thought.\n\n  \"'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the bread from\n  heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the\n  bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven and giveth life\n  unto the world.'\n\n  \"'Rabbi, evermore give us this bread.'\n\n  \"Jesus answered them:\n\n  \"' I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall not hunger,\n  and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. . . . . . For I am\n  come down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him\n  that sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose\n  nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. '. . .\n\n  \"The elders, the batlanim, the chazzan gazed into each other's\n  faces, and began to murmur against him, just as the men of Nazareth\n  had murmured against him.\n\n  \"'Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we\n  know? How is it, then, that he saith, I am come down from heaven?\"\n\n  \"Jesus spoke to them again:\n\n  \"Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the\n  Father which sent me draw him; and I will raise him up the last. . . .\n  I am the bread of life. . . . . I am the living bread which came\n  down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live\n  forever; yea, and the bread that I will give you is my flesh, which\n  I will give for the life of the world.'\n\n  \"Strange doctrines for Jews to weigh. Then leapt hot words among\n  them, and some of those who had meant to believe in him drew back.\n  If he were the Christ, the Son of David, the King of Israel, why was\n  he not marching on Jerusalem, why not driving out the Romans, why\n  not assuming a kingly crown? 'How can this Man give us his flesh to\n  eat?'\n\n  \"The Lord spoke again, still more to their discontent and chagrin,\n  seeing that they wanted an earthly Christ:\n\n  \"'Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,\n  ye have no life in you.'\n\n  \"This was too much for many, even for some who had been brought to\n  the door of belief. . . . . The service of the synagogue ended, the\n  elders came down from the platform, the chazzan put away the sacred\n  vessels, the congregation came out into the sun, angry in word and\n  mocking spirit. They wanted facts; he had given them truth. They\n  hungered for miraculous bread, for a new shower of manna; he had\n  offered them symbolically his flesh and blood. They had set their\n  hearts on finding a captain who would march against the Romans, who\n  would would cause Judas of Gamala to be forgotten, who would put the\n  glories of Herod the Great to shame. They had asked him for earth,\n  and he had answered them with heaven.\"\n\n{511}\n\nBut the scene was drawing to a close; Jesus went on with his work\nafter this tumult in the synagogue, opposing himself to the senseless\nrites of the Pharisees, defying the oral law, healing the sick, and\npreaching to the people. Passing through the country from Galilee a\nSyro-Phenecian woman who had heard of him, and perhaps seen him, ran\nafter him in the road, and besought him to heal her daughter who was a\nlunatic. The disciples urged him to send her away, for his life would\nnot have been safe if he had another conflict with the Jews in that\nquarter, and to heal this Gentile woman's child would be sure to bring\nthem on his track. Turning to the woman, Jesus told her he was sent\nonly to the lost sheep of Israel; but she persisted, crying, \"Lord,\nhelp me!\" an evidence of faith which was quite sufficient, and Jesus\nturned to her and said, \"Great is thy faith, O woman, be it unto thee\nas thou wilt.\" This was a fatal blow to the Jewish exclusiveness, a\nGentile had been called into the church, and the pride of the Jew\nhumbled forever. On the last Sabbath day which Jesus spent on earth,\nhe struck another blow at the ceremonial law, by taking his disciples\nto dine at the house of one Simon a leper. He had reached Bethany, and\ntaken up his abode in the house of Martha and Mary, among the outcast\nand the poor, for that last seven days now called in the church the\nholy week. The scene was an impressive one. The city, as far as the\neye could reach, was one vast encampment, caravans were arriving from\nevery direction, bringing thousands of Jews to the feast, who,\nselecting their ground, drove four stakes into the earth, drew long\nreeds round them, and covered them with leaves, making a sort of\nbower; others brought small tents with them; the whole city, Mount\nGibeon, the plain of Rephaim, the valley of Gihon, the hill of Olivet,\nwere all studded with tense, and crowded with busy people hastening to\nfinish their preparations before the shofa should sound at sunset, and\nthe Sabbath begin, when no man could work. In the temple, the priests,\nthe doctors, the money-changers, the bakers of shew-bread, were all at\nwork, and the last panorama in the life of Christ commenced.\n\nOn the first day in Holy Week, now known as Palm _Sunday_, Jesus\nentered Jerusalem on an ass's colt, a prominent figure in the\nfestivities, for the crowds rushed up see him, with their palms, and\nmarched with him singing psalms; they had come out from Jerusalem to\nmeet him, and they escorted him into the city. At night he returned to\nBethany.\n\nOn the _Monday_ and _Tuesday_ he went early to the temple, mixing\namong the people, restoring sight to the blind, and preaching to the\npoor. As his life began with a series of temptations, so it was the\nwill of his Father that he should be persecuted with them at its\nclose--a lesson we may all do well to dwell upon. Up to the last days\nof his life Jesus was subjected to temptations. On the Tuesday some\nemissaries of the Sanhedrim came to the court where he was preaching\nto question him, and gather evidence against him. They found him\namongst a crowd of Baptists, and demanded his authority for teaching.\nChrist retorted by putting them to the dilemma of stating whether\nJohn's baptism was of heaven or not; they were too much afraid of the\npeople to say it was of men, and if they said of heaven, Jesus would\nhave reproached them for their want of faith; they confessed their\nignorance. Then each party tried to entrap him.\n\nThe _Pharisees_ brought him a woman taken in adultery. By the Mosaic\nlaw this offence would have been punished with death. But the Roman\ngovernment would have executed any Jew who would venture to carry out\nsuch a law, and therefore the question seemed to compel Jesus to speak\neither against Moses or the Romans. He quietly turned to the\nwitnesses, and told the man who was {512} innocent among them to cast\nthe first stone at her.\n\nThe _Herodians_ tempted him on a point of tribute. They had two taxes,\none to God and one to Caesar, both were disputed, and they consulted\nhim in order to involve him with God or Caesar; but he foiled them by\nconfirming both:\n\n  \"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the\n  things that are God's.\"\n\nThey began to be astonished.\n\nThe _Sadducees_ tempted him with their dogma of the non-resurrection.\nThey told him sneeringly of a woman who had married seven husbands,\nand they wanted to know whose she would be in the life to come. Jesus\nreplied calmly:\n\n  \"In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,\n  but are as the angels in heaven.\"\n\nAnd the Sadducees with their philosophy, their learning, and their\nunbelief, retired in confusion.\n\nOn the _Wednesday_ he remained in Bethany in seclusion, while Judas\nwas arranging for his safe betrayal to Annas and the nobles.\n\n_Thursday_ Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem to prepare the\nPassover, and at sunset that day he and the twelve sat down to the\nlast supper; Judas left to see Annas, and after singing a hymn, the\nother disciples rose from the table, passed through the sheep-gate\ninto the Cedron valley, and came to Gethsemane. Here Jesus withdrew,\nand while his disciples were sleeping, he watched and prayed until the\nbetrayers came, and the kiss of Judas revealed him to them. The\nSanhedrim was summoned in the dead of the night, and when the members\narrived they found Annas examining witnesses, but with no avail, they\ncould not substantiate any charge against him that the Roman\ngovernment would allow them to punish with death. Annas told him to\nspeak for himself, but he would not. The high priest then said, \"Art\nthou the Christ?\" he said, \"I am.\"  Then Annas asked him who were his\ndisciples, and Jesus replied: \"I spake openly to the world, I taught\nin the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews resort, in secret\nI have said nothing; ask them which heard me, they know what I have\nsaid.\" The officer of the temple smote him, and Annas ordered him to\nbe bound with cords, and when it was day they went in a body to the\npalace of Caiaphas. Here Jesus was questioned again, and answered that\nhe was the Christ, the high priest rent his clothes, in sign that it\nwas blasphemy and worthy of death. The Sanhedrim pronounced him\nguilty, and the officers carried him to the Praetorian gates and\ndelivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards. The\nvacillation of Pilate and the last scene in our Lord's career are\nknown to all. Mr. Dixon leaves them with the observation, \"They form a\ndivine episode in the history of man, and must be left to the writers\nwho could not err.\"\n\nA good book is its own best eulogy, and we may safely leave this of\nMr. Dixon's to itself; but we cannot refrain from testifying our\nappreciation of such a valuable addition to the records of eastern\ntravel. It is superfluous to say that it is excellently written, as it\nemanates from the 10, not of a tyro, but of a master-craftsman, whose\nstyle is too well known to need eulogy, a style graphic, pointed, and\nimpressive, the result of clear vision and accurate delineation,\nstrengthened by a sort of Frith-like power of grouping as witness the\ndescription of the street life of Jaffa, which, as an exquisite piece\nof word-painting, is perfect.\n\nThe reader is led through the sacred scenes of the Holy Land by an\nartist as well as a scholar, who as he journeys on revives the life of\nthe past; we see the patriarchal life, the tents, the flocks grazing\non the hills, the ready-writer with his and lingering and the city\ngate. We here David's minstrelsy and the tramp of Maccabaean\nsoldierly; we peer into the depths of {513} one of those ancient wells\nbuild by the patriarchs, and listen to the conversation of the\nSamaritan woman with that wonderful stranger; we linger at the wayside\nKhan, and see how natural is the tale of the gospel. As we near\nJerusalem the grander figures of the panorama pass over the scene, the\nHerods in their luxury and pride, in their humiliation and their sins,\nthe grim towers of Macherus and the dark deed behind its walls when\nthe head of the messenger of God fell to please a wanton woman, and\nterror was struck into the heart of the tyrant; the splendid\nceremonial service of the temple, with its altars, its sacrifices, and\nits robed priests; the Sadducees luxuriating in their palaces, with\nservants, carriages, gardens, living their voluptuous, godless lives;\nthe Pharisees with their demure aspect, broad and multiplied\nphylacteries; the elements of Roman soldiery, the imperial eagles\nhovering over the scene as the Jews past by scowling at the pagan\nrulers of the holy city; and then that marvellous god-like figure\nwandering about the streets followed by crowds of people, now entering\nthe temple courts to preach to them, and now stopping on his way to\nheal some lame man or leper; his wanderings' along the wearying roads\nof Galilee; his mingling with the people in the synagogues, the\npopular gathering-place; his taking part in the service and reading\nthe Scriptures; his final coming up to the holy city, the betrayal,\nthis scenes of his trial, the frantic eagerness of the Jews, the\nvacillation of Pilate, the terrible suspense and the ultimate triumph\nof his foes, all these and many more incidents of biblical and gospel\nhistory are revived and enacted, as it were, amid the very scenes and\nin the very places where they once took place. We repeat again, that\nthis work is an excellent commentary and illustration of the gospel\nnarrative; and though pen of its author has been nobly wielded in the\ncontroversial defence of that gospel, yet perhaps even greater good\nmay be done by this exhibition and illustration of the life and work\nof Christ. To hold him up to the eyes of men is the best antidote to\nscepticism; and whatever tends to do that, to plant the image of\nChrist in the hearts of men, is a good work; the illustration of his\nindividuality, standing out as he did in his times, and as he does in\nevery time, distinct from all men and things. We take up the great\nwork of any age, its characteristic achievement, and we find the\nimpress of the age stamped indelibly upon it; it smacks of the time\nand the scenes. Homer is pervaded with the valor of a mythic heroism,\nbloodshed and victory. Dante is the very best reflection of\nmediaevalism--its deep, superstitious piety, its weird dreams, and its\npeculiar theology. Shakespeare, though he has written with spotless\npurity, yet bears traces of the tolerated licentiousness of the\nElizabethan age. But Christ and his gospel stand out distinct, totally\ndistinct from the times and the life when they appeared. That gospel\ncould not have been produced by the age, for it was an antagonism to\nit; the age was a degenerate one, a mixture of formal ceremony, and\nlicentious unbelief; paganism was waning; Rome becoming debased; the\nancient traditions of the Jews were lost in human inventions and\nRabbinical fantasies, when, rising up in the midst of all this\ndebasement, this corruption, these anomalies, came Christ and his\ngospel, pure among rottenness, gentle in the midst of violence, holy\namong flagrant infidelity and wanton vice, the Preacher and the\npreaching both sent from somewhere, but manifestly not from the world,\nnot from oriental barbarism, not from western paganism, not from\nJewish corruption; it could then have come from no other place than\nheaven, and had no other author than God. And when we reflect upon\nwhat was compressed in that three years' labor, and compare it with\nsystems which have occupied men's lives to sketch out merely, and\ntaken {514} ages to perfect; when we see that this greatest system,\nwhich has spread over the whole civilized world by the force of its\nown truth, was in three short years laid down and consolidated, every\nprinciple defined, every rule established, every law delineated, and\nan impetus given to it by its great Master, which has always kept it\nadvancing in the world against every opposing force, and in spite of\nevery disadvantageous circumstance, all doubt about its individuality,\nits superhuman character, and its divine origin, must vanish from the\nmind. Therefore we think, in conclusion. that the best thing for\nChristians still to do in this world is, to lift up Christ before the\neyes of men, no matter how, so that he be listed up boldly and\nfaithfully, be it by the voice, the pencil, or the pen (as in this\ninstance before us), or, better still by the more impressive\nexhibition of Christ in a Christian life. If we wish to save men, let\nus display him always and everywhere in the confidence that he will\nfulfil his own divine promise--\"I, if I be lifted up from the earth,\nwill draw all men unto me.\"\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nON THE APPARITION OF OUR LORD TO THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS.\n\n\n  \"Whilst he was at table with them,\n  he took bread, and blessed, and brake, and gave to them.\n  And their eyes were opened, and they knew him.\"\n\n\nDISCIPLE.\n\n  \"Lord! grant to thy servant this singular grace,\n  To gaze but for once on thy beautiful face.\"\n\nJESUS.\n\n  \"Most easily may'st thou this blessing secure:\n    Who gives unto mine, unto me gives instead.\n  Of thy loaf give a part to my suffering poor,\n    And thy Lord thou shalt see at the breaking of bread.\"\n\n--------\n\n{515}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nLITTLE SUNBEAM'S CHRISTMAS STORY.\n\n\nGod bless you, kind gentlemen, for your merry Christmas, and thank you\nkindly for these nice things; but you must not be angry if I say I'm\nalmost sorry it is Christmas day, for you see it makes me think about\nlast Christmas and the Christmas before.\n\nI am Mr. Willsup's little girl--Mr. Willsup that is dead, you know. I\nsuppose you think I ought to wear black; and so I would, but mother\nsays we are too poor, and we must only mourn in our hearts. I do mourn\nin my heart, oh! so much, I can't tell you. I don't like to\nacknowledge it, and it gives me an ugly pain and a dreadful sinking\nabout my heart when I think of it, but it was on a Christmas night\nthat we lost poor father, and I'm afraid he wasn't right, you\nunderstand, at the time.\n\nThere was a time when father was such a nice, good man, and when we\nweren't poor, as we are now. We didn't always live up in this cold,\nbare garret. We used to live in a fine, large house, all to ourselves;\nand we had a nice garden in front, full of pretty flowers, and a long\nback porch with a buying running over it; and we had a beautiful\nparlor where we talked to the visitors only--not to sleep in and cook\nin as we do here, when we have any fire; and I had the cosiest little\nbedroom you ever saw, with a little altar in the corner, and on it a\nstatue of the Blessed Virgin, white as snow; and Chip, that's a\ncanary-bird, hung in his cage in the window when it was fine weather,\nand cat sugar like a good fellow; and then we had silver forks and\nspoons; and Zephyr, that's the horse, and Dash, our dog, and Pussy,\nand oh! so many nice things, I never could tell you all in a long\ntime. But we haven't got any of them now, for we are poor, and\nfather's dead, and we must only mourn in our hearts.\n\nI hardly know how to tell you all about it, for though I am little\nI've seen a good deal; so much bad and trouble that my mind goes quite\nround and round sometimes thinking over it. If you ever saw poor\nfather after we got to be poor, that wouldn't tell you how he looked\nas I recollect him. Oh! he was so much changed! I used to be so proud\nof him, and delighted to go out to walk with him in the street or\nacross the fields; and I used to love him so much--not that I didn't\nalways love him just as much as ever, only I didn't get so much chance\nto love him, you understand, when he got to stay away from home and\nbe--oh! my heart, how it aches!\n\nFather was a handsome-looking man once, and so smart. Everybody bowed\nto him in the street. But he got rough and careless, I know, and it\nmade me feel sorry to see him go out without brushing his hat, or\nasking me to do it for him, as he used to do. And then his face turned\nto such a different look from old times. It got puffed up and red, and\nhis eyes that I remember were so bright and so deep, for I used to\nclimb up on his knee often, and look 'way down into them, and then he\nwould laugh and ask me if I could see his thoughts, and I almost\nfancied I could sometimes, and give me a sweet kiss, and call me his\ndarling Susy; but when he changed, you know, his eyes seemed to be,\nhow shall I say it? so flat and soft, and he never seemed to be\nlooking anywhere in particular half the time.\n\n{516}\n\nYou see it was business and appointments that changed him. When I\nwished him to stay home and we would all enjoy ourselves--for we had\nthe pleasantest times together, father, mother, and me, and baby,\nthat's dead; and perhaps Dash and Pussy too sometimes, you know--then\nhe would be obliged to excuse himself on account of business and\nappointments, which I fear were not always with the best of people,\nfor when he said he was going out mother would sigh _so_ deep and _so_\nlong; and then when he came home late at night I often woke up and\nheard mother coaxing him and soothing him, and I am sure frequently\ncrying and sobbing, and that would make me cry too, all alone by\nmyself; and so the time went on, till father began to take less and\nless notice of either mother or of me. As for dear little baby, even\nwhen she sickened and died, I don't think he seemed to understand it,\nand he stood by the grave and looked at the little coffin being let\ndown as if he were dreaming.\n\nIt was not long before father left off doing almost any business in\nthe daytime, and only went out at night. I noticed then that we began\nto sell some of our nice furniture, and our silver forks and spoons. I\nsuppose, as we scarcely ever had any visitors now, we did not need\nthem; but the house began to look bare and desolate and strange, as if\nit wasn't our house; and the servant quarrelled with mother and left\nus, and we didn't get another, but mother did the work herself, and it\nmade her sick, for she wasn't used to it. Sam, our man, went away,\nbecause after the horse and carriage was sold he had nothing to do. I\nrecollect hearing him say to mother:\n\n\"I'd stand by you and Susy, miss, as I've always stood by you, and\nit's not wages, but times is changed, and I know you ain't able to\nhave me.\" And then he pulled his hat down over his eyes so far that he\nhad to lift it up again before he could see his way out of the front\ndoor; and then ran across the garden and down the street, as if he\nwere running away from somebody. I cried a good deal when mother told\nme he was not going to come back, for I loved Sam very much, and I'm\nnot I ashamed of if either, though Pinkey Silver said I ought to be,\nfor he was just like a brother to me, and a better brother than Pinkey\nSilver's brother ever was.\n\nOnce, on a Christmas eve, I was going to hang up my stocking, as I had\nalways done, for good Santa Claus to put something in it, when mother\nburst out into such a violent fit of crying that I was afraid she\nwould die. When she could speak to me she wanted me to let Santa Claus\ngo to some other children this year; but I determined to give him a\nchance to leave me, say, a doll, if he happened to have one left over,\nand so I slipped down-stairs in my night-gown, after mother had gone\nto her room, and hung my stocking up in the old place. Just as I had\ndone it, father came staggering in. He was very bad, and fell over\nseveral things. The noise brought mother down-stairs, and father\nlooking at me said so savagely that it sent all the blood to my heart:\n\n\"What devilish nonsense is the girl about?\"\n\n\"Oh! don't blame the child,\" said mother, turning pale and getting\nbetween him and me. \"You know it is Christmas eve, John.\"\n\nThen he swore many awful oaths, and said he didn't care for Christmas,\nand that he was not going to be taunted with his poverty by his own\nchildren, and went stamping around the room in a furious passion.\nMother went up to him to coax him, and put her arms around his neck;\nbut he threw her off and knocked her down and, though you mayn't\nbelieve it, he actually lifted up his foot and stamped upon her face.\nThat is why mother looks so bad now, with those great scars, but she\nwas very beautiful before that, as everybody knows. When mother fell,\nDash sprang up from the hearth where he lay curled up, and barked at\nfather.\n\n{517}\n\n\"They've all turned against me,\" said he, \"even the dog. But I'll\nbrain _you_\", says he to Dash.\n\nWhen I saw mother trying to get up, with the blood all streaming down\nher dress from her face and mouth, I got faint, and don't recollect\nany more until I woke up, it must have been noon next day, with a\ndreadful headache. I crept out of bed and went into the hall, and\nthere I heard people talking down in the parlor. It was mother, Mrs.\nThrifty, our next-door neighbor, and the doctor. The doctor and Mrs.\nThrifty were trying to persuade mother to do something, but she kept\nsaying, \"Never! I couldn't--poor John!\" and words like that.\n\nSuch terrible things had taken place and put my mind so astray that I\nquite forgot I shouldn't listen; but I soon remembered it, and went\naway. I wondered where father was, and thought I would look in his\nroom to see if he was there. In the old times, before father changed,\nI used to be let come in, bright and early, to his room, and climb up\non a chair and kiss him before he got up; and he used to call me his\n\"Little Sunbeam\" that came creeping in to say it was day. There he was\nnow, lying on the bed without taking off his clothes or muddy boots,\nin a deep, heavy sleep. I did so want to love him, but I was afraid to\nwake him up to tell him so, he looked so frightful, gnashing his teeth\nin his dreams. But I thought I might be \"Little Sunbeam\" once more,\neven if he didn't know it, and I got a chair and climbed up and\nreached my arm over round his neck and gave him a kiss. It did not\nseem like father's face, but I suppose I had forgotten, it was so long\nsince I kissed him before. Poor father! I began to mourn in my heart\nfor him then, as mother says we must do now. I was afraid to stay\nthere, but before I went away I knelt down beside the bed and prayed\nthe Blessed Virgin to ask God to make him a good man again, and make\nhim give up drinking, and make mother well, and let me be his \"Little\nSunbeam\" as before. Then I slipped back to my room and dressed myself,\nand mother came up-stairs with her face all bandaged up, and she told\nme not to say anything to anybody about the last night.\n\nThat Christmas day wasn't like any Christmas day I can ever recollect.\nI didn't find any toys from Santa Claus in my stocking. We didn't go\nto mass, nor to see the little Jesus in the Crib, nor to hear the\nchildren sing around it. Nor we didn't have any plum pudding; and when\nI went out on the back porch--oh! dear, how my heart does ache--there\nlay poor old Dash, with his head split open, and quite dead.\n\nYou see I had so many things happen that I don't recollect how things\nturned out, except that mother and I left our house one day, because\nwe got poor, mother said, and then we came here, and she says we are\nnever to go back because our house is sold to strangers, to whom\nfather was in debt. Pinkey Silver told me that the man who keeps the\ngrog-shop where poor father was stabbed owns it now. And I must tell\nyou about that.\n\nIt was the next Christmas day after the last one I told you about. We\nhad nothing to eat all day. Toward evening mother told me to go to\nMrs. Thrifty's and ask her to please lend us a loaf of bread. Mrs.\nThrifty was gone to a party, and so I had to wait until near nine\no'clock, when George Thrifty, that's Mrs. Thrifty's son, came in\nlaughing and singing:\n\n  \"Hie for merry Christmas!\n  Ho for merry Christmas!\n  Hurrah! for Christmas day!\"\n\nAs soon as I told him what I wanted he ran and got a loaf of bread and\na pie and some cakes, and gave it all to me; and then he put his hand\nin his pocket and turned it inside out, but there wasn't anything in\nit, and says he:\n\n  \"Oh! little one, I'm as sorry as if I'd lost my grandmother; but I\n  wish I hadn't spent all my Christmas, for I'd like to give you some\n  money.\"\n\n{518}\n\nI thanked him very much and came away. As I was coming home I passed\nthe grog-shop I spoke to you about. I heard loud, angry quarrelling\nand scuffling going on, and father's voice was among the rest. I was\nafraid to go away, for I did not like to leave father there to get\nhurt, and thought I had better go in and persuade him to come home\nwith me. I had no sooner put my head in the door than the then who\nkeeps the store told me to \"be off, that he didn't want any beggars\naround his place.\"\n\n\"I don't want to beg,\" said I, \"I want father,\" and just as I said\nthat I saw a knife flash in the gaslight, and then--O my poor,\nmourning heart!--poor father staggered and reeled toward me, and as\nhe saw me he cried out:\n\n\"Why, is it you, Little Sunbeam! O my God!\" and then he fell down\nacross the sill of the door, at my feet, dead.\n\nYou see, dear, good gentlemen, you must not be angry if I'm almost\nsorry it is Christmas. I know everybody ought to be happy when\nChristmas comes; and I saw a good many little boys and girls to-day as\nhappy as I used to be, for I've been watching them through a little\npeep hole I scratched on the frosty window-pane, and it didn't seem\nreal that they should be down there so happy, wishing each other\n\"Merry Christmas,\" and I up here all alone, mourning in my heart. But\nyou see what has done it all.\n\nDo you think, dear, good gentlemen, that there are any other \"Little\nSunbeams\" like me? Do you think there are any fathers that are\nchanging like mine? Oh! please do run and tell them quick to stop and\nchange back again, or they will get poor like mother and me, and have\nto live up in a cold, bare garret, and Santa Claus won't come down the\nchimney on Christmas eve, because their children won't have any\nstockings to hang up, and they will feel so hungry and so cold in the\nnight. Oh! I could tell them, and mother could tell them, as she tells\nme, that drink brings a black curse on a family, and that God is angry\nwhen he hears the drunkard's children crying for bread. I don't like\nto cry when I think of that, but I couldn't help it this morning\nbecause it is Christmas day.\n\nIt's all over now, I do so wish that mother was here to say thank ye\nfor all those nice things, but she won't be home till night, for she's\ngone over to Mrs. Nabob's to work, where they are to have a great\nparty. But when she comes back I'll tell her all about it, and when we\nsay our prayers to-night we'll ask God to bless the good, kind\ngentleman who thought about coming here to wish us a Merry Christmas.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nCHRISTIAN CHARITY.\n\n\"As long as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it\nunto Me.\"\n\n\n  There is a secret chamber in my breast\n    Of which my Jesus hath sole custody\n  But if my neighbor willeth there to rest,\n    Then Jesus kindly lendeth him the key.\n\n------\n\n{519}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nPROBLEMS OF THE AGE.\n\n\n\nXI.\n\nTHE ORIGINAL STATE OF THE FIRST PARENTS OF MANKIND--THE RELATION OF\nADAM TO HIS POSTERITY--THE FALL OF MAN--ORIGINAL SIN.\n\n\nThe grand theatre of probation is this earth, and its chief subject\nthe human race. The probation of the angels was completed almost\ninstantaneously, and their transit to an immutable state followed\nalmost immediately on their creation. The probation of the human race\nis long and complicated, diversified and extensive; and by it the most\nmagnificent exhibition is made of the principle of merit. It has also\nthis peculiarity that mankind were created, not merely as individuals,\neach with his distinct probation, but also as a race; and that the\nwhole race had a probation at its origin, in the person of its\nprogenitor. It is our present task to unfold the Catholic doctrine\nconcerning the nature and results of this original probation of the\ncollective human race in the first epoch of its creation.\n\nThe Catholic doctrine teaches, in the first place, that the entire\nhuman race, at present inhabiting the globe, is one; not merely in\nbeing conformed to one archetype, but also in being descended by\ngeneration from one common progenitor, that is, from Adam.\n\nThat this is distinctly affirmed in the book of Genesis, which the\nCatholic Church receives as a portion of the inspired Scripture,\naccording to the obvious and literal sense of the words, is not\nquestioned by any one. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that\nthis obvious and literal sense is proposed by the authority of the\nCatholic Church as the true sense. That is, that it is an essential\nportion of Catholic doctrine, that God created at first one pair of\nhuman beings, Adam and Eve, from whom all mankind are descended.\n\nIt seems evident enough that the archaic records, in which the history\nof the creation of man is contained, were understood in this sense by\nthose who transmitted them from the beginning of human history, and\nwho first committed them to writing; and by Moses, who incorporated\nthem into the book of Genesis. This was the traditional sense\nuniversally received among the Jews, as is manifest from all the\nmonuments of tradition. It is also the sense which is reaffirmed in\nthe other sacred and canonical books which follow those of Moses,\nwherever they allude to the subject. For instance: \"Who knoweth if the\nspirit of the _children of Adam_ ascend upward.\"  [Footnote 154] \"Seth\nand Sem obtained glory among men: _and above every soul, Adam in the\nbeginning_,\"  [Footnote 155]\n\n  [Footnote 154: Eccles. iii. 21.]\n\n  [Footnote 155: Eccles. xlix. 19.]\n\nThe similar traditions of heathen nations are well known. The Sacred\nwriters of the New Testament use the same explicit language. The\ngenealogy of Jesus in St. Luke's gospel closes thus: \"Who was of\nHenos, who was of Seth, _who was of Adam, who was of God_.\" St. Paul\naffirms repeatedly and emphatically: \"By _one man_ sin entered into\nthis world, and by sin death:\" \"by _the offence of one_ many have\ndied:\" \"the judgment indeed was _by one_ unto condemnation:\" \"by _one\nman's offence_ death reigned through one:\" \"by the offence of _one_,\nunto _all men_ to condemnation:\" \"for as _by the disobedience of one\nman, many were made sinners;_ {520} so also, by the obedience of one,\nmany shall be made just.\"  [Footnote 156] These passages are plainly\ndogmatic, and teach the relation of all men to Adam, as an essential\nportion of the dogma of original sin. The whole force of the parallel\nbetween Adam and Christ depends, also, on the individual personality\nof the former, and his relation to all mankind without exception, as\ntheir head and representative. The same parallel reappears in another\nepistle: \"For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of\nthe dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made\nalive.\" \"_The first man Adam_ was made a living soul; the last Adam a\nquickening spirit. But not first that which is spiritual, but that\nwhich is animal; afterward that which is spiritual. The first man was\nof the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. Such as\nis the earthly, such also are the earthly; and such as is the\nheavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore as we have\nborne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the\nheavenly.\"  [Footnote 157]\n\n  [Footnote 156: St. Luke iii, 38.  Rom. v. 12-19.]\n\n  [Footnote 157: I Cor. xv. 21, 22, 35-49.]\n\nThese passages all present the fact of the original creation of\nmankind in one pair from whom all men are descended in an intimate and\nessential relation with Christian doctrine, especially with the dogma\nof original sin. It is, therefore, necessary to regard it as a\ndogmatic fact, or a fact pertaining to the essence of the revealed\ntruth, which the sacred writers taught with infallibility under the\ninfluence of divine inspiration. So it has been always regarded in the\nchurch, and is now held by the unanimous consent of theologians. It is\nalso incorporated into the solemn definitions of faith.\n\nThe canons of the second council of Milevis, and of the plenary\ncouncil of Carthage, A.D. 418, against the Pelagians, contain the\nfollowing definitions:\n\n_Can_. 1. Placuit, ut quicunqae dicit, _Adam primum hominem_ mortalem\nfactum, ita, ut sive peccaret, sive non peccaret, moreretur in\ncorpore, hoc est de corpore exiret, non peccati merito, sed\nnecessitate naturae, anathema sit.\n\n_Can_. 2. Item placuit, ut quicumque parvulos recentes ab uteris\nmatrum baptizandos negat, aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum\neos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod\nregenerationis lavacro expietur, unde sit consequens, ut in eis forma\nbaptismatis in remissionem peccatorum non vera, sed falsa\nintelligatur, anathema sit: quoniam non aliter intelligendum est quod\nait Apostolus: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per\npeccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes\npeccaverunt: nisi quemadmodum ecclesia catholica ubique diffusa semper\nintellexit.\n\n\"_Can_. 1. It was decreed, that whoever says that _Adam, the first\nman_, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he\nshould die in the body, that is, depart from the body, not by the\nmerit of sin, but by the necessity of nature, should be under the ban.\n\n\"_Can_. 2. It was also decreed, that whosoever denies that new-born\ninfants are to be baptized, or says that they are to be indeed\nbaptized for the remission of since, but derive no original sin _from\nAdam_, which can be expiated in the laver of regeneration whence it\nfollows that in them the form of baptism is understood to be not true,\nbut false, should be under the ban; since that is not otherwise to be\nunderstood which the apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the\nworld, and death by sin, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all\nhave sinned;' _except as the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has\nalways understood it_.\"\n\nThese canons, although not in active by ecumenical councils, were\nnevertheless approved by Popes Innocent I. and Zosimus, by them\npromulgated to the universal church and ratified by {521} the consent\nof the whole body of bishops; so that they are justly included among\nthe final and irreversible decisions of the Catholic Church. The\nsecond of these canons was also reenacted by the Council of Trent,\nwhich defined in the clearest terms the dogma of original sin as\nderived from the sin of Adam, the head of the human race.\n\n1. Si quis non confitetur, _primum hominem Adam_, mandatum Dei in\nparadiso fuisset transgressus, statim sanctitatem, etc., amisisse: A.\nS.\n\n2. Si quis Adae prevaricationem sibi soli, non ejus propagini, asserit\nnocuisse . . . . aut inquinatum illum per inobedientiae peccatum,\nmortem et poenas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum transfudisse,\nnon autem et peccatum, quod est mors animae: A. S. cum contradicit\nApostolo dicenti: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, etc.\n\n3. Si quis _hoc Adae peccatum, quod origine unum est_, et\npropagatione, non imitatione, _transfusum omnibus_, inest cuique\nproprium . . . . per aliud remedium asserit tolli, etc.: A. S.\n\n\"1. If any one does not confess that _the first man Adam_, when he had\ntransgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost\nsanctity, etc., let him be under the ban.\n\n\"2. If any one asserts that the prevarication of Adam injured himself\nalone, and not his posterity . . . . or that he, being defiled by the\nsin of disobedience, transmitted death and the pains of the body only\nto the whole human race, but not also sin, which is the death of the\nsoul, let him be under the ban: since he contradicts the apostle, who\nsays: By one man sin entered into the world, etc.\n\n\"3. If any one asserts that this sin of Adam, which in origin is one,\nand being transferred into all by propagation, not by imitation,\nexists in each one as his own . . . . is taken away by any other\nremedy, etc, let him be under the ban.\"\n\nAll these decrees affirm positively that the whole human race without\nexception are involved in one common original sin, springing from one\ntransgression committed by the first man Adam, and transmitted from\nhim by generation. The dogma of original sin rests, therefore, on the\nfact that all mankind are descended from one first man Adam, and is\nsubverted, if this fact is denied. An allegorical interpretation of\nthe sacred history of Genesis, according to which Adam and Eve are\ntaken to symbolize the progenitors of several distinct human species,\ncannot be admitted as tenable, in accordance with the Catholic faith.\nFor, in this hypothesis, the different human races had each a distinct\nprobation, a separate destiny, a separate fall, and are therefore not\ninvolved in one common original sin, but each one in the sin of its\nown progenitor. This doctrine of original sin, namely, that a number\nof Adams sinned, and that each one transmitted his sin to his own\nprogeny, so that every man is born in an original sin derived from\nsome one of the various primeval men, is essentially different from\nthe Catholic doctrine as clearly taught by Scripture and tradition,\nand defined by the authority of the church. Moreover, the unity and\nindividuality of Adam, as the sole progenitor of the human race, is\ndistinctly affirmed in the decrees just cited, and in all the\nsubsequent decrees concerning the primitive state of man which have\nemanated from the Holy See, and are received by the universal church.\nWe must consider, therefore, the doctrine of the unity of the human\nrace as pertaining to the faith. Perrone affirms this, in these words:\n\"Prop. II. Universum humanum genus ab Adam omnium protoparente\npropagatium est. Haec propositio spectat ad fidem; huic enim innititur\ndogma de propagatione peccati originalis.\" \"The entire human race has\nbeen propagated from Adam the first parent of all. This proposition\npertains to faith; for upon it rests the dogma of the propagation of\noriginal sin.\"  [Footnote 158]\n\n  [Footnote 158: Perrone, Prael. Theil. De Him. Creat.]\n\n{522}\n\nBishop Lynch, of Charleston, who is not only one of the most learned\nof our theologians, but a man profoundly versed in the physical\nsciences, in a very able and interesting lecture recently delivered in\nNew York, thus speaks on this matter:\n\n\"Some nowadays, disregarding all that Holy Scripture teaches us\nconcerning the origin of man, or treating it as a myth and fable,\nreferring at most only to the Caucasian race, pretend that America had\nher own special Adam and Eve, or, as they think more probable, quite a\nnumber of them contemporaneously or successively in different\nlocalities.\n\n\"I shall not here undertake to discuss this last opinion, _ventured\ncertainly against the teachings of divine revelation_, and, as I\nconceive, no less against the soundest principles of philosophy, of\ncomparative anatomy, of philology, and of natural history. I will\nassume it as an established and accepted truth, that God made all\nnations of one blood.\"   [Footnote 159]\n\n  [Footnote 159: Lecture by the Rt. Rev. P. N. Lynch, D.D., on America\n  before Columbus. Reported in the New York Tablet.]\n\nThe only point we have been endeavoring to make, that the doctrine of\nthe unity of the race pertains to essential Catholic doctrine, is, we\nthink, fairly made. The scientific refutation of the contrary\nhypothesis is a work most desirable, in our opinion, but one requiring\na degree of scientific knowledge which the author does not possess. It\nis a work, also, which could be accomplished only by an extensive\ntreatise. The judgment of the distinguished author just cited may be\ntaken, however, as a summing up of the verdict of a great body of\nscientific men, given on scientific grounds, in favor of the doctrine\nof the unity of the race. The contrary doctrine is mere hypothesis,\nwhich no man can possibly pretend to demonstrate. It cannot,\ntherefore, be brought out to oppose the revealed Catholic doctrine.\nHypothesis even when supported by a certain amount of scientific\nprobability, is not science. Real science is indubitably certain.\nThere cannot, therefore, ever arise a real contradiction between\nscience and revelation. Science will never contradict revelation, and\nrevelation does not contradict any part of science which is already\nknown or ever will become known. We are not, however, to hold our\nbelief in revealed truths in abeyance, until their perfect agreement\nwith scientific truths is demonstrated. Nor are we to tolerate mere\nhypotheses and probable opinions in science when they are contrary to\ntruths known by revelation, because they cannot be demonstrated to be\nfalse on purely scientific grounds.\n\nThere are only two real difficulties to be encountered in the solution\nof the scientific problem. One is, the difficulty of accounting for\nthe variations In type, language, etc., between different families of\nthe human race within the commonly received historic period. The other\nis the difficulty of explaining certain discoveries in the historical\nmonuments of Egypt, and certain geological discoveries of the remains\nof man or human works, in accordance with the same period. Yet has\nbeen justly and acutely remarked by a recent British writer on this\nsubject, that the objections made under this second head, if they are\nsufficient to establish the necessity of admitting a longer\nchronology, destroy the objections under the first head. Given a\nlonger time for these changes, and the difficulty of supposing them to\nbe real variations from a unique type vanishes. The chronological\ndifficulties under the second head are of two classes. One class\nrelates to the history of well-known post-diluvian nations, whose\nhistorical records have been discovered, indicating a longer period\nthan the one commonly reckoned between the age of Noah and that of\nMoses. The other relates to tribes or individuals about whom nothing\nis known historically, but to whom geological evidence assigns a\nhigher antiquity than that commonly allowed {523} to the epoch of the\ncreation of man. Now, these difficulties in no way tend to impugn the\ndoctrine of the unity of the race, but merely the chronology of the\nhistory of the race from the ethics of the creation of the first man,\nwhich has been commonly supposed to be established by the authority of\nScripture. If this last supposition may be classed among theological\nopinions not pertaining to essential Catholic doctrine, and we may be\npermitted, _salv\u00e2 fide et auctoritate Ecclesiae_, to admit a\nchronology long enough to satisfy these claims of a higher antiquity\nfor man, all difficulty vanishes. One thing is certain, that if the\ninspired books of Moses did originally contain an exact chronology of\nhuman history from Adam to the Exodus of Israel, we cannot now\nascertain within fifteen hundred years what it was, since there is\nthat amount of variation between the Hebrew and Greek copies. The\nweight of probability is decidedly in favor of the Septuagint, which\ngives the longer chronology. Yet, it is impossible to explain how the\nvariation between the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and the variation of\nthe Samaritan version from both, arose. The great essential facts\npertaining to religious doctrine have been handed down by Scripture\nand tradition in their unimpaired integrity. We are bound to believe\nthat the providence of God watched over their transmission, and\nprotected them from any designed or accidental alteration. Some\ngeneral principles and data of chronology are included in this\nessential history, which is guaranteed by inspiration and the\nauthority of the church. Nevertheless, these chronological data are\nmanifestly so incomplete and imperfect, that a precise and accurate\nchronological system cannot be deduced from them. So far as it is\npossible to form a chronological system at all, it must be done by the\nhelp of all the collateral evidence we can find, This evidence, so far\nas we are aware, does not tend to establish, with a high degree of\nprobability, an epoch of creation more than a few thousand years\nearlier than the common one of 4,000 years before Christ. This is\ncertainly true of the historical records of Egypt, the principal\nsource of new light on the ancient historical epochs. We are warranted\nby the Septuagint in adding fifteen hundred years to the common\nperiod. It is only, however, on critical and historical grounds that\nthe Septuagint has greater authority on this point than the Hebrew,\nand not as having a higher sanction. For the Hebrew is the original\nand authentic Scripture, and the authorized Latin Version follows it,\nand not the Greek. If we can admit, then, a chronology longer by\nfifteen hundred years than the one contained in the received text, on\nhistorical grounds, why not one still longer, if sound historical\nevidence demands it? Supposing that the Scripture originally did\ncontain a complete and infallible system of chronology, it is evident\nthat the key to it was lost many ages ago; and we can just as easily\nsuppose that the discrepancy between the Mosaic chronology as it now\nstands and the chronology of the Egyptian records has arisen by the\nsame causes which produced the discrepancy of the Hebrew and Greek\ntexts, as we can assign causes why so great a discrepancy should arise\nat all, and reconcile this with the reverence due to the sacred books.\n[Footnote 160] This is a matter which needs to be more thoroughly\ndiscussed than it has been, by theologians who are fully acquainted\nwith the subject, before we can lay down positively a principle upon\nwhich to solve the difficulty. We reject, however, as unprovable and\nuntenable, all theories which throw the antiquity of man back to an\nepoch of vast remoteness, and assign hundreds or {524} thousands of\ncenturies to a prehistoric period, of which no records remain. It is\non geological discoveries solely that this hypothesis is based. At\npresent it is only a conjecture, founded on the fact that human\nremains have been found of a greater antiquity than those formerly\nknown, whence it is concluded that they may hereafter be discovered of\na greater antiquity still. We may safely wait for geology itself to\nclear up the obscurity at present existing in regard to this matter,\nand to set right, as science invariably does, the early and hasty\nconjectures of its own votaries. Whichever way the matter may be\nsettled, the fossil remains of human skeletons or human works will be\nassignable either to a period not too remote to be included in the\nhistoric period, or to one so remote that it must be excluded from it.\nIn the first case, there is no difficulty. In the second, nothing is\nestablished from which the falsity of our thesis can be demonstrated.\nOur thesis is, that the present human race now inhabiting the earth is\ndescended from one man, Adam. When there is any very probable evidence\npresented that another and distinct species, having a physical\norganization like that of the human race, once existed on the earth,\nfrom which it has become extinct, it will be time to examine that\ntheory. For the present we are concerned with Adam only and his race;\nto which both our readers and ourselves have but too conclusive\nevidence that we all belong.  [Footnote 161]\n\n  [Footnote 160: Archbishop Manning says: \"No system of chronology is\n  laid down in the sacred books. There are at least three\n  chronologies, probable and admissible, apparently given by Holy\n  Scripture. It cannot be said, therefore, that there are\n  chronological faults in Holy Scripture, forasmuch as no ascertained\n  chronology is there declared.\"--Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost,\n  p. 171, American edition.]\n\n  [Footnote 161: The Gentle Skeptic, by Rev. C.A. Walworth, now pastor\n  of St. Mary's Church Albany, treats of several topics, here noticed\n  in a cursory manner. This work is the result of several years close\n  and accurate study in theology and science. It has, therefore, the\n  solidity and elaborate finish of a work executed with care and\n  diligence by one who is both a strong thinker and a sound scholar.\n  In style it is a model of classic elegance and purity, and in every\n  respect it deserves a place among the best works of English Catholic\n  literature. The author has broke ground in a field of investigation\n  which it is imperative on Catholic scientific men to work up\n  thoroughly. The entire change which has taken place in the attitude\n  of science toward revealed religion within a few years, and the\n  doctrines of science themselves, makes the old works written on the\n  connection between religion and science to a great degree useless.\n  The subject needs to be taken up afresh, and handled in a manner\n  adequate to the present intellectual wants of the age.]\n\nWe have now to consider what Catholic doctrine teaches of that state\nin which the first parents of the human race were constituted at their\ncreation. Briefly, it is this: that this was a supernatural state of\nsanctity and justice, in which were contained, or with which were\nconnected, the gift of integrity, or immunity from concupiscence, the\ngift of science, and the gift of corporeal immortality.\n\nThat man was created in sanctity and justice is affirmed as _de fide_\nby the decree of the Council of Trent, a part of which is cited above,\nin which Adam is declared \"to have lost immediately the _sanctity and\njustice in which he had been constituted:_\" \"statim sanctitatem et\njustitiam in quo constitutus fuerat amisisse.\" That he possessed\nintegrity is proved by the same decree, which declares that by the\nfall he was \"changed _as to his body and soul into something worse_:\"\n\"secundum corpus et animam in deterius commutatum fuisse.\" That he\npossessed science is proved by the declaration of the book of\nEcclesiasticus: \"Disciplin\u00e2 intellectus replevit illos. Creavit illis\nscientiam spiritus:\" \"He filled them with the knowledge of\nunderstanding. He created in them the science of the spirit.\"\n[Footnote 162] This is explained and corroborated by the traditional\nteachings of all the fathers and great theologians of the church. His\nimmunity from death is proved by the decrees above cited and others\nfamiliar to all.\n\n  [Footnote 162: Ecclus. xvii. 5, 6.]\n\nIt is shown to be the Catholic doctrine that these gifts were\nsupernatural, by the condemnation of the contrary doctrine by the Holy\nSee. The following theses of Baius, one of the precursors of\nJansenism, were condemned by Pius V. and Gregory XIII.:\n\n\"21. Humanae naturae sublimatio et exaltatio in consortium divinae\nnaturae, debita fuit integritati primae conditionis, et non\nsupernaturalis; 26. Integritas primae creationis non fuit indebita\nhumanae naturae exaltatio, sed {525} naturalis ejus conditio; 55. Deus\nnon potuisset ab initio talem creare hominem qualis nunc nascitur; 78.\nImmortalitas primi hominis non erat gratiae beneficium, sed naturalis\nconditio; 79. Falsa est doctorum sententia primum hominem potuisse a\nDeo creari et institui sine justiti\u00e2 natarali.\" Clement XI., in the\nBull _Unigenitus_, also condemned the following proposition, the 33rd\nof Quesnel: \"Gratia Adami est sequela creationis et erat debita\nnaturae sanae et integrae.\"\n\n\"21. The elevation and exaltation of human an nature into the\nfellowship of the divine nature was due to the integrity of its first\ncondition, and is therefore to be called natural and not supernatural;\n26. The integrity of the primal creation was not an exaltation of\nhuman nature which was not due to it, but its natural condition; 55.\nGod could not have created man from the beginning such as he is now\nborn; 78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace,\nbut his natural condition; 79. The opinion of doctors is false, that\nthe first man could have been created and instituted by God without\nnatural justice (righteousness.\") 33d of Quesnel: \"The grace of Adam\nis a sequel of creation, and was due to sound and integral nature.\"\n\nIt is plain from the decisions which have been quoted, and from the\nconsentient doctrine of all Catholic doctors, that the Catholic\ndoctrine is: that the state of original sanctity and integrity did not\nflow from the intrinsic, essential principles of human nature, and was\nnot due to it, but was a free gift of grace superadded to nature, that\nis, supernatural. We do not, however, censure the opinion held by some\nsound Catholic writers, that congruity, order, or the fitness of\nthings, exacts that supernatural grace be always given to rational\nnature. It is our own opinion, already clearly enough insinuated,\nthat, although the completion and perfection of the universe does\nexact that a supernatural order should be constituted, it does not\nexact the elevation of all rational species or individuals to this\norder. This opinion appears to be more in accordance with the obvious\nsense of the decrees just cited. It is also the opinion of St. Thomas,\nand, after him, of the more prevalent school of theology. St. Thomas\nthus expresses himself upon this point: \"Poterat Deus, a principio\nquando hominem condidit, etiam alium hominem ex limo terrae formare,\nquem in conditione suae naturae relinqueret, ut scilicet mortalis et\npassibilis esset et pugnam concupiscentiae ad rationem sentiens, in\nquo nihil humanae naturae derogaretur, quia hoc ex principiis naturae\nconsequitur; non tamen iste defectus in eo rationem culpae et poenae\nhabuisset, quia non per voluntatem iste defectus causatus esset.\" \"God\ncould have formed, from the beginning when he created man, also\nanother man from the dust of the earth, whom he might have left in the\ncondition of his own nature, that is, so that he would have been\nmortal and passible, and would have felt the conflict of concupiscence\nagainst reason, in which there would have been nothing derogatory to\nhuman nature, because this follows from the principles of nature;\nnevertheless this defect in him would not have had the quality of sin\nand punishment, because this defect would not have been caused by the\nwill.\"  [Footnote 163]\n\n  [Footnote 163: 2 Sentent., Dist. 31, qu. 1, ant. 2 ad 8. ]\n\nThe sanctifying grace conferred upon Adam is very clearly shown,\naccording to this view, to have been a pure and perfectly gratuitous\nboon from God, to which human nature, as such, could have no claim\nwhatever, even of congruity.\n\nThe nature of the probation of the father of mankind is now easily\nexplained. He received a gratuitous gift on conditions, and these\nconditions were the matter of his probation. Our scope and limits do\nnot admit of a minute discussion of the particular circumstances of\nthe trial and fall of Adam in Paradise. The point to be considered is\nthe relation in which {526} Adam stood to all mankind his posterity in\nhis trial, transgession, and condemnation. The Catholic dogma of faith\non this head is clearly defined and unmistakable. The whole human race\nwas tried, fell, and was condemned, in the trial, fall, and\ncondemnation of Adam. It is needless to cite again the passages of\nHoly Scripture and the decisions of the church which establish this\nfundamental doctrine of Christianity. The only question to be\ndiscussed is, What is the real sense and meaning of the doctrine? How\ndid all mankind sin in Adam, and by his transgression incur the\ncondemnation of death? What is the nature of that original sin in\nwhich we are born?\n\nOne theory is that the sin of Adam is arbitrarily imputed to his\nposterity. As a punishment for this imputed sin, they are born\ndepraved, with an irresistible propensity to sin, and under the doom\nof eternal misery. The statement of this theory is its best\nrefutation. Very few hold it now, and we may safely leave to\nProtestant writers the task of demonstrating its absurdity.\n\nAnother theory is, that all human wills were included in the will of\nAdam, so that they all concurred with his will in the original\ntransgression.  [Footnote 164]\n\n  [Footnote 164: We refer the reader to the argument of Candace in\n  Mrs. Stowe's Minister's Wooing, for a humorous but unanswerable\n  reputation of the ancient Calvinistic doctrine of original sin.]\n\nWe find some difficulty in comprehending this statement. Did we all\nhave a distinct existence, and enjoy a deliberative and decisive vote\nwhen the important question of human destiny was decided? If so, the\nunanimity of the judgment, and the total oblivion which has fallen\nupon us all, respecting our share in it and our whole subsequent\nexistence, until a very recent period, are very remarkable phenomena\nwhich we have never seen adequately accounted for. The only other\nalternative is that of indistinct existence or virtual existence. That\nis, that the power of generating souls was in Adam, and that all human\nsouls are actually derived from his soul by generation. Suppose they\nare. A father who has lost an organ or a limb does not necessarily\ntransmit this defect to his posterity. Even if he does transmit some\ndefect which he has contracted by his own fault to his son, that son\nis not to blame for it. If the principle of all souls was in Adam,\nvirtually, their personality, which is the principle of imputability,\ncommences only with there are distinct existence. Personality is\nincommunicable. An individual soul cannot communicate with another in\nthe principle of identity, from which all imputability of acts, all\naccountability, all possibility of moral relations, proceeds. This\nnotion of the derivation of souls, one from another, or from a common\nsoul-reservoir, is, however, one perfectly inconceivable, and contrary\nto the plainest principles of philosophy. Substance is simple and\nindivisible. Spirit, which is the most perfect substance, contains,\ntherefore, in its essence the most manifest contradiction to all\nnotion of composition, resolution, division, or separation of parts.\nThe substance of Adam's soul was completely in his own individual\nintelligence and will. The notion of any other souls deriving their\nsubstance from his soul is therefore wholly without out meeting. There\nis no conceivable way in which spirit can produce spirit, except by\ncreation, and act to which created spirit is incompetent.\n\nThere remains, therefore only the doctrine, which is that of Catholic\ntheology, that the human species is corporeally propagated by means of\ngeneration, and was therefore, in this respect only, virtually in\nAdam; but that each individual soul is immediately created by God, and\ncomes into the generic and specific relations of humanity through its\nunion in one integral personality with the body. How, then, can each\nindividual soul become involved in a original sin? Does God create it\nsinful?  This cannot be; and if it could it would not be the sin of\nAdam, or the sin of the race, but its own personal sin. The soul as it\ncomes from the hand of God cannot be sinful in act. {527} The only\npossible supposition remaining is, that the soul contracts sin from\ncontact or union with the body. Here the Calvinist, the Jensenist, or\nany other who maintains that original sin consists in positive\ndeprivation of the soul's essence, or in habitual moral perversity, or\ndetermination of the will to sin, is in a position where he cannot\nmove a step forward. How can _soul_ be corrupted by body? How has the\ninnocent soul deserved to be thrust into a body by which it must be\npolluted? These questions will never receive an answer. Nor will any\ncredible or rational method of vindicating the doctrine that all men\nare born totally and positively depraved, or with a nature in any\nrespect essentially evil, on account of Adam's sin, ever be\ndiscovered. The doctrine is utterly incredible and unthinkable, and\nwill no doubt ere long have a place only in the history of past\nerrors.\n\nThe way is now clear for the exposition of the Catholic doctrine\nrespecting the mutual relations of Adam and his posterity in the\noriginal probation, trial, and fall of the human race immediately\nafter its creation. That probation of Adam, in which the human race\nwas included, must not be understood as including the entire personal\nprobation either of himself or of his descendants. His own probation\nlasted during his lifetime, and so does that of each individual man.\nHad he been faithful in that particular trial which is related in the\nfirst chapter of Genesis, it is probable that, although the special\nprivileges whose perpetuation depended on it would certainly have then\nsecured to the race, he himself would have had a longer personal\ntrial. So also, if the progeny of Adam had been confirmed in the\nperpetual possession of the privileges of the primeval state, each\nindividual of the human race would have had a probation of his own,\naffecting his own personal destiny alone. Although each one of us\nwould have been conceived and born in the state of original grace and\nintegrity, as the Blessed Virgin was by a special privilege, as soon\nas the actual exercise of reason became completely developed, a period\nof probation would have commenced, in which we should have been liable\nto fail, as we are now after receiving grace through baptism.\n\nThe probation of the human race in Adam was, therefore, a special\nprobation, on which the possession in perpetuity of certain\nsupernatural privileges, freely and gratuitously conceded to the race,\nwas alone dependent. The merely personal consequences of the sin of\nAdam and Eve affected themselves alone individually. That is, the\nguilt of an actual transgression with the necessary personal\nconsequences following from it attached to them alone, and we have\nnothing to do with it, any more than with any other sins committed by\nour intermediate progenitors. The father of the human race did not\nact, however, in a merely individual capacity in this transaction. He\nwas the federal head and representative of the race. A trust was\ncommitted to him in behalf of all mankind, and this trust was the\ngreat gift of original sanctity and justice, the high dignity of\nsupernatural affiliation to God, the glorious title to the kingdom of\nheaven. By his sin he forfeited this gift in trust, both for himself\nas an individual, and also for his descendants who were to have\ninherited it from him. There is no ground for asking the question, why\nit followed that Adam, having fallen, should transmit a fallen nature\nby generation to his posterity. This question is only asked on the\nsupposition that fallen nature is a nature essentially changed and\ndepraved, whereas it is really a nature which has fallen from a\nsupernatural height back to its own proper condition. With all due\nrespect to the eminent writers who have attempted to answer this\nquestion, we must be allowed to say that we cannot attach any definite\nmeaning to their answer. {528} Adam, they say, having a fallen nature,\ncould only transmit the nature which he had. All humanity was in him\nwhen he sinned, and therefore humanity as generic having fallen into\nsin, each individual who participates by conception in generic\nhumanity participates in its sin, or is conceived in original sin.\nThis language may be used and understood in a true sense; but in its\nliteral sense, and as it is very generally understood, it has no\nmeaning. It is derived from the extravagant and unintelligible realism\nof William of Champeaux, and some other schoolmen, according to which\nhumanity as a genus has a real and positive entity, like the great\nanimal _in se_ of Plato, from whom all particular animals receive\ntheir entity. These notions have long since become obsolete, and it is\nuseless to refute them. The The human genus or species was completely\nin Adam, but it was not distinct from his individuality; rather it was\ncompletely in his individuality constituting it in its own generic or\nspecific grade of existence, as the individuality of a man. Humanity\nis also completely in every other human individual. This humanity,\nconstituting the specific essence of Adam, as a man, was identical\nwith his existence, for existence is only metaphysical essence reduced\nto act. It could not be essentially changed without destroying his\nhuman existence. Whatever is contained in _humanitas_ must have\nremained in him after the fall, otherwise he would no longer have\nremained a man, or indeed have continued to exist at all. It is only\nthis _humanitas_ or specific essence of human nature, that Adam had\nany natural power to reproduce by generation. He could not have lost\nthe power of transmitting it by the fall, except by losing altogether\nthe power of reproducing his species. The immediate, physical effect\nof generation is merely the production of the life-germ, from which\nthe body is developed under the formative action of a soul, created\nimmediately by God. The only depravation or corruption of nature,\ntherefore, which is physically possible, or which can be supposed to\nfollow by a necessary law from the corruption of nature in Adam, is a\ncorruption or degeneracy in in this life-germ, through which a\ndefective or degenerate body is produced. This opinion has then long\nago condemned by the church. It is, moreover, contrary to science. The\nhuman animal is perfect as an animal, and although there is accidental\ndegeneracy in individuals, there is no generic or specific degeneracy\nof the race from it's essential type. But supposing that a defective\nbody were the necessary consequence of Adam's sin, a defective soul\ncould not be. The parent does not concur to the creation of the soul\nof his offspring, except as an  cause. God creates the soul, and he\ncannot create a human soul without creating it in conformity to the\nmetaphysical archetype of soul in his own idea, and therefore having\nthe essence on soul completely in itself. How, then, can the infusion\nof this soul into a body which is physically degenerate make it\nunworthy of that degree of the love of God and of that felicity, which\nit is worthy of intrinsically, and apart from its union with the body?\n\nThere is no law in nature by virtue of which Adam must or could\ntransmit anything essentially more than human nature before the fall,\nor essentially less after the fall. The law by which he was entitled\nto transmit privileges or gifts additional to nature on condition of\nis fulfilling the terms of God's covenant with him was therefore a\npositive law; why those human laws which enable man to transmit with\ntheir blood property, titles of nobility, or the hereditary right to a\ncrown. These privileges may be forfeited, by the crime of an\nindividual in whom they are vested, for himself and for his posterity.\nThey may be forfeited for posterity, because they are not natural\nrights. In the same manner, the supernatural gifts conferred on Adam\nwere forfeited for the human race by his sin, because they were {529}\nnot natural rights, or _debita naturae_, but gratuitous gifts to which\nAdam's posterity had do hereditary right, except that derived from the\nsovereign concession of God, and conceded only in a conditional\nmanner. This conditional right could only be perfected by the\nobedience of Adam to the precept of the Almighty forbidding him to eat\nof the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As he failed\nto obey this precept, his posterity never acquired a perfect right to\nthe gifts of supernatural grace through him. By virtue, therefore, of\nour descent from him, we possess nothing but human nature and those\nthings which naturally belong to it; we are born in the state in which\nAdam would have been placed at the beginning if God had created him in\nthe state of pure nature.\n\nWe do not stand, therefore, before God, by virtue of our conception\nand birth from the first parents of mankind, in the attitude of\npersonal offenders or voluntary transgressors of his law. Our\nessential relation to God as rational creatures is not broken. Our\nnature is essentially good, and capable of attaining all the good\nwhich can be evolved from its intrinsic principles; that is, all\nnatural knowledge, virtue, and felicity. That which is immediately\ncreated by God must be essentially good. A spirit is essentially\nintelligence and will, and therefore good in respect to both, or\ncapable of thinking the truth and willing the good. Moreover, it is a\ncertain philosophical truth that when God creates a spirit he must\ncreate it in act, or that the activity of the spirit is coeval with\nits existence. The first act or state of a spirit, as it precedes all\nreflection, deliberation, or choice, and flows necessarily from the\ncreative act of God himself, is determined by him, and must therefore\nbe good. The acts which follow, either follow necessarily from the\nfirst, or are the product of free deliberation. In the first case,\nthey are necessarily good; and in the second they may be good,\notherwise they would be necessarily evil, which is contrary to the\nsupposition that they are free. The human soul being in its essence\nspirit, and incapable of being corrupted by the body, must therefore\nbe essentially good at the moment when it attains the full exercise of\nreason and of the faculty of free choice. If so, it is capable of\napprehending by its intelligence and choosing by its will that which\nis good, and cannot, therefore, come into the state of actual sin or\nbecome a personal transgressor except by a free and deliberate purpose\nto violate the eternal law, with full power to the contrary. It may\nexercise this power to the contrary by a correct judgment, a right\nvolition, and thus attains the felicity which is the necessary\nconsequence of acting rationally and conscientiously. So far as this\nis possible to mere unassisted nature, it may continue to put forth a\nseries of acts of this kind during the whole period of its earthly\nexistence. That is to say, it is capable of attaining all the good\nwhich can be evolved from its intrinsic principles, or all natural\nknowledge, virtue, and felicity. This is equivalent to saying, that it\ncan have a natural knowledge and love of God, as is affirmed by the\nbest theologians with the sanction of the church. For Pius V. has\ncondemned the following proposition, the 34th of Baius: \"Distinctio\nilla duplicis amoris, naturalis videlicet quo Deus amatur ut auctor\nnaturae, et gratuiti quo Deus amatur ut beatificator, vana est et\ncommentitia et ad illudendum sacris litteris et plurimis veterum\ntestimoniis excogitata.\" \"The distinction of a twofold love, namely,\nnatural, by which God is loved as the author of nature, and\ngratuitous, by which God is loved as the beatifier, is vain and\nfutile, and invented for the purpose of evading that which is taught\nby the Holy Scriptures and by many testimonies of the ancient\nwriters.\"  [Footnote 165] It would be easy to multiply proofs that the\ndoctrine of man's capability of moral virtue, from the intrinsic {530}\nprinciples of here's nature, is the genuine Catholic doctrine.\n[Footnote 166] This is not necessary, however, at present.\n\n  [Footnote 165: Denziger's Enchirid., p. 305.]\n\n  [Footnote 166: See Aspirations of Nature by Rev. I. T. Hecker,\n  passim.]\n\nWe proceed to another point, namely, How it is that mankind can be\nsaid to be born in original sin, when they are innocent of all\npersonal and actual sin at the time of birth? The state in which\nAdam's posterity are born, and which is denominated the state of\noriginal sin, considered subjectively, is a state of privation of\nsupernatural grace and integrity. If man had been created for a\nnatural destiny, this state of inhability to the supernatural would\nnot have been a state of sin. If he had been created in the state in\nwhich he is now born, as a preparatory state to the state of grace, to\nbe endowed at a subsequent period with supernatural gifts, it would\nnot have been a state of sin. Entitively it would have been the same\nstate as that in which he is now born. It would not have been a state\nof sin, because the state of sin receives its denomination from a\nvoluntary transgression which produces it. The particular notion of\nsin is an aversion from God as the supreme good produced by the\nvoluntary election of an inferior good in his place. The posterity of\nAdam are born in a state of habitual aversion from God as the supreme\ngood in the supernatural order, which is the consequence of the\noriginal sin of Adam. Since they virtually possessed a right to be\nborn in the state of grace and integrity, which was forfeited by his\nsin, the state of privation in which they are born, relatively to\ntheir original ideal condition and to the transgression by which they\nwere degraded from it, is properly denominated a state of sin. This is\nincurred by each individual soul through its connection with the body\nwhich descends from our first parents by generation, because it is\nthis infusion into a human body which constitutes it a member of the\nhuman race. As a member of the human race, and by virtue of his\ndescent from Adam, each individual man participates in all the generic\nrelations of the race. If Adam had not sinned, he would have received\nby inheritance from from him a high dignity and great possessions,\ntransmitted to him through the blood; as the case is, he is born\ndisinherited. There is no injustice or unkindness in this; because the\nrights which have been forfeited were not rights involved in the\nconcession of rational existence itself, but rights gratuitously\nconceded on certain conditions, and because no personal blame is\nimputed where none exists. The illustration so often employed by\ntheologians of a nobleman who has suffered attainder is perfectly apt\nto the case. His posterity are born under an attainder, which in human\nlaw corresponds to original sin under the divine law, and are thus\nplaced in a state of privation; relatively to that condition of\nnobility which was formerly hereditary in the family; but which in\nitself is an honest condition. In the eye of the law, their father's\ncrime makes them incapable of the privileges of nobility, but it does\nnot deprive them of the common rights of private subjects.\n\nSo the children of Adam, on account of his sin, inherit a disability\nto possess the nobility of the state of grace and to inherit the\nkingdom of heaven. This disability is inherent in the person son of\neach one, and therefore \"_inest euique proprium_.\" It is a separation\nfrom God incurred by the transgression of Adam, who represented the\nhuman race in his trial, and therefore is truly and properly sin. It\nis a privation of grace which is the supernatural life of the soul,\nand is therefore properly called death, or \"_mors animae_.\" The\n\"_reatus culpae_\" is the obligation of being born in a state of\nrelative degradation, and the \"_reatus poenae_\" the obligation of\nundergoing the conflicts, sufferings, and death which belong to the\nstate of despoiled nature, as well as submitting to the sentence of\nexclusion from the kingdom of God. By it, human nature has been\nchanged into something worse as to soul and body, {531} \"_in deterius\nmulatur quoad corpus et animam_,\" because it is now deprived of\nintegrity, immortality, and sanctifying grace. Nevertheless this state\nis essentially the same with that which would have been the state of\nman if he had been created in the state of pure nature. Man in the\nstate of lapsed nature differs from man in the state of pure nature,\nas Perrone says, only as _nudatus_ from _nudo_, one denuded from one\nalways nude. This is original sin, which consists formally, as St.\nThomas teaches, in the privation of sanctifying grace and the other\ngratuitous gifts perfecting nature which depended on it. Mankind,\ntherefore, by the sin of Adam, have simply fallen back on the state of\npure nature, and are born with those attributes and qualities only\nwhich are contained in human nature by virtue of its intrinsic\nprinciples. To understand, therefore, the condition, capabilities, and\nultimate destiny of man, apart from the grace which comes through the\nRedeemer, we have simply to inquire into the essence of these\nintrinsic principles, and ascertain what man is, simply as man, where\nhe can do, and what is the end he can attain by his earthly life.\n\nMan, as to his rational nature, is in the lowest grade of rational\ncreatures. Except under very favorable circumstances, his intelligence\nis very imperfectly developed, and so far as it is developed it is\nchiefly employed in perfecting his merely exterior and social life.\nUnder the most favorable circumstances his progress is slow, his\ncapacity of contemplating purely intellectual and spiritual objects\nweak and limited. As to his body, he is also frail and delicate, and\nnaturally liable to death. Moreover, there is in his constitution, as\na being composed of soul and body, a certain contrariety of natural\nimpulses, one set of impulses inclining him to rational good, the\nother to sensible or animal good. Like the inferior animals, he is\ncapable of an improvement of his species up to a certain point which\ncannot be fixed, and also liable to a degeneracy which brings, him\ndown to a state little above that of the brutes, and even to idiocy.\nThere are indications enough in his soul of a latent capacity for a\nmuch higher and more exalted state, to make it certain that his\npresent condition is one of merely inchoate existence, and that he is\ndestined to a future life in which these latent capacities will be\ndeveloped in a more perfect corporeal organization. The great\ndifficulty of forming an ideal conception of the state in which he\nwould have been constituted, had he been left to his merely natural\ndevelopment, consists in the fact that we have no human subject to\nstudy except man as he actually is, that is, under a supernatural\nprovidence from the beginning. The actual development of human nature\nhas taken place under the influence of supernatural grace, and we\ncannot discriminate in human history the operation of natural causes\nfrom those which are supernatural. There are three principal\nhypotheses respecting the possible development of pure nature which\nmay be sustained with more or less plausibility. The first is, that\nthe human race, beginning in its perfection of type as a species, but\nwithout any revelation of language, or any instruction in natural\ntheology, morals, or science, would have remained always in the same\nstate in which it was created, without any intellectual or moral\nprogress. According to this view, the present state of man on earth\nwould have been a mere stage of existence, which could have no\nulterior end, except the production of a species destined to begin its\nhigher life in a future state. The second hypothesis is, that the\nhuman race, beginning from the same point of departure, might have\nprogressed slowly, through very long periods of time, to a high limit\nof civilization, knowledge, virtue, and natural religion. The third\nis, that a kind of natural revelation, including a positive system of\nreligion, morals, and science, would have been requisite; in a word,\nthat human society must have been placed {532} at first, by the\nimmediate intervention of the Creator, in the state of civilization,\nand conducted in its course by a continuance of the same intervention.\nWe have little room, however, for anything beyond conjecture in this\nmatter. The only point we are anxious to establish is, that the state\nin which we are now born is not one intrinsically evil; that it is not\none derogatory to human nature as such; that it is not one in which\nGod might not create man in consistency with his sanctity and\ngoodness.\n\nThis point is established on sound theological and philosophical\nprinciples; and from these principles it follows that all the\nphenomena of man which are referrible to his original fall are the\nnatural consequence of his human constitution, and not evidences of a\npositive, innate depravity. He is a weak, frail, inconstant creature,\neasily led away by the senses and passions, liable to fall into many\nerrors and sins, but he is not an object of loathing and abhorrence to\nhis Creator, or an outcast from his love. He has in him all the\nprimary elements of natural virtue, the germ from which a noble\ncreature can be developed. Nevertheless, although his natural\ncondition is one which is not derogatory to himself or his Creator, it\nseems to cry out for the supernatural. Its actual weakness and\nimperfection, coupled with its latent capacities for a high\ndevelopment, mark it as being, what it is, the most fitting subject\nfor the grace of God; and indicate that it was created chiefly to\nexemplify in the most signal manner the supernatural love and bounty\nof the Creator. It is only in the idea of the supernatural order that\nwe can find the adequate explication and solution of all the problems\nrelating to the destiny of man. For that order he was created by an\nabsolute, not a conditional decree of God. The fulfilment of that\ndecree was not risked on the issue of Adam's probation. According to\nour view, the creation of man was only the inchoation of the\nincarnation of the Eternal Word in human nature; and the decree of the\nincarnation being absolute, the elevation of human nature was\nnecessary and must be efficaciously secured. The fall of man from\noriginal grace could not therefore hinder it. After the sin of Adam,\nthe human race had still a supernatural destiny, and was under the\nsupernatural order of Providence. The divine decree to confer grace on\nman was not abrogated, but only the form and mode under which the\ngrace was to be conferred were changed. Moreover, by this change, the\nhuman race was, on the whole, a gainer, and came into a better and\nmore favorable position for attaining its destiny. There was a reason\nboth for the original constitution of man in the grace of Adam, and\nalso for the change of that constitution which followed upon Adam's\nsin. By the original grant of grace, God showed to mankind his\nmagnificent liberality and good-will. He gave them also an ideal which\nhas remained imperishably in their memory of the state of perfection,\nand left a sweet odor of paradise to cheer them along their rugged\nroad of labor and trial. By the withdrawal of that grace he brought\nthem under a dispensation of mercy, in which their condition is more\nhumble and painful, but safer and more advantageous for gaining the\nhighest merit.\n\nSt. Francis de Sales says: \"L'\u00e9tat de la redemption vaut cent fois\nplus que l'\u00e9tat de la justice originalle.\" \"The state of redemption is\na hundred times preferable to the state of original justice.\"\n[Footnote 167] The church herself, in her sublime hymn _Exultet_,\nbreaks out into the exclamation: \"O cert\u00e9 necessarium Adae peccatum; O\nfelix culpa! quae tantum et talem habere meruit Redemptorem!\" \"O\ncertainly necessary sin of Adam; O happy fault! which merited to know\nsuch and so great a redeemer!\" We reason to lament our lost paradise,\nor to mourn over the fall of our first parents. Our new birth in\nChrist is far better than that ancient inheritance forfeited in Eden.\nThe consideration of the mystery of redemption must be postponed,\nhowever for a future number.\n\n  [Footnote 167: This thought has been beautifully developed by Mr.\n  Simpson in some Essays on Original Sin, published in The Rambler]\n\n----------\n\n{533}\n\nOriginal.\n\nMY CHRISTMAS TREE.\n\n\n\n  The Christmas logs were blazing bright, the house was all aglow,\n  Five little stockings brimming full were hanging in a row;\n  The balls of golden, silver, red, upon the Christmas tree,\n  Like fire-flies glancing through the green, were shining merrily,\n  And gifts for May and Josey, and for Maggie, Kate, and Will,\n  From bending top to sturdy root, the swaying branches fill;\n  And I, my labors all complete, sat watching through the night,\n  For well I knew that busy feet, before the morning-light,\n  Would patter, patter down the stairs in merry Christmas glee,\n  And warm and bright as love could make, must their first welcome be.\n  The while I mused upon their joy, with eyes fixed on the door.\n  The fairest form I ere had seen glided the threshold o'er--\n  A sweet and gentle maiden \"waxen little past the child,\"\n  And close upon her steps a man of visage grave and mild.\n  As the fair maiden nearer drew, I saw her small hands prest\n  The loveliest new-born baby that e'er slept on mortal breast--\n  Albeit, five fair little buds had blossomed on mine own,\n  Such winning grace of perfectness mine heart had never known.\n  Adown, in sudden rapture caught, I fell on bended knee.\n  For Jesus and Saint Mary and Saint Joseph were with me!\n  The Maiden Mother gently bent, and in my trembling hands\n  Laid little baby-Jesus, wrapt up in his swaddling bands.\n  \"Give rest and food and shelter unto him who for your sake\n  Hath reft himself of all things,\" thus the Maiden Mother spake;\n  \"Each Christmas eve we, journeying, as once in Bethlehem,\n  At every Christian door-step ask for shelter, as of them\n  Who in my mother's maiden home had room for all save him\n  Before whose throne of living light bow down the seraphim.\n  And oft times now, as on that night, rejected, we depart.\n  As though they were Judean inns, from many a Christian heart.\n  With warmth and light and merry feasts ye hail his natal-day,\n  But who have place for Jesus Christ who in the manger lay?\n  Mosttimes the doors are closely barred, the fire-light is grown dim,\n  And few who watch as now you watch, keep watch or ward for _him_.\"\n\n  Her tones were tender, sweet, and low, but through the crust of years\n  They found the blessed, blessed fount of humble, contrite tears;\n  And as they overflowed mine eyes, and plashed upon his head,\n  The baby woke to life and warmth, who seemed so cold and dead;\n  And pointing where a little gift for \"Christ's poor\" lowly lay\n  Beneath the tree so richly bowed, he smiled, and passed away.\n  Ah! me, how little seemed the share that I had laid aside\n  To give to him who for our sake was born and crucified!\n  _He_ held back naught, the last red drop flowed out for you and me:\n  Oh! surely he should have the best on every Christmas tree.\n\n       Genevieve Sales.\n\n----------\n\n{534}\n\n\nTranslated from the German.\n\n\nTHE LITTLE BIRDS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.\n\n\n\nOn holy Christmas morning there was a grand assemblage of little birds\nbehind the elder-tree yonder which stands between the court-yard and\nthe garden, flanked on one side by the barn and on the other by heaps\nof grain that had found no shelter in the granary--so rich had been\nthe blessings of the Lord!\n\nThe sparrow with his house and generation was very fully represented\nin the meeting; and all who belonged to his family puffed out their\nfeathers and sat looking as if something vexatious had befallen them.\n\nThe lark, sitting between the furrows in the field hard by, raised\nhimself up a little way now and again, warbling a short kyrie or\ngloria as his thoughts came and went.\n\nFinches and goldhammers were there in great spirits, as usual; and the\nblackbird perched now inside the court-wall, now on the outside; then\nhe flew down to the brook, ducked down and up again, flew up into the\ntree with the other birds, and praised the cold-water-cure, which\nmakes one feel right fresh and joyful as nothing else can.\n\nRavens and crows and the rest of the grab-alls, who are for ever\nfinding what no one has lost, crowded close together on the\ngrain-stacks in deep and loud discussion.\n\nBut the sparrow began to bewail his fate thus: \"I have been sadly\ndisturbed in my night's rest, for before daybreak all the bells in the\nsteeples began to ring as if for fire. I flew out into the darkness;\nand all around the houses looked bright, as if they were on fire\nwithin. Many tiny candles were lighted, and the trees on which they\nburned were covered with all kinds of fruit, such as I never have seen\ntogether on one tree. But we enjoy nothing of all this. Our trees are\nbare enough, and have not even leaves to screen us from this winter's\ncold. We shall starve to death or freeze, when once food becomes\nscarcer and the cold more piercing.\"\n\nBut the lark in the field scratched up a few worms which a mole had\ntossed out with the earth; and the blackbird helped her to choose some\nlittle worms, and that was their breakfast.\n\nThe shepherd drove his flocks through the narrow path, while\nthorn-bushes on each side, and the blackberry briers and wild-rose\nbushes, who had heard the birds' complaint, stretched their branches\nacross the way, so that the little sheep left locks of wool upon them,\nsome more, some less, but never enough to do them any harm. But the\nbirds were behind them, and gathered up the wool and carried it to\ntheir homes, in the knot-holes of trees or crevices of walls or\nhollows of the earth, and there they grew warmer warmer. Then, as they\npicked at the wool, red hips, which the cold had made sweet and soft,\npeeped out, and they ate them with joyful hearts.\n\nAgain rang out the bells from tower and steeple; the houses-door\nopened, and the family came fourth; maid-servants first, then sons and\ndaughters, and, to close up the procession, the housewife and the\nfarmer.\n\n\"Father,\" said the eldest son, \"it will fare ill with our corn-stacks\nin the field if, before going to church, we do not shoot in among the\nfeathered gentry yonder, who have torn the outer coverings already,\nand will soon make their way in among the unthreshed grain. The\nmagpies willingly read where they have not sown. They cluster here\nfrom the whole neighborhood. Gladly would I give them a few leaden\npeas for food, and silence their chattering for ever.\"\n\n{535}\n\n\"By no means,\" replied the farmer. \"No shot shall be fired during this\nblessed Christmas season--on the gracious birthday of him who\noverthrew indeed the tables of the money-changers, and made a scourge\nof cords to drive out both buyer and seller from his temple, but only\nsaid to those who sold doves, 'Take them hence.' He did not blame the\npoor little doves; and never, on this day, when dumb beasts gave up to\nhim their manger for the cradle because men found no room for him in\nthe inn, never shall any creature find death in my fields for the sake\nof a few blades of grass or kernels of grain.\"\n\nBut the farmer's wife had already turned back, and one of the lads\nwas, at her command, strewing a whole sheaf of grain before the\nhouse-front. So generously did he scatter the food to the doves and\npoultry, that there was enough and to spare for their neighbors on the\nelder-tree, and magpie and raven had a fair share without being envied\nby hens or disturbed by men. Thus in the court-yard was there also a\nlittle of that \"peace on earth\" of which angels sang one Christmas\nnight upon the plains of Bethlehem. Nor did the farmer lack anything\nin hay-loft or granary because the little birds of heaven had been fed\nfrom his table that blessed Christmas morning.\n\nRemember this: on Christmas feed the poor birds before thy door, and\nif thou seest neither lark nor blackbird, nor yet finches,\ngold-hammers, nor tomtits, then think of those who have no feathers,\nof poor human creatures. Forget not that the angel of the Lord said to\nthe shepherds: \"You will find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes,\nand lying in a manger.\" Seek out the swaddling-clothes of poverty, and\nif thou walkest by that light which rose over Bethlehem, then shalt\nthou find in those swaddling-clothes and in works of mercy the little\nchild Jesus!\n\nMark this: if thou wouldst be happy, then must thou make others happy!\n\nRemember: because Jesus came to the poor, therefore shouldst thou go\nto the poor.\n\n----------\n\nOriginal.\n\nBARABBAS AND I.\n\n\n  BABABBAS.\n\n  \"Strange that the Jews should set me free,\n   And let this Jesus die for me!\n   I have their brethren robbed and slain:\n   He brought their dead to life again.\"\n\n\n  I.\n\n  \"Strange, surely, that the ungrateful Jews\n   Should thee in place of Jesus choose:\n   Yet stranger far it is that he\n   Should choose to die to set _me_ free.\"\n\n------\n\n{536}\n\n\nFrom the Popular Science Review.\n\nA\u00cbROLITES.\n\n\nBY TOWNSHEND M. HALL, F.G.S.\n\n\nMeteoric stones, or a\u00ebrolites, as they are generally called (from two\nGreek words, _aer_ and _lithos_, signifying \"air-stones\"), may be\ndefined as solid masses consisting principally of pure iron, nickel,\nand several other metals, sometimes containing also an admixture of\naugite, olivine, and hornblende, which, from time to time, at\nirregular intervals, have fallen upon the surface of the earth from\nabove.\n\nOther designations, such as \"fire-balls and thunder-bolts,\" have been\npopularly applied to these celestial masses, the former denoting their\nusual fiery appearance, whilst the latter has reference to the extreme\nsuddenness of their descent.\n\nShooting stars also, although they are not accompanied by the fall of\nany solid matter upon the earth, are generally placed in the same\ncategory, since they are supposed to be a\u00ebrolites which pass\n(comparatively speaking) very near our earth, and are visible from it\nby night; at the same time their distance from us, varying as it does\nfrom four to two hundred and forty miles and upward, is in most\ninstances too great to allow of their being drawn down by the\nattractive power possessed by the earth. Like comets and eclipses,\nthese celestial phenomena in former times were universally regarded\nwith feelings of the greatest awe and superstition; and in Eastern\ncountries especially, where the fall of a meteoric stone was supposed\nto be the immediate precursor of some important public event, or\nnational calamity, the precise date of each descent was carefully\nrecorded. In China, for example, such reports reach back to the year\n644 before our era; and M. Biot has found in the astronomical section\nof some of the most ancient annals of that empire sixteen falls of\na\u00ebrolites recorded as having taken place between the years 644 B.C.\nand 333 after Christ, whilst the Greek and Roman authors mention only\nfour such occurrences during the same period. Even now, in this age of\nscience and universal knowledge, a\u00ebrolites can scarcely be regarded\nwithout a certain degree of dread. Indeed, four or five cases have\noccurred in which persons have been killed by them; in another\ninstance, several villages in India were set on fire by the fall of a\nmeteoric stone; and it was by no means a pleasant subject for\nreflection that such a catastrophe might happen anywhere and at any\nmoment, especially when we remember that these stones, although not\nquite incandescent, are always, more or less, in a heated state; and\nsometimes so hot that even after the lapse of six hours they could not\nbe touched with impunity.\n\nThe first fall of meteoric stones on record appears to have taken\nplace about the year 654: B.C., when, according to a passage in Livy,\na shower of stones fell on the Alban Hill, not far distant from Rome.\nThe next in chronological order is mentioned by several writers, such\nas Diogenes of Apollonia, Plutarch, and Pliny, and described by them\nas a great stone, the size of two millstones, and equal in weight to a\nfull wagon-load. It fell about the year 467 B.C., at AEgos Potamos, on\nthe Hellespont, and even up to the days of Pliny, four centuries after\nits fall, it continued to be an object of curiosity and speculation.\n{537} After the close of the first century we fail to obtain any\naccount or notice of this stone; but although it has been lost sight\nof for upward of eighteen hundred years, the eminent Humboldt says, in\none of his works, that notwithstanding all previous failures to\nrediscover it, he does not wholly relinquish the hope that even after\nsuch a considerable lapse of time, this Thracian meteoric mass, which\nit would be so difficult to destroy, may be found again, especially\nsince the region in which it fell has now become so easy to access to\nEuropean travellers.\n\nThe next descent of any particular importance took place at Ensisheim\nin Alsace, where an a\u00ebrolite fell on November 7th, 1492, just at the\ntime when the Emperor Maximilian, then king of the Romans, happened to\nbe on the point of engaging with the French army. It was preserved as\na relic in the cathedral at Ensisheim, until the beginning of the\nFrench revolution, when it was conveyed to the Public Library of\nColmar, and it is still preserved there among the treasures.\n\nIn later years the shower of a\u00ebrolites which fell in April, 1803, at\nL'Aigle, in Normandy, may well rank as the most extraordinary descent\nupon record. A large fire-ball had been observed a few moments\npreviously, in the neighborhood of Caen and Alen\u00e7on, where the sky was\nperfectly clear and cloudless. At L'Aigle no appearance of light was\nvisible, and the fire-ball assumed instead the form of a small black\ncloud, consisting of vapor, which suddenly broke up with a violent\nexplosion, followed several times by a peculiar rattling noise. The\nstones at the time of their descent were hot, but not red, and smoked\nvisibly. The number which were afterward collected within an\nelliptical area measuring from six to seven miles in length by three\nin breadth, has been variously estimated at from two to three\nthousand. They ranged in weight from two drachms up to seventeen and\nhalf pounds. The French government immediately deputed M. Biot, the\ncelebrated naturalist and philosopher, to proceed to the spot, for the\nexpress purpose of collecting the authentic facts concerning a\nphenomenon which, until that time, had almost universally been treated\nas an instance of popular superstition and credulity. His conclusive\nreport was the means of putting an end to all scepticism on the\nsubject, and since that date the reality--not merely the\npossibility--of such occurrences has no longer been contested.\n\nLeaving out, for the present, innumerable foreign instances which\nmight be quoted, we must now glance rapidly at a few of the most\nnoticeable examples of the fall of meteoric stones which have taken\nplace in England. The earliest which appears on record descended in\nDevonshire, near Sir George Chudleigh's house at Stretchleigh, in the\nparish of Ermington, about twelve miles from Plymouth. The\ncircumstance is thus related by Westcote, one of the quaint old\nDevonshire historians:\n\n  \"In some part of this manor (Stretchleigh), there fell from above--I\n  cannot say from heaven--a stone of twenty-three pounds weight, with\n  a great and fearful noise in falling; first it was heard like unto\n  thunder, or rather to be thought the report of some great ordnance,\n  cannon, or culverin; and as it descended, so did the noise lessen,\n  at last when it came to the earth to the height of the report of a\n  peternel, or pistol. It was for matter like unto a stone singed, or\n  half-burned for lime, but being larger described by a richer wit, I\n  will forbear to enlarge on it.\"\n\nThe \"richer wit\" here alluded to was in all probability the author of\na pamphlet published at the time, which further describes this\na\u00ebrolite as having fallen on January 10th, 1623, in an orchard, near\nsome men who were planting trees. It was buried in the ground three\nfeet deep, and its dimensions were three and a half feet long, two and\na half wide, and one and a half thick. The pamphlet also states that\npieces broken from off it were in the possession of many of the\nneighboring gentry. {538} We may here remark that no specimen of this\nstone is at present known to be in existence, and that although living\nin the county where it fell, we have hitherto failed in tracing any of\nthe fragments here referred to. A few years later, in August, 1628,\nseveral meteoric stones, weighing from one to twenty-four pounds, fell\nat Hatford, in Berkshire; and in the month of May, 1680, several are\nsaid to have fallen in the neighborhood of London.\n\nThe total number of a\u00ebrolitic descents which up to this present time\nhave been observed to take place in Great Britain and Ireland is\ntwenty, of which four occurred in Scotland, and four in Ireland. The\nlargest and most noticeable of all these fell on December 13th, 1795,\nnear Wold Cottage, in the parish of Thwing, East Riding of Yorkshire.\nIts descent was witnessed by two persons; and when the stone was dug\nup, it was found to have penetrated through no less than eighteen\ninches of soil and hard chalk. It originally weighed about fifty-six\npounds, but that portion of it preserved in the British Museum is\nstated in the official catalogue to weigh forty-seven pounds nine\nounces and fifty-three grains--just double the weight of the\nDevonshire a\u00ebrolite.\n\nWhen we come to inquire into the various opinions which have been held\nin different ages respecting the origin of a\u00ebrolites, and the power\nwhich causes their descent, we must go back to the times of the\nancient Greeks, and we find that those of their philosophers who had\ndirected their attention to the subject had four theories to account\nfor this singular phenomenon. Some thought that meteoric stones had a\ntelluric origin, and resulted from exhalations ascending from the\nearth becoming condensed to such a degree as to render them solid.\nThis theory was in after years revived by Kepler the astronomer, who\nexcluded fire-balls and shooting stars from the domain of astronomy;\nbecause, according to his views, they were simply \"meteors arising\nfrom the exhalations of the earth, and blending with the higher\nether.\" Others, like Aristotle, considered that they were masses of\nmetal raised either by hurricanes, or projected by some volcano beyond\nthe limits of the earth's attraction, so becoming inflamed and\nconverted, for a time, into starlike bodies. Thirdly, a solar origin;\nthis, however, was freely derided by Pliny and several others, among\nwhom we may mention Diogenes of Apollonia, already alluded to as one\nof the chroniclers of the a\u00ebrolite of AEgos Potamos. He thus argues:\n\"Stars that are invisible, and consequently have no name, move in\nspace together with those that are visible. . . .  These invisible\nstars frequently fall to the earth and are extinguished, as the stony\nstar which fell burning at AEgos Potamos.\" This last opinion, it will\nbe seen, coincides, as far as it goes, almost exactly with the most\nmodern views on the subject.\n\nAs some of the Greeks derived the origin of meteorites from the sun\n(probably from the fact of their sometimes falling during bright\nsunshine), so we find, at the end of the seventeenth century, it was\nbelieved by a great many that they fell from the moon. This conjecture\nappears to have been first hazarded by an Italian philosopher, meeting\nPaolo Maria Terzago, whose attention was specially directed to this\nsubject on the occasion of a meteoric stone falling at Milan in 1660,\nand killing a Franciscan monk. Olbers,  however, was the first to\ntreat this theory in a scientific manner, and soon after about fall of\nan a\u00ebrolite at Siena, in the year 1794, he began to examine the\nquestion by the aid of the most abstruse mathematics, and after\nseveral years' labor he succeeded in showing that, in order to reach\nour earth, a stone would require to start from the moon at an initial\nvelocity 8,292 feet per second; then proceeding downward with\nincreasing speed, it would arrive on the earth with a {539} of 35,000\nfeet per second. But frequent measurements have shown that the\n_actual_ rate of a\u00ebrolites averages 114,000 feet, or about twenty-one\nmiles and a half per second, they were approved by these curious and\nmost elaborate calculations to have come from a fire greater distance\nthan that of our satellite. It is but fair to add that the question of\ninitial velocity, on which the whole value value of this so-called\n\"ballistic problem\" depends, was investigative by three other eminent\ngeometricians, Biot, Laplace, and Poisson, who during ten or twelve\nyears were independently engaged is calculation. Biot's estimate was\n8,282 feet in the second; Laplace, 7,862; and Poisson, 7,585--results\nall approximating very closely with those stated by Olbers.\n\nWe have already observed, at the beginning of this paper, that\nmeteoric stones may fall at any moment, but observations, extending\nover many years, have sometimes been brought forward to show that, as\nfar as locality is concerned, all countries are not equally liable to\nthese visitations. In other words, the large number of a\u00ebrolites which\nhave been known to fall within a certain limited area has been\ncontrasted with the apparent rarity of such occurrences beyond these\nlimits. If it could be proved that the earth possessed more attractive\npower in some places than in others, this circumstance might be\nsatisfactorily explained, but in default of any such evidence, the\nadvocates of this theory must rely solely upon statistics, which from\ntheir very nature require to be taken with a certain amount of\nreserve. Professor Shepard, in Silliman's American Journal, has\nremarked that \"fall of a\u00ebrolites is confined principally to two zones;\nthe one belonging to America is bounded by 33\u00b0 and 44\u00b0 north latitude,\nand is about 25\u00b0 in length. Its direction is more or less from\nnorth-east to south-west, following the general line of the Atlantic\nCoast. Of all known occurrences of this phenomenon during the last\nfifty years, 92.8 per cent, have taken place within these limits, and\nmostly in the neighborhood of the sea. The zone of the eastern\ncontinent--with the exception that it extends ten degrees more to the\nnorth--lies between the same degrees of latitude, and follows a\nsimilar north-east direction, but is more than twice the length of the\nAmerican zone. Of all the observed falls of a\u00ebrolites, 90.9 per cent,\nhave taken place within this area, and were also concentrated in that\nhalf of the zone which extends along the Atlantic.\"\n\nOn reference to a map, it will be seen that in the western continent\nthe so-called zone is simply confined to the United States--the most\ndensely inhabited portion of America. In like manner the eastern zone\nleaves out the whole of desert Africa, Lapland, Finland, the chief\npart of Russia, with an average of thirty-two inhabitants to each\nsquare mile; Sweden and Norway, with only seventeen per mile; whilst\nit embraces all the well-peopled districts of central Europe, most of\nwhich, like England, are able to count between three and four hundred\npersons to every mile of their territory. In fact, Professor Shepard's\nstatement may almost be resolved into a plain question of population,\nfor were an a\u00ebrolite to fall in the midst of a desert, or in a thinly\npeopled district, it is needless to point out how few the chances are\nof its descent being ever noticed or recorded. That innumerable\na\u00ebrolites do fall without attracting any attention, is clearly proved\nby the number of discoveries continually taking place of metallic\nmasses which, from their locality and peculiar chemical composition,\ncould only be derived from some extra-terrestrial source. The great\nsize also of many of these masses entirely precludes the possibility\nof their having been placed by human agency in the positions they have\nbeen found to occupy--sometimes on the surface of the earth, but just\nas frequently buried a few feet in the ground.\n\n{540}\n\nThus the traveller Pallas found, in 1749, at Abakansk, in Siberia, the\nmass of meteoric iron, weighing 1,680 lb., now in the Imperial Museum\nat St. Petersburg. Another, lying on the plain of Tucuman, near\nOtumpa, in South America, has been estimated, by measurement, to weigh\nno less than 33,600 lb., or about fifteen tons; and one added last\nyear to the splendid collection of meteorites in the British Museum\nweighs rather more than three and a half tons. It was found at\nCranboume, near Melbourne, and was purchased by a Mr. Bruce, with a\nview to his presenting it to the British Museum, when, through some\nmisunderstanding, it was discovered that one half of it had been\nalready promised to the museum at Melbourne. In order, therefore, to\nsave it from any such mutilation, the trustees of our national museum\nacquired and transferred to the authorities of the Melbourne\ncollection a smaller mass which had been sent in 1862 to the\nInternational Exhibition. It weighed about 3,000 lb., and had been\nfound near Melbourne, in the immediate vicinity of the great\nmeteorite. The latter was then forwarded entire to London. In the\nBritish Museum may also be seen a small fragment of an a\u00ebrolite,\noriginally weighing 191 lb., which from time immemorial had been lying\nat Elbogen, near Carlsbad, in Bohemia, and had always borne the\nlegendary appellation of \"_der verw\u00fcnschte Burggraf_,\" or the\nenchanted Burgrave. The remainder of this mass is preserved in the\nImperial collection at Vienna. In Great Britain only two meteoric\nmasses (not seen to fall) have hitherto been discovered; one was found\nabout forty years ago near Leadhills, in Scotland; the other in 1861,\nat Newstead, in Roxburghshire.\n\nSeveral instances have at different times occurred in which stones\nlike a\u00ebrolites have been found, and prized accordingly, until their\nreal nature was demonstrated by the aid of chemical analysis. One\nvaluable specimen, found a few years ago, was shown to have derived\nits origin amongst the _scoriae_ of an iron foundry; another, picked\nup in the Isle of Wight, turned out to be a nodule of iron pyrites,\nsimilar in every respect to those which abound in the neighboring\nchalk cliffs; and lastly, some a\u00ebrolites of a peculiarly glassy\nappearance were found shortly after, of which it may, perhaps, suffice\nto say that the scene of this discovery was--Birmingham.\n\nWhen we come to examine the composition of meteoric stones, we find in\nvarious specimens a great diversity in their chemical structure. Iron\nis the metal most invariably present, usually accompanied by a\nconsider percentage of nickel and cobalt; also five other metals,\nchromium, copper, molybdenum, manganese, and tin; but of all these\niron is that which largely preponderates, forming sometimes as much as\nninety-six parts in the hundred. Rare instances have, however, been\nrecorded where the proportion of iron has sunk so low as to form only\ntwo percent, and the deficiency thus caused has been made up by a\nlarger admixture of some earthy mineral, such as augite, hornblende,\nor olivine. Other ingredients, like carbon, sulphur, alumina, etc.,\nare also found to enter, in different proportions, into the\ncomposition of a\u00ebrolites; the total number all chemical elements\nobserved in them up to this present date the nineteen or twenty. It\nhas been well remarked by an able writer, that no _new_ substance has\nhitherto come to us from without; and thus we find that all these\nnineteen or twenty elements are precisely similar to those which are\ndistributed throughout the rocks and minerals of our earth; the\nessential difference between the two classes of compounds--celestial\nand terrestrial--being seen most clearly in the respective methods in\nwhich the component parts are admixed.\n\nIn the outward appearance a\u00ebrolites there is one characteristic so\nconstant that, out of the many hundred examples that have been\nrecorded, one only (as far as we can ascertain) has {541} been wanting\nin it. We refer to the black fused crust or rind with which the\nsurface of meteoric stones is covered. It usually extends not more\nthan a few tenths of an inch into the substance of the stone, and is\nsupposed to result from the extreme rapidity with which they descend\ninto the oxygen of our atmosphere, causing them to undergo a slight\nand partial combustion, which, however, from the short time\nnecessarily occupied in their descent, has not sufficient time to\npenetrate beyond the surface. On cutting and polishing the stones, if\nthe smooth face is treated with nitric acid, it will in many cases be\nfound to exhibit lines and angular markings, commonly known by the\nname of \"widmannsted figures.\" These are tracings of imperfect\ncrystals, while the broad intermediate spaces, preserving their\npolish, point out those portions of the stone which contain a larger\nproportion of nickel than the rest of the mass. We may here add that\nthe noise said at times to accompany the fall of a\u00ebrolites, does not\nappear to be a constant characteristic, nor does the cause or exact\nnature of it seem able to be definitely specified.\n\nIn conclusion, we cannot do better than advise those of our readers\nwho desire further information on this subject to take the earliest\nopportunity--if they have not done so already--of paying a visit to\nthe magnificent collection of meteoric stones, contained in several\nglass cases at the end of the mineral gallery at the British Museum.\nThe catalogue for the year 1856 gave a list of between 70 and 80\nspecimens; in 1863 this number had increased to 216, mainly through\nthe energy of the curator, Mr. Maskelyne; and since that date there\nhave been several further additions. Chief among continental museums\nmay be mentioned the Imperial collection at Vienna, as possessing a\nseries of specimens remarkable alike for their size and importance.\n\n--------\n\nFrom Good Words.\n\n\nDELIVERANCE.\n\n\n  As some poor captive bird, too weak to fly,\n  Still lingers in its open cage, so I\n            My slavery own.\n  For evil makes a prison-house within;\n  The gloom of sin, and sorrow born of sin.\n            Doth weigh me down.\n  Ah! Christ, and wilt not thou regard my sighs,\n  Long wakeful hours, and lonely miseries,\n            And hopes forlorn?\n  Let not my fainting soul be thus subdued.\n  Nor leave thy child in darkened solitude.\n            All night to mourn!\n\n  He hears my prayer! the dreary night is done,\n  I feel the soft air and the blessed sun.\n            With heavenly beams.\n  He comes, my Lord! in raiment glistening white.\n  From pastures golden in the morning light\n            And crystal streams.\n  O let me come to thee!--from this dark place--\n  And see my gentle Shepherd face to face,\n            And hear his voice.\n  So shall these bitter tears no longer flow,\n  And thou shalt teach my secret heart to know\n            Thy sacred joys!\n\n--------\n\n{542}\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nWHAT CAME OF A LAUGH ON A CHRISTMAS EVE.\n\n\n\"Beg your pardon, sir,\" said I, as soon as I could compose myself\nsufficiently to speak; \"I couldn't help it.\"\n\n\"Glad to hear it. Just what I want. I was debating with myself whether\nit was sure for a laugh. I am looking for things that will make one\nlaugh; in short, buying up causes for laughter on a Christmas day.\nThere can be no doubt, you think, about this being funny?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it,\" said I.\n\n\"Well, I'll have one for every basket, then,\" said the old gentleman,\nhis eyes twinkling with delight, as he danced the toy up and down. It\nwas one of those jointed wooden monkeys that by means of a slide\nperforms the most comical evolutions around the top of a pole.\n\n\"You see,\" continued he, \"I cannot always trust my own judgment.\nThere's no credit in my laughing, bless your heart. I'd be a monster,\nyes, a monster, my dear sir, if I didn't. I'm just like this monkey as\nyou see him now in this position, ready to go over the other side with\nthe slightest provocation. I have everything that heart can wish, sir,\nto laugh at and be happy; but they, poor dears, they are so far on the\nminus side of merriment, as well they may be, that it takes a little\nsomething extra, you see, to get a good hearty squeal out of them.\"\n\nI became at once intensely interested in the \"poor dears\" alluded to.\nThe sight of the old gentleman was enough to make one do unheard-of\nfeats of heroism in favor of any person or thing of which he might\ntake the least notice. I ventured to suppose that they had lost\nsomething or somebody lately, with the intention of offering my hand\nor purse as the case might be.\n\n\"Can't say that they have,\" he replied, rubbing his shiny bald head.\n\"Being generally on the minus side of everything, including laughter,\nthey haven't anything to lose which you or I might think worth\nkeeping, except their lives, and somehow I think they've got used to\nlosing even them pretty comfortably.\"\n\nI was perplexed, and muttered, \"Curious sort of people, those.\"\n\n\"But interesting, you'll allow?\" said he.\n\nI replied that I had no doubt of it; and I meant it, for so charming\nand open-hearted was this old gentlemen, that I was ready to subscribe\nunhesitatingly to any asseveration he might be pleased to make;\n\"but--\" I added, about to express my ignorance of the individuals in\nquestion, when he interrupted me.\n\n\"Why--but? My Minnie, the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of my\nlife\" (expressing the titles of that person in the largest capitals),\n\"and I held an ante-Christmas council this morning, and it was\nproposed by the president, that is myself, and seconded by the said\nDarling of the World and Sunshine of my life, and carried by an\noverwhelming majority, including Bob, who said he went in for anything\ngood, that buts were unparliamentary when Christmas was concerned; and\nso we called the roll, twenty in all, and there being no buts, they\nall stood unchallenged, making twenty baskets, and now as many monkeys\nto go in them. What do you think of it! Capital, wasn't it?\"\n\nI was certain it was, and was prepared to go any odds in its favor.\n\n\"What's more,\" he added, \"they are going privately.\"\n\n{543}\n\nBeing committed beyond all explanation, I said I was glad to hear that\ntoo, \"if Miss Minnie approves.\" This last supposition I made with a\ndeprecating cough, not being quite sure of the relation which the old\ngentleman bore to the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of his\nlife.\n\n\"It was her own proposal,\" was his rejoinder, \"and you can't imagine\nwhat an immense relief it was to me too. It is more than I can stand\nto get through with the \"thank ye sir's,\" and the \"much obliged's\" and\nthe \"long life to your honor's.\" I'm a baby, sir, in their presence,\nand by the time the distribution is made I'm a spectacle of\nunmitigated woe, as if I'd been to as many funerals as there are\nbaskets. I remember that as I was coming out from a widow and five\nchildren, last Christmas, that rascal Bob saw me wiping my eyes, and\nsays he, 'Most of 'em dead, sir?' 'No, Bob,' says I, 'it's the smoke,\nI suppose; they've a precious smoky chimney.' But when we got to the\nnext place--let me see--oh! yes, a man with a broken leg, the\nscoundrel says to me, as he handed out the basket, 'Now, let us bury\nanother one, sir.' Not bad for, was it? I had such a good laugh on\neach pair of stairs beforehand that I got through that one pretty\ncomfortably But it was a glorious proposal of my Minnie's, was it not,\nthat these should go privately? for we'll sit at home, and check them\noff as they go in, for I've arranged that the messenger shall deliver\nthem by the watch, sir, and we'll imagine their surprise and their\nhappy faces, and the bringing out of the monkeys, and then we'll have\na roar and be jolly, and get rid of the thank ye's and all the rest of\nit that chokes up a man's throat and turns him into a born baby.\" And\nhere the good-hearted old gentleman, in the fulness of his delight,\ncaused the monkey in his hand to perform a series of rapid gymnastics\nover the top of his pole, beyond the powers of any monkey that ever\nlived. He presented such a comical appearance in doing this that I\nburst into another hearty laugh in which he as heartily joined.\n\n\"It is irresistibly amusing,\" said I, meaning the monkey.\n\n\"I knew it would be,\" he returned, his mind running upon the happy\nscheme by which he might prevent his left hand knowing the deeds of\nthe right; \"we will have twenty merry Christmas laughs all rolled into\none. There I'll be, as it were, on this side,\" here he took a position\non the floor opposite me, \"and my Darling over there, as it were you,\"\na distinction I acknowledged by a profound bow, \"and Bob standing\nbehind her chair, as that rocking-horse stands behind you; and then,\nwatch in hand, we'll check them off: Number One, Widow Bums, two small\nchildren; Number Two, Susy Bell, orphan girl, works in a carpet\nfactory and supports her two orphan sisters; Number Three, old Granny\nMullen, with consumptive son and three grand-children, and so on; and\nthere we'll have them all right before us, and they knowing nothing\nabout it (there's the beauty of it, all due to that blessed Darling of\nthe World and Sunshine of my life), and out will come the joint of\nmeat, ready cooked, and the mince-pie, and the plum-pudding with a\ndozen of silver quarter dollars in each one, and the shoes and the\nstockings, and I don't know what else besides, packed away by my\nDarling's own sweet little hands, and last of all the monkey with a\nlabel around his neck, with an inscription, say, for instance, 'From\nNobody in particular, with best wishes for a Merry Christmas.' There\nyou have it,\" added he, waving the monkey triumphantly in the air,\n\"and won't it be grand?\"\n\n\"I'd give the world to see it,\" I exclaimed, quite carried away by the\nold gentleman's enthusiastic manner. Just then the keeper of the\ntoy-shop handed me a package of marbles, tops, jewsharps, a pocket\nspy-glass, and a few other things of a like nature calculated to make\nglad the heart of {544} boys, which I had purchased for my little\nnephew, Willie, in the country.\n\n\"This for you, Mr. Holiday; but if you wish, I'll send it around to\nthe doctor's,\" said the toy-vender.\n\n\"Lord bless my heart and soul!\" exclaimed the old gentleman, seizing\nme suddenly by both hands. \"Not Alfred Holiday is it?\"\n\n\"That is my name,\" said I.\n\n\"Nephew of Dr. Ben?\"\n\n\"Nephew of Dr. Ben,\" I repeated.\n\n\"And how long have you been in the city?\"\n\n\"About a week,\" said I. \"I came up to spend Christmas with Uncle Ben\nand Aunt Mary.\"\n\n\"And to take a look in at the Owl's Retreat, No. 9 Harmony place, of\ncourse?\"\n\nI intimated my ignorance of the Retreat in question, and of my not\nhaving the pleasure, etc.\n\n\"My house, man, my house,\" said he, shaking my hands up and down. \"Dr.\nBen and I are old acquaintances; in fact, ever since my Minnie was--I\nbeg your pardon,\" added he, suddenly recollecting himself, and\nproducing a card from his vest pocket. \"Name of Acres, Thomas Acres,\nwho, with the compliments of his daughter Minnie to the same effect,\n_will_ be--_most_ happy--_to_ see--Mr. Alfred--_Holiday_--on\nto-morrow _morning_--to _join_ in--_the_ grand--checking off--_of_\nthe--twenty baskets--_and_ their--contents--including--monkeys--and\nof course stay to dinner.\"\n\nIf the old gentleman's cordial manner had any weight in deciding my\nacceptance of the invitation, it must be confessed that the curiosity\nto see the \"Darling of the World and the Sunshine of his life\" added\nnot a little to it. Promising to be on hand at No. 9 before eleven\no'clock, at which hour the checking off was to begin, I bade my\nnew-found friend good-morning and went home.\n\nBut it was very provoking not to know more of the \"Darling and\nSunshine\" This is him him him him question. Standing in such a light\nto such a father, she was, of course, a peerless being. Age--say,\ntwenty. Height--medium, I am five feet ten.  10 Blonde or\nbrunette--difficult to determine. Sunshine would seem to indicate\nblonde, yet darling might be either. Good, amiable, witty,\naccomplished--not a doubt of it. Beautiful name too, said I, as I\nscribbled it in every style of the caligraphic art, thereby destroying\nno small amount of my uncle's property in fine gilt-edged note paper.\nHas she suitor already. Hoity-toity, Mr. Alfred Holiday, you are\ncastle-building on a small amount of material, it seems to me; and if\nshe have,  what affair is that of yours? a question which that\nimaginative young gentlemen finding himself unable to solve fell into\na fit of despondency, and went to bed in a despairing state of mind.\n\nPunctual to the appointed hour I walked into Harmony place, a quiet\nunpretentious street, and open the gate of No. 9. There had been both\na rain and heavy frost in the night, and the trees and shrubs, clothed\nin a complete armor of ice, sparkled and glittered in the bright\nsunshine. Unfortunately, the ground shared in this universal covering,\nand being under the impression that someone was looking from behind\nthe curtains, who might possibly be the Darling of the World and the\nSunshine of the life of Mr. Thomas Acres, I insanely endeavored to\nwalk upon the glassy pavement with careless ease, as if it were the\nmost ordinary ground in the world. I now advise my bitterest enemy to\ntry it. In an unguarded moment my feet slipped, and I came down in the\nmost unpleasant manner into a sitting posture upon the ground. I\nthought I heard the sound of a clear ringing laugh following\nimmediately upon my ignominious fall. I hoped it was from No. 10 or\nNo. 8; yet my heart misgave me as Mr. Acres, with a half dozen\nsuperfluous bows, divided between his daughter and myself, introduced\nme, and a pair of dark, deep eyes, in which I thought I detected a\nmerry twinkle, quietly but warmly acknowledged my presence.\n\n{545}\n\n\"Mr. Alfred Holiday, my child, our old friend, Doctor Holiday's\nnephew; Mr. Holiday, my daughter Minnie, the Darling of the World and\nthe Sunshine of my life, as I have already told you, and the Dove of\nthis Owl's Retreat.\"\n\nI was \"most happy,\" of course, and wished them both, with a bow to\nMiss Minnie, a Merry Christmas.\n\n\"We were getting afraid, Mr. Holiday, lest we should be obliged to\nbegin without you,\" said that bright-eyed and altogether beautiful\nyoung lady, in a tone of voice which I afterward characterized in a\nviolently worded poem, written just before midnight, as 'rippling\ndiamonds' and 'dropping pearls.'\n\n\"Afraid!--without _me_?\" I exclaimed, placing a most unjustifiable\nemphasis upon the personal pronoun. \"I am highly flattered.\"\n\n\"Not at all; my father tells me he feels deeply indebted to you in\nassisting him in the choice of some toys designed for the children.\"\n\n\"For--for--laughing,\" stammered I. \"Do you think, Miss Acres, that one\nmight be indebted to another for a laugh?\" I was thinking of my stupid\nfall on the ice, and began to regret my having accredited to No. 8 or\n10 those sounds of merriment which reached my ears.\n\n\"If one gives good cause,\" she replied, with the quietest and most\nprovoking of smiles. The deep, dark eyes twinkled again, and Nos. 8\nand 10 stood acquitted.\n\n\"Come, Mr. Holiday,\" said Mr. Acres, \"let us take an inspection of the\nforces. Wagon is loaded, strange man hired, with a watch in his\npocket, off he goes; whence he comes or whither he goes, nobody knows.\nHa! ha! Minnie, my dear, put me down one, your ancient Owl has struck\na poetic vein; no time to register it, however. Come along; while I am\nimmortalizing myself, twenty hungry families are waiting for a\nChristmas dinner they don't expect to get, and their mouths watering\nfor plum-puddings and mince pies that they have not the most distant\nexpectation of\"--and the good old soul led the way into the hall, and\nthence into the court yard, at the entrance of which stood a large\ncovered furniture-cart, filled to over-flowing with the wonderful\ntwenty baskets destined to distribute happiness among as many poor and\nsuffering families, and make their hearts merry on Christmas day. Each\nbasket was labelled with its direction, number, and time of delivery.\n\n\"Now, John,\" said Mr. Acres to the driver as he mounted to his place\non the cart, \"remember, you are born deaf and dumb, can't hear a word\nnor even say 'Merry Christmas,' until you come back here and report.\"\n\n\"Lave me alone, sir,\" replied John with a broad grin, \"the fun shan't\nbe spiled for me.\"\n\n\"He enters into it, he enters into it, you see,\" said Mr. Acres,\naddressing Minnie and myself. \"What's the time, John, by yours?\"\n\n\"Near eleven, sir.\"\n\n\"Time's up, then.\n\n  \"One, two, three, and off you go.\n   Twenty baskets piled in a row:\n   Ask me no questions, for I don't know.\n\nPositively, my darling, there's something inspiring in the air this\nmorning.\"\n\nJohn cracked his whip, and the cart moved out of the yard, turned down\nthe street, and was soon out of sight. Mr. Acres was a perfect picture\nof happiness as he stood gazing at the departing vehicle, rubbing his\nhands with delight, and his full, round face beaming with intense\nsatisfaction. As I glanced at Minnie I saw her eyes filled with tears\nof love and pride as she watched the movements of her father. Turning\nabout suddenly he noticed her emotion, upon which he went up to her,\nand placing a hand on her either cheek said with mock gravity:\n\n{546}\n\n\"Miss Minnie Acres, the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of my\nlife, is hereby invited to attend the funeral of twenty baskets\nwithout further notice. Ha! ha! you recollect Bob, you know; and no\ntime to lose either,\" he added, taking Minnie's hand in his right and\nmine in his left, and turning toward the parlor; \"so let us get at it,\nmy dears; excuse the liberty, Mr. Holiday, I'm in a glorious humor,\nand it's Christmas day, and here we are, and here's  the list, so sit\nye down; and Bob, Bob! you rascal, where are you?\"\n\nThe rascal thus vociferously called for responded immediately by\npresenting at the door a form about four feet in height, of the rarest\nobesity, clothed in a dark-gray suit, evidently denned for the first\ntime, and holding with both hands the stiffest and hardest of hats.\nThere was no motion of his lips visible, but a sound was heard as if\nit proceeded from the inside of a cotton-bale, which was understood to\nmean--\n\n\"Here I am, sir; respects, gentlemen and ladies, and a Merry\nChristmas.\"\n\n\"Pretty time of day for that\" said Mr. Acres, \"as if a body were just\nout of bed, and hadn't heard Mass yet. Oh! I see,\" he continued,\nglancing at Bob's new clothes, which I have no doubt were the delivery\nof an order from T. Acres, Esq., made that very morning by Tibbits &\nSon, fashionable tailors. \"Well, Merry Christmas, Bob; but don't stand\nbowing there all day\"--which feat that individual seemed to be vainly\nattempting to execute, but could not get through with to his entire\nsatisfaction--\"come in, and stand there by Miss Minnie, and listen to\nthe checking off, and we'll see if it's all right as a trivet, as it\nshould be. Lord! I'd eat no dinner if there was one left out.\"\n\nThe \"checking off\" commenced immediately, the time being up for the\ndelivery of the first basket. Nothing could exceed the delight of the\nold gentleman as Minnie read from the list the names of the parties\nwho at that moment received the basket, their places of residence, and\na detailed account of the articles sent. Each basket contained a\nsufficient supply for a hearty Christmas dinner for the family,\njellies, wines, and other delicacies for the sick, some articles of\nclothing, and last of all the toy monkey.\n\n\"They've all got one,\" said Mr. Acres, chuckling with glee as monkey\nNumber One was mentioned; \"but we must do it regular and put them all\ndown, or I should be afraid we overlooked one, which isn't likely,\nhowever, for they are all down at the bottom of each basket, and I\nwith them there myself.\"\n\nOne by one the baskets were checked off, Mr. Acres with watch in hand\ncalling \"time,\" and Minnie reading thereupon the names of the parties\nand contents of the basket allotted to them. We very soon realized the\nold gentleman's promise that we would have a roar, for as the\ndistribution went on the merriment increased, as all considered it\ntheir bounden duty to laugh louder and longer at the mention of the\nmonkey of the basket then checked off than they did at the last one.\nEven Bob, whose risible powers seemed to be rather limited, and which\nwere evidently under still greater restraint by reason of the\nadditional dignity which became the new outfit, succeeded in\nincreasing the hilarity of the occasion by the comical manner he\nperformed his appointed duty in the checking off, which consisted in\nanswering \"right\" when the number and names were announced, and\nsubmitting any information obtained of the parties in question through\nthe intervention of a certain Mrs. McQuirey, whose \"absence at the\npresent delightful reunion,\" explained Mr. Acres, \"was owing to the\nnumerous duties with which that excellent lady had burdened herself.\"\nThese duties, I afterward learned, consistent in making a daily\nmorning visit to a number of sick poor people who Mr. Acres had taken\nunder his fostering care. Bob's information was remarkable for its\nbrevity of expression as well as for its peculiarly ventriloquistic\ncharacter, due to the extraordinary amount of adipose matter which\nenveloped his organs of speech. {547} Of basket Number Five, for\ninstance, he said, \"Bad--husband goes it every Saturday\nnight--children thin as broom handles.\" Or Number eight he reported:\n\"Measles--shanty--rags scare--allers hungry.\" Of Number Ten,\n\"Wus--man broken leg--wife no work--ain't fit neither if there was\nmillions.\" Of Number Twenty, the last, having by this time exhausted\nhis stock of adjectives, he summed up his report thus: \"Extremely wust\no' the hall lot--widder--nine mortal bags o' hungry bones--and what\nwill you do with 'em?\"\n\n\"Do with them!\" exclaimed Mr. Acres, \"we'll have Mrs. McQuirey look\nthem up, Bob, eh? Minnie, dear, take a note of Number Twenty, that\nbasket is only a bite.\"\n\nThe baskets being all checked off, Bob was ordered to produce\nforthwith a bottle of wine and glasses. \"Now that we've got through\nwith it comfortably,\" said Mr. Acres, \"we'll drink all their healths,\nand wish 'em a Merry Christmas,\" which was done, all standing.\n\"Hoping,\" continued that Prince of Charity, glass in hand, and\nfollowing toward the four points of the compass, as if the whole\ntwenty families were arranged about him in a circle, \"that you may all\nhave many happy returns of the season, and never know a Christmas that\nis not a merry one.\"\n\nNever was a toast drunk with purer enthusiasm or a heartier good-will.\nBelieving it to be the part of some one to cheer the sentiment, and\nnot seeing any of the parties present who might with great propriety\nperform that duty, Bob took it upon himself to act their proxy, which\nhe accordingly did by waving his new hat in a circle and giving three\nmuffled \"Hoo-rays\" from the cotton bale.\n\nIn a few minutes John the messenger returned. He was at once\nintroduced to the parlor, where he gave a glowing account of his\nerrand.\n\n\"The shammin' deaf an' dumb was thryin' to me sowl above all. It wint\naginst me not to be able to say the top o' the mornin' to ye, or aven\nGod save all here on a Christmas dhay to the crathers, an' the Lord\nforgive me for peepin' an' a listenin' whin they thought I was deaf as\na post, but it was in a good cause. It tuk the tears out o' me two\neyes, so it did, to hear thim wondherin and prayin 'and a blessin'\nyez, and a cryin' for joy, and to see the childer dancin' the monkeys\nlike mad. Och! but it's a glory to be a rich man like yer honor. Me\nmouth wathers whin I think o' the threasures ye're a hapin' up above.\"\n\n\"Bob,\" interrupted Mr. Acres, shifting uneasily in his seat, \"you had\nbetter get out the crape hat-bands, for I see a funeral coming round\nthe corner.\"\n\n\"A funeral is it?\" said John. \"May it be a thousand years afore it\nshtops forninst yer honor's doors.\"\n\n\"Thank ye, John; thank ye,\" said Mr. Acres, suddenly rising and going\nto the window, where he stood apparently deeply interested in the view\nof a blank wall and some smoky chimney-pots before him.\n\n\"Whin _his_ day comes,\" continued John, loud enough to be overheard by\nMr. Acres, \"what a croonin' and a philaluin' thim poor crathers will\nbe makin'. Sure, their tears will be droopin' like diamonds into his\ngrave.\"\n\nThis was too much for Mr. Acres, who turned around, presenting a\npicture of inconsolable grief. It was only after two or three violent\nefforts to clear his throat of some unusually large obstacle which\nappeared to have stuck there that he succeeded in saying:\n\n\"Merry Christmas, John! Merry Christmas! You will find a plum-pudding,\nJohn, waiting down-stairs,\" and immediately began another survey of\nthe blank wall and chimney-pots, making at the same time several\nabortive attempts to whistle.\n\n{548}\n\nJohn took the hint, and bowed himself out of the room. A dead silence\nensued upon his departure, which no one appeared to find sufficient\nreason to break. In vain did I rack my brains to find an appropriate\nremark, but the words would not arrange themselves into a grammatical\nsentence. As I chanced to lift my eyes to the full-orbed face of Bob,\nstanding bolt upright behind Minnie's chair, I became convinced at\nonce of the fact that I had been intently and impudently staring at\nthat Darling of the World for some time, whose beautiful downcast\nface, half shaded by a profuse cluster of raven curls I thought might\nengage the attention of any individual, say for an unlimited term of\nyears. Embarrassed by this discovery, I took up the basket list and\nbecame at once deeply absorbed in its perusal. Unfortunately, the\npaper appeared to be possessed of some diabolical fascination which\nprevented my looking away from it or opening my mouth. How long this\nstate of things might have continued is difficult to say, had not Bob\nbroken the silence by a question, addressed, as it seemed, rather to\nmankind in general then to any particular individual within hearing:\n\n\"This ain't Christmas is it?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is, you rascal,\" replied Mr. Acres; who, being either\nsatisfied with his inspection of the blank wall and the chimney-pots,\nor had concluded to defer their more minute examination to another\ntime, at that moment came forward to the table. \"Go and order up lunch\ndirectly, Minnie, my darling; Mr. Holiday will give us the pleasure of\nhis company, and also to dinner. Meanwhile, Mr. Holiday will be glad\nto hear you sing, my dear, and I will go and have Number Twenty looked\nafter; that basket was only a bite, only a bite.\"\n\nMr. Alfred Holiday immediately led Miss Minnie Acres to the piano,\nwhere he listened with rapt attention to that young lady's singing of\nMiss Hemans's \"O lovely voices of the sky;\" upon which Mr. Alfred\nHoliday made the stupid remark that he had never heard any one of\nthose \"voices of the sky\" before that day. Afterward Miss Minnie Acres\nand Mr. Alfred Holiday looked over a portfolio of prints together,\nwhen that young gentleman discovered that all his fingers were thumbs,\nand besought Miss Minnie Acres to hold one of the prints for him,\nwhen, looking at her and at the same time pretending to examine the\npicture with a critical eye, he declared he never saw anything so\nbeautiful in his life, which irrelevant observation caused Miss Minnie\nAcres to say to Mr. Alfred Holiday, \"Why! you're not looking at it!\"\nwhereupon that gentlemen became speechless and blushed from the roots\nof his hair to the depths of his best necktie. Of the events of the\nrest of the day Mr. Alfred Holiday distinctly remembers the following\nfacts. Lunch being announced, Mr. Alfred Holiday took Miss Minnie\nAcres to the table, acted in the most insane manner while there, and\nlead Miss Minnie Acres back to the parlor; that he played backgammon\nwith Miss Minnie Acres, and doubtless left an impression on the mind\nof that young lady that he was utterly ignorant of the game; that he\naccompanied Miss Minnie Acres to Vespers, and returned with her; that\nhe took Miss Minnie Acres to dinner, during which a gentleman, who to\nthe best of his belief was Mr. Thomas Acres, told him several times\nthat he, Mr. Alfred Holiday, ate nothing, a fact of which that\ngentleman was not aware; that after the cloth was removed Mr. Alfred\nHoliday sat staring at an empty chair opposite him, for the possession\nof which he could cheerfully have impoverished himself and gone upon\nthe wide, wide world; that certain musical sounds proceeded from the\ndirection of the parlor, Mr. Alfred Holiday asseverated in the\nstrongest terms to be \"divine;\" that upon his return to the parlor he\nwas only restrained by the presence of a third person from throwing\nhimself upon his knees and explaining: \"Thou art the Darling of the\nWorld and the Sunshine of my life,\" but which he nevertheless repeated\n{549} in his mind an innumerable number of times; in a word, that Mr.\nAlfred Holiday fell head over ears in love with Miss Minnie Acres, and\nmade of all, which up to the present writing he has religiously, that\nif she would accept his hand and heart, which she did a few weeks\nafter, he would send her twenty baskets of provisions to as many poor\nfamilies every Christmas Eve, as a thank-offering, and a grateful\nremembrance of the hour when he laughed, and thereby one the most\nbeautiful and most faithful wife that a man ever have.\n\n----------\n\n\nFrom The London Society.\n\nA CHRISTMAS DREAM.\n\n\n  A Pilgrim to the West returned, whose palm-branch, drenched in dew,\n  Shook off bright drops like childhood's tears when childhood's heart is new,\n  Stole up the hills at eventide, like mist in wintry weather,\n  Where locked in dream-like trance I lay, at rest among the heather.\n\n  The red ferns, answering to his tread; sent up a savor sweet;\n  The yellow gorse, like Magian gold, glowed bright about his feet:\n  The waving brooms, the winter blooms, each happy voice in air,\n  Grew great with life and melody, as if a Christ stood there.\n\n  Unlike to mortal man was he. His brow rose broad and high:\n  The peace of heaven was on his lip, the God-light in his eye;\n  And rayed with richer glory streamed, through night and darkness shed,\n  To crown that holy Pilgrim's brow, the one star overhead.\n\n  Long gazing on that staff he bore, beholding how it grew\n  With sprouts of green, with buds between, and young leaves ever new.\n  The marvels of the Eastern land I bade him all unfold.\n  And thus to my impassioned ears the wondrous tale he told:\n\n  \"Each growth upon that sacred soil where one died not in vain,\n  Though crushed and shed, though seeming dead, in beauty lives again:\n  The branching bough the knife may cleave, the root the axe may sever,\n  But on the ground his presence lighted, nothing dies for ever.\n\n  \"Where once amid the lowly stalls fell soft the Virgin's tear,\n  The littered straw 'neath children's feet turns to green wheat in ear.\n  The corn he pluck'd on Sabbath days, though ne'er it feels the sun,\n  Though millions since have trod the field, bears fruit for every one.\n\n  \"The palms that on his way were strewn wave ever in the air;\n  From clouded earth to sun-bright heaven they form a leafy stair.\n  In Cana's bowers the love of man is touched by the divine;\n  And snows that fall on Galilee have still the taste of wine.\n\n  \"Where thy lost locks, poor Magdalen! around his feet were rolled,\n  Still springs in woman's worship-ways the gracious Mary-gold:\n  Men know when o'er that bowed down head they hear the angels weeping,\n  The purer spirit is not dead--not dead, but only sleeping.\n\n{550}\n\n  \"Aloft on blackened Calvary no more the shadows lower:\n  Where fell the piercing crown of thorns, there blooms a thorn in flower.\n  Bright on the prickled holy-tree and mistletoe' appear,\n  Reflecting rays of heavenly shine, the blod-drop and the tear.\n\n  \"The sounding rocks that knew his tread wake up each dead abyss,\n  Where echoes caught from higher worlds ring gloriously in this;\n  And, leaning where his voice once filled the temple where he taught,\n  The listener's eyes grew spirit-full--full with a heavenly thought.\"\n\n  The Pilgrim ceased. My heart beat fast. I marked a change of hue;\n  As if those more than mortal eyes a soul from God looked through.\n  Then rising slow as angels rise, and soaring faint and far,\n  He passed my bound of vision, robed in glory, as a star.\n\n  Strange herald voices filled the air: glad anthems swelled around:\n  The wakened winds rose eager-voiced, and lapsed in dreamy sound.\n  It seemed all birds that wintered far, drawn home by some blessed power,\n  Made music in the Christmas woods, mistaking of the hour.\n\n  A new glad spirit raptured me! I woke to breathe the morn\n  With heart fresh-strung to charity--as though a Christ were born.\n  Then knew I how each earth-born thought, though tombed in clay it seem,\n  It bursts the sod, it soars to God, transfigured in a dream.\n\n                                                ELEANORA L. HERVEY\n\n--------\n\nFrom the Month.\n\nVICTIMS OF DOUBT.\n\n\nIt is not the fashion at present to scoff at Christianity, or to make\nan open profession of infidelity. Ponderous treatises to prove that\nrevealed religion is an impossibility, and coarse blasphemies against\nholy things, are equally out of date. Yet to men of earnest\nconvictions, whether holding the whole or only some portions of\nrevealed truth, the moral atmosphere is not reassuring. The pious\nCatholic, the Bible-loving Protestant, and the hybrid of the last\nphase of Tractarianism, are alike distrustful of the smooth aspect of\ncontroversy and the calm surface of the irreligious element. There is\nsomething worse than bigotry or mischief, and that is skepticism. And,\nif we may judge from what we hear and read, it is this to which most\nschools of thought outside the Catholic Church are rapidly drifting,\nif they have not already reached it, and into which restless and\ndisloyal Catholics are in danger of being precipitated. An answer made\nto an old Oxford friend by one who was once with him in the van of the\nTractarian movement, but did not accompany him into the fold, \"I agree\nwith you, that if there is a divine revelation, the Roman Catholic\nChurch is the ordained depository of it; but this is an uncertainty\nwhich I cannot solve,\" would probably express the habitual state of\nmind of a fearfully {551} large number of the more thoughtful of our\ncountrymen, and the occasional reflection of many more who do not\noften give themselves time to think. And to the multitudes who are\nplunging or gliding into doubts the Catholic system, which there\nunhappy training has made it one of their first principles to despise\nfor detest, has not even presented itself as an alternative.\n\nThe current literature of the day, which is mostly framed to suit the\ntaste of the market, and reacts again in developing that taste further\nin the same direction, is pre-eminently, not blasphemous, or\nanti-Catholic, or polemical, but sceptical. The following description\nof the periodical press by the Abb\u00e9 Louis Baunard, in his recent\npublication,  [Footnote 168] might seem to have been written for\nLondon instead of Paris:\n\n  [Footnote 168: Le Doute ses Victimes dans le Si\u00e8cle pr\u00e9sent, par M.\n  l'Abb\u00e9 Louis Baunard. Paris.]\n\n\"With some rare exceptions, you will not find any rude scoffing,\nviolent expressions, unfashionable cynicism, harsh systems, or\nexclusive intolerance. Yet is not controversy that is the business of\nthese writers, but criticism. They deal in expositions and\nsuppositions, but almost always without deciding anything. It is a\nprinciple with them that there are only shades of difference between\nthe most contradictory propositions; and the reader becomes accustomed\nto see these shades in such questions as those which relate to the\npersonality of God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the supernatural\ngenerally. This does not hinder these men from calling themselves\nChristians, in the vague sense of a loose Christianity, which allows\nthe names of ancient beliefs to remain, while it destroys their\nsubstance. They do not assault the old religion in front, but silently\nundermine the foundations on which it rests, and carry on ingenious\nparallels by the side of revealed truth, till some conclusion emerges\nwhich utterly subverts it, without having appeared to be intentionally\ndirected against it. There is one review, the most widely circulated\nof all, in the same number of which an article dearly atheistical will\nbe found by the side of another article breathing the most correct\northodoxy, and very much surprised to see itself in such company. Such\nconcessions to truth, which are made only now and then, serve to give\nthe publication that makes them a certain appearance of impartiality,\nand thus to accredit error, and to lay one more snare for the reader.\"\n\nWe may be inclined, on a cursory perusal of such periodicals as The\nSaturday Review, to indulge gleefully in the laughter excited by the\nludicrous aspect in which some pompous prelate or fussy evangelical\npreacher is presented; or to admire the acute and seemingly candid\ndissection, at one time, of a Protestant scheme of evidences, at\nanother, of an infidel philosophy; or to rejoice in the substitution\nof decorous calmness for rancor and raving in handling Catholic truth.\nBut when we study a series of such publications, and notice how\nsystematically all earnest convictions are made to show a weak or\nridiculous side, and all proofs of Christianity to appear defective,\nand how, under a smooth surface of large-minded impartiality, there\nbeats a steady tide of attack upon all supernatural virtue and all\nsupernatural truth, our hearts must needs ache to think of the effects\nof such teaching on multitudes of imperfectly grounded minds. In the\nwords of the author to whom we have referred: \"Right and wrong, true\nand false, yes and no, meet and jostle each other, and are mistaken\nfor each other in minds bewildered and off their guard, and mostly\nincapable of discrimination: till at length, lost in these\ncross-roads, tired of systems and of contradictions, and not knowing\nin what direction to find light, all but the most energetic sit down\nand rest in doubt, as in the best wisdom and the safest position.\" But\nto sit down in doubt is either to abdicate the highest powers of a\nreasonable being, or to admit an enemy that will use them as\ninstruments of torture. Except for {552} souls of little intellectual\nactivity, or wholly steeped in sense, this sitting down in doubt is\nlike sitting down in a train that is moving out of the station with\nthe steam up and no engine-driver, or in a boat that is drifting out\nof harbor into a stormy sea.\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 Baunard has collected the experiences of some of these\nreckless and storm-tossed wanderers into a painfully interesting\nvolume. He has selected from the chief sceptical philosophers and\npoets of the present century those who, in private journals or\nautobiographical sketches, have made the fullest disclosures of the\nworking of their own minds, and has let them speak for themselves. He\ncalls them \"victims of doubt,\" and bids us listen with compassion to\ntheir bitter lamentations over the wreck of the past, and their gloomy\nanticipations of the future, and to the cries of pain and shame which\nseem forced out of them, even amidst their proudest boasts of\nindependence and most resolute rejections of revealed truth. But,\nalthough an expression here or there may be unguarded, he\ndistinguishes very clearly between pitying and excusing these victims.\nHe reminds us that compassion for the sufferings entailed by doubt\ncannot absolve from the guilt of doubt. He protests against the claim\nmade by sceptics to be regarded as warriors in conflicts in which only\nthe noble engage, and as scarred with honorable wounds; and against\nthe notion that to have suffered much in a wrong cause is a guarantee\nof sincerity and a title to salvation. He quotes with reprobation the\nplea of M. Octave Feuillet: \"Ah! despise as much as you choose what is\ndespicable. But when unbelief suffers, implores, and is respectful, do\nyou respect it. There are blasphemies, be assured, which are as good\nas prayers, and unbelievers who are martyrs. Yes, I firmly believe\nthat the sufferings of doubt are holy, and that to think of God and to\nbe always thinking of him, even with despair, is to honor him and to\nbe pleasing to him.\" He would not admit the same plea in the more\nplausible form and more touching language in which it is urged by Mr.\nFroude: \"You who look with cold eye on such a one, and lift them up to\nheaven, and thank God you are not such as he, and call him hard names,\nand think of him as of one who is forsaking a cross, and pursuing\nunlawful indulgence, and deserving all good men's reproach! Ah! could\nyou see down below his heart's surface, could you count the tears\nstreaming down his cheek, as out through some church-door into the\nstreet come pealing the old familiar notes, and the old psalms which\nhe cannot sing, the chanted creed which is no longer his creed, and\nyet to part with which was worse agony than to lose his dearest\nfriend; ah! you would deal him lighter measure. What! is not his cup\nbitter enough, but that all the good, whose kindness at least, whose\nsympathy and sorrow, whose prayers he might have hoped for, that these\nmust turn away from him as from an offence, as from a thing for bid?\n--that he must tread the wine-press alone, calling to God-fearing man\nhis friend; and this, too, with the sure knowledge that of coldness\nleast of all he is deserving, for God knows it is no pleasant task\nwhich has been laid on him.\" The fallacies which are dextrously\ninterwoven in this passage, that sympathy precludes condemnation, that\nintense suffering of any kind sanctities the sufferer, and that the\nstate of doubt is imposed as a burden and not wilfully incurred and\nretained, are refuted out of the mouth of those who resort to them. We\nsee, indeed, in the records of these victims of doubt, various\ncircumstances leading to their fall; such as the heathenish state of\nthe colleges where some of them lost their faith, the antichristian\ntheories of science and philosophy magisterially propounded to them,\nthe personal influence of friends who were already committed to\nskepticism, poisonous literature thrown in the way, and the excitement\nof political revolutions; and, of course, in the case of {553} those\nwho had not received a Catholic education, the far greater palliation\nof the absence of a coherent system of belief. But, at the same time,\nwe see no less plainly the working of wilful negligence and\npresumption in their descent into the abyss, and of wilful pride and\nobstinacy in refusing to seek the means of extrication from it. They\nare victims of doubt as others are victims of a habit of opium-eating\nor gambling; and if we sympathize with them more deeply than with\nthese latter, it is rather because their anguish is more intense and\nmore refined than because it is less the harvest of their own sowing.\nBy the side of those who fell, there were others of the same\nsensibility of mind, placed in the same circumstances, exposed to the\nsame assaults, who stood firm by prayer and humility, and who found in\ntheir faith a provision for all their mental wants, and a fountain of\npeace under the heaviest trials. And by the side of those who, having\nonce made shipwreck of their faith, plunged more and more deeply into\ndespair of knowing anything with certainty, till they flung away the\nlife that their own doubts had made an intolerable burden, there were\nothers equally astray and equally burdened, who worked their way back\nto life and peace by the same path of earnest and humble prayer. Some\nof these contrasts are very effectively presented by our author, and\nothers will suggest themselves to his readers.\n\nThe victims whose wanderings and sufferings are portrayed in this\nvolume are Th\u00e9odore Jouffroy, Maine de Biran, Santa Rosa, Georges,\nFarcy, and Edmund Sch\u00e9rer from among the philosophers of the century;\nand Lord Byron, Friedrich Schiller, Heinrich von Kleist, and Leopardi\nfrom among the poets; followed by a less detailed account of a group\nof French sceptical poets, Alfred de Musset, Henri Heine, Murger,\nG\u00e9rard de Nerval, and H\u00e9g\u00e9sippe Moreau, whose writings are mostly too\ngross for quotation, although enough is given to show that their\nexperience of the effects of doubt resembled that of the rest. All,\nwith the exception of M. Sch\u00e9rer, who is the editor of the French\npaper Le Temps, have passed into a world where doubt is no longer\npossible--two of them by their own hand, and two more by violent\ndeaths which they had gone to meet rather from weariness of life than\nfrom enthusiasm for the cause for which they fought.\n\nThere is only one of the whole number, Maine de Biran, whose death was\nthoroughly satisfactory; and he, though certainly to be reckoned among\nthe victims of doubt, which clouded the best years of his life, and\nfrom which he only very slowly worked his way to freedom, is\nintroduced rather in the way of contrast to the other philosophers and\nespecially to Jouffroy. The great difference in his case lay in two\nthings, that he paid more attention to the moral nature of man, and\ndid not so wholly subordinate the desire of the good to the search\nafter the true, and that he was on his guard against that pride of\nintellect which we see so rampant in his fellow-philosophers. While\nall the most celebrated men of Paris were paying court to him, and\nalthough, even before he had published anything beyond some short\nmetaphysical treatises, M. Royer Collard cried, \"He is the master of\nus all,\" and M. Cousin pronounced him to be the greatest French\nmetaphysician since Malebranche, his own private reflection was:\n\"Pride will be the ruin of my life, as long as I do not seek from on\nhigh a spirit to direct mine, or to take its place.\" Yet it was not\ntill his fifty-second year, after many years' vain pursuit of truth in\ndifferent systems of sensualistic and rationalistic philosophy, and of\nhappiness first in pleasure and then in study and retirement, that he\nset himself resolutely to try surer means. \"Not finding,\" he wrote in\nMay, 1818, \"anything satisfactory either in myself or out of myself,\nin the world of my ideas or in that of objects, I have been for some\n{554} time past more determined to look for that fixed resting-place\nwhich has become the need of my mind and of my heart, in the notion of\nthe Absolute, Infinite, and Unchangeable Being. The religious and\nmoral beliefs which reason does not create, but which are its\nnecessary basis and support, now present themselves to me as my only\nrefuge, and I can find no true knowledge anywhere than just there,\nwhere before, with the philosophers, I found only dreams and chimeras.\nMy point of view has altered with my disposition and moral character.\"\nFrom this time the progress upward was steady. We find notices in his\njournal of earnest prayer, of daily meditation, of study of the\ngospels and the Imitation of Christ. Four years of physical suffering\nand outward trials deepened the work of conversion, and were passed\nwith Christian resignation. The last words that he wrote were words of\ncertainty and peace: \"The Christian walks in the presence of God and\nwith God, by the Mediator whom he has taken as his guide for this life\nand the next.\" The Ami de la Religion of July 24th, 1824, contained\nthe notice: \"Maine de Biran fulfilled his Christian duties in an\nedifying manner, and received the sacraments at the hands of his\npastor, the cur\u00e9 of St. Thomas d'Aqnin.\"\n\nTh\u00e9odore de Jouffroy, if his life had not been suddenly cut short,\nwould probably have had the same happiness. After having devoted his\nimmense powers of mind to the study and dissemination of sceptical\nphilosophy from 1814 to 1839, when bad health forced him to resign the\nprofessor's chair, he had begun to soften his tone, to speak\nrespectfully of revealed religion, and to look wistfully and hopefully\nto it for the solution of the great problems which it had been the\nbusiness and the torture of his life to investigate by the unaided\nlight of his own intellect. He had conversed with Monseigneur Cart,\nthe bishop of N\u00eemes, and had said to him, \"I am not now one of those\nwho think that modern societies can do without Christianity; I would\nnot write in this sense to-day. You have a grand mission to fulfil,\nmonseigneur. Ah! continue to teach the gospel well.\" He took pleasure\nin seeing his daughter preparing herself for her first communion; and\nspeaking about a work of Lamennais to the clergyman who was\ninstructing her, he said with a deep sigh, \"Alas! M. le Cur\u00e9, all\nthese systems lead to nothing; better--a thousand times better--one\ngood act of Christian faith.\" The cur\u00e9 left his room with good hopes\nof his conversion, and in the belief that the faith of his childhood\nhad come to life again in his part. But before he could see him again,\nand put these hopes to the test, Jouffroy expired suddenly and without\nprevious warning on the 1st of March, 1842.\n\nTwo or three of the French poets had time to ask for a priest, or to\nadmit one when, in the hospitals to which their excesses had brought\nthem, a Sister of Charity proposed it. Leopardi, outwardly at least\nsceptical and gloomy to the last, received a doubtful absolution from\na priest, who came when the dying man was insensible.  [Footnote 169]\nTo all the rest even as much as this was wanting.\n\n  [Footnote 169: We have used this expression, also aware of the\n  letter of Father Scarpa published first in the journal Scienza e\n  Fede, and afterward in the eighth addition of Father Curci's Fatti\n  ed Argomenti in risposta alle molte parole di V. Gioberti, in which\n  he gives an account of Leopardi's recourse to his ministry and\n  reconciliation by his means to the church in 1836; not, of course\n  because we agree with Gioberti that this simple and modest letter is\n  \"a tissue of lies and deliberate inventions and a sheer romance from\n  beginning to end;\" but because Leopardi's letters in the beginning\n  of 1837 and his continuance in the composition of his last poem the\n  Paralipomeni, the conclusion of which was dictated a few days before\n  his death, seems to suggest the melancholy alternative either of a\n  feigned conversion or of a relapse into skepticism. He told Father\n  Scarpa when he offered himself to be prepared for confession that he\n  had been banished from his Father's house; and that he was now\n  penitent, and was about to publish papers which would show his\n  alterated sentiments. It is amusing to notice that to the staid and\n  decorus Quarterly Review, as well as to Gioberti, this was to great\n  an opportunity to be lost of reviling the Jesuits. Accordingly, on\n  no other ground than  that Father Scarpa repeated _as told him by\n  Leopardi_ what his letters contradict, and that he was not quite\n  correct in guessing at his age and described his appearance ten\n  years after his interview with him, the reviewer indorses Gioberti's\n  description, and calls the letter \"an instance of audacity beyond\n  all common efforts in that kind.\" The habitual mendacity in\n  Leopardi's letters, and his offer, while an unbeliever, to be\n  ordained in order to hold a benefice which he intended _after saying\n  a few Masses_ to have served by another, make it unfortunately not\n  improbable that his conversion was only pretended.]\n\n{555}\n\nWe have not space to go into the details of these melancholy\nhistories; but we must give a few extracts in illustration of the keen\nregret with which these victims of doubt look back to the religious\nconvictions of their youth from the cheerlessness and misery of the\nstate to which they have reduced themselves, and of the involuntary\nhomage which, even while refusing to submit to the teaching of the\nchurch, they are forced to pay to it. Here is Jouffroy's reminiscence\nof the happy days of faith: \"Born of pious parents and in a country\nwhere the Catholic faith was still full of life at the beginning of\nthis century, I had been early wont to consider man's future and the\ncare of my own soul the chief business of life, and all my subsequent\neducation tended to confirm these serious dispositions. For a long\ntime, the beliefs of Christianity had fully answered to all the wants\nand all the anxieties which such dispositions introduce into the soul.\nTo these questions, which to me were the only questions that ought to\noccupy man, the religion of my fathers gave answers, and those answers\nI believed, and, thanks to my belief, my present life was clear, and\nbeyond it I saw the future that was to follow it spread itself out\nwithout a cloud. At ease as to the path that I had to pursue in this\nworld, at ease as to the goal to which it was to conduct me in the\nother, understanding the phases of life and death in which they are\nblended, understanding myself, understanding the designs of God for\nme, and loving him for the goodness of his designs, I was happy with\nthe happiness that springs from a firm and ardent faith in a doctrine\nwhich solves all the great questions that can interest man.\" His\nfaith, the liveliness of which had been somewhat shaken by an\nindiscriminate perusal of modern literature during the latter part of\nhis classical studies at Dijon, gave way entirely before the lectures\nof M. Cousin in the Ecole Normale at Paris, to which he was\ntransferred in 1814, and the combined influences of flattery and\nridicule with which his sceptical fellow-students there assailed him.\nHe describes the terrible struggle between \"the eager curiosity which\ncould not withdraw itself from the consideration of objections which\nwere scattered like dust throughout the atmosphere that he breathed,\"\nand on the other hand the influences \"of his childhood with its poetic\nimpressions, his youth with its pious recollections, the majesty,\nantiquity, and authority of the faith which he had been taught, and\nthe rising in revolt of the whole memory and imagination against the\nincursion of unbelief which wounded them so deeply.\" His faith was\ngone before he realized the loss: some time afterward he thus painted\nthe horrors of the discovery: \"Never shall I forget that evening in\nDecember when the veil that hid my unbelief from myself was rent. I\nstill hear my footsteps in the bare narrow apartment, in which I\ncontinued walking long after the hour for sleep. I still see that moon\nhalf-veiled by clouds which at intervals lit up the cold window-panes.\nThe hours of night glided by, and I took no note of them. I was\nanxiously following my train of thought, which descended from one\nstratum to another toward the depth of my consciousness, and\nscattering, one after another, all the illusions which had hitherto\nconcealed it from me, made its outline every moment more visible. In\nvain did I try to cling to these residues of belief as a shipwrecked\nsailor to the fragments of his ship; in vain, alarmed at the unknown\nvoid in which I was about to be suspended, I threw myself back for the\nlast time toward my childhood, my family, my country, all that was\ndear and sacred to me: the irresistible current of my thought was too\nstrong. Parents, family, recollections, beliefs--it forced me to quit\nall. The analysis was continued with more obstinacy and more severity\nin proportion as it approached its term, {556} and it did not pause\ntill it had reached it. Then I was aware that in my inmost self there\nwas no longer anything left standing. It was an appalling moment, and\nwhen, toward morning, I threw myself exhausted on my bed, I seemed to\nsee my former life, so smiling and so full, effaced, and another\ngloomy and desolate life opening behind me in which I was henceforth\nto live alone--alone with my fatal thought which had just banished me\nthither, and which I was tempted to curse.\"\n\nA few years after this crisis in Jouffroy's life, the same sort of\ncatastrophe was experienced in a distant country by another highly\ngifted soul, and wonderfully similar is the victim's description of\nit. Leopardi, the rival, in the opinion of many of his countrymen, of\nTasso in poetry and of Galileo in philosophy, in whom a prodigious\nindustry was united in rare combination to a subtle intellect and a\nrefined imagination, who was reading Greek by himself at eight years\nold, and  before he was nineteen was versed in several oriental\nlanguages, was engaged in literary correspondence with Niebuhr,\nBoissonado, and Bunsen, and was the author of numerous translations\nfrom the Classics, a valuable translation of Porphyry on Plotinus, and\nan erudite historical essay in which there are citations from four\nhundred ancient authors--had, like Jouffroy, prepared the way for his\nfall by an overweening confidence in his own great intellectual\npowers, and by a recklessly excessive devotion to study. To this was\nadded the chafing of disappointed ambition, and irritation against his\nfather for refusing to give him the means of leaving home. His ruin\nwas completed by the conversation of Pietro Giordani, an apostate\nBenedictine monk, who soothed and condoled with him, flattered his\nvanity by telling him that \"if Dante was the morning star of Italy's\nsky, Leopardi was the evening star,\" and succeeded in inoculating him\nwith his own scepticism, which in himself was mere shallow impiety,\nbut in the deeper mind of his pupil, led, if his writings can be\ntrusted, to as hopelessly complete a disbelief of God, the soul, and\nimmortality, as is possible for a human being to bring himself to\nendure. In a letter of March 6th, 1820, to his friend and seducer, he\nsays: \"My window being open one of these evenings, while I was gazing\non a pure sky and a beautiful moonlight, and listening to the distant\nbarking of dogs, I seemed to see images of former times before me, and\nI felt a shock in my heart. I cried out, like a convict, baking pardon\nof nature, whose voice I seemed to hear. At that instant, as I cast a\nglance back on my former state, I stood, frozen with terror, unable to\nimagine how it would be possible to support port life without fancies\nand without affections, without imagination and without enthusiasm--in\na word, without anything of all that, a year ago, filled up my\nexistence and made me still happy, notwithstanding my trials. Now I am\nwithered up like to reed; no emotion finds an entrance any longer into\nmy poor soul, and even the eternal and supreme power of love is\nannihilated in me at my present age.\" He was but twenty-two then; and\nthrough the seventeen years that is shattered constitution lasted, he\nwas ever speaking of life as an agony and a burden, sometimes proudly\ndeclaring that he would not bend under its weight, sometimes\npassionately asking for sympathy and love, but always recurring to\nthis sad refrain: \"The life of mortals, when youth has past, is never\ntinged with any dawn. It is widowed to the end, and the grade is the\nonly end to our night.\" \"I comprehend, I know only one thing. Let\nothers draw some profit from these vicissitudes and passing\nexistences; it may be so, but for me life is an evil.\"\n\nWe have seen the account given by the French philosopher Jouffroy and\nthe Italian poet Leopardi of their feelings on waking up to the\nknowledge that the faith of their childhood had passed away; let us\ncompare one more such experience that of the German {557} Von Kleist.\n\"For some time, my dear friend,\" he writes to the lady to whom he was\naffianced, \"I have been employed in studying the philosophy of Kant,\nand I am bound to communicate to you a conclusion which I am sure will\nnot affect you as deeply and as painfully as it has myself. It is\nthis: we cannot be certain whether what we call truth is really the\ntruth or only an appearance. In this last case, the truth that we\nsought after here below would be nothing at all after death; and it\nwould be useless to try to acquire a treasure which it would be\nimpossible to carry to the tomb. If this conclusion does not pierce\nyour heart, do not laugh at a wretch whom it has deeply wounded in all\nthat is most sacred to him. _My noble, my only aim has vanished, and I\nhave none_. Since this conviction entered my mind, I have not touched\nmy books. I have traversed my chamber, I have placed myself by an open\nwindow, I have run along the street. My interior disturbance has let\nme to visit smoking-rooms and caf\u00e9s to get relief. I have been to the\ntheatre and the concert to dissipate my mind. I have even played the\nfool. But in spite of all, in the midst of all this agitation, the one\nthought that occupied my whole soul and filled it with anguish was\nthis: your aim, your noble and only aim has vanished.\" A few years of\nthe repetition of this sorrowful wailing, and then, after writing to\nhis sister, \"You have done everything to save me that the power of a\nsister could do, everything that the power of man could do; the fact\nis, that nothing can help me here on earth,\" he escaped from doubt to\npass before the Judgment-seat by his own hand.\n\nWe must give one more of the many recurring expressions of regret with\nwhich the volume abounds. We are inclined to regard Santa Rosa with\neven more profound compassion than the other victims, on account of\nthe warm and tender piety of his earlier youth, and the absence in him\nof the arrogance and scorn that overflows in the others in the midst\nof their sufferings. All who knew him agreed that it was hardly\npossible to know him without loving him. Unfortunately, his struggles\nin the cause of Italy threw him into close association with many who\nhad mistaken infidelity for liberty. Still more unfortunately, he\ncontracted a close intimacy with M. Cousin, and soon began to love him\nmore than truth and than God, and under the blighting influence of his\nteaching his own faith disappeared. M. Cousin has published his\nletters with frequent and large omissions, but there remains abundant\nevidence that he was always regretting the past. The following passage\noccurs after something omitted: \"O my friend, how unfortunate we are\nin being only poor philosophers, for whom the continuance of existence\nafter death is only a hope, an ardent desire, a fervent prayer! Would\nthat I had the virtues and the faith of my mother! To reason is to\ndoubt; to doubt is to suffer. Faith is a sort of miracle. When it is\nstrong and genuine, what happiness it gives! How often in my study I\nraise my eyes to heaven, and beg God to reveal me to myself, but above\nall, to grant me immortality!\" Twice in his life--when in prison in\nParis with the expectation of being given up to the Piedmontese\npolice, which would have been to be sent to the scaffold, and again\nwhen beginning a serious philosophical work--he returned to a better\nmind. Whether time and grace to return once more were given him,\nbehind the Greek battery in the isle of Sphacteria, where he fell\nfighting bravely, we cannot tell.\n\nBesides the implicit homage to the faith involved in such regrets of\nthe past as we have been witnessing, the writings of most of these\nphilosophers and poets contain many testimonies to their involuntary\nacknowledgment of the claims of the revealed system which they had\nabandoned. We will cite only one, from a discourse of Jouffroy on his\nusual subject, the {558} problem of the destiny of man: \"There is a\nlittle book which children are made to learn, and on which they are\nquestioned in church. Read this little book, which is called the\nCatechism; you will find in it an answer to all the questions that I\nhare proposed--all without exception. Ask the Christian whence the\nhuman race comes, he knows; whither it is going, he knows. Ask this\npoor child, who has never in his life dreamed of it, to what end he\nexists here below, and what he will become after death; he will give\nyou a sublime answer, which he will not comprehend, but which is not\nthe less admirable. Ask him how the world was produced, and for what\nend; why God placed animals and plants in it; how the earth was\npeopled, whether by one family or several; why men speak different\nlanguages; why they suffer; why they contend; what will be the end of\nit all--he knows. The origin of the world, the origin of the human\nrace, the question of races, the destiny of man in this life and in\nthe other, the relation of man to God, the duties of man to his\nfellows, the rights of man over creation--he is acquainted with all;\nand when he is grown up, he will be equally free from hesitation about\nnatural rights, political rights, and the right of nations; for all\nthis is the outcome and clear and spontaneous product of Christian\ndoctrine. This is what I call a great religion; I recognize it by this\nsign of its not leaving unanswered any of the questions which interest\nhumanity.\"\n\nEdmond Sch\u00e9rer and Friedrich Schiller, as well as Lord Byron, differ\nfrom the other instances in never having known the true faith; but\nthey show that the loss of a firm hold of those fragments of\nChristianity that are retained outside of the fold leads to something\nof the same result as the loss of the faith. The sketch of M.\nSch\u00e9rer's life is very interesting, for it shows the inevitable result\nof Protestantism in a highly logical and reflective mind which refuses\nthe alternative of submission to the Catholic Church. His installation\nin the chair of theology in the Evangelical Seminary of Geneva in 1844\nwas hailed as a triumph by all the devout adherents to the reformed\nreligion, who looked to him as the invincible champion against the\nsocinianism prevailing all around. He set himself to the work of\nproving the inspiration of Scripture without having recourse to the\nauthority of the Catholic Church, and the result, after passing\nthrough various phases of sentimentalism and eclecticism, was to land\nhim in such conclusions as that \"the Bible has so little of a monopoly\nof inspiration, that there are writings not canonical the inspiration\nof which is much more evident than in some of the biblical writings;\"\nand finally, that Protestantism and Catholicism, Christianity and\nJudaism, are only conceptions more or less exact of a common object\nand phases in a great movement of progressive spiritualization; that\nmorality itself is only relative; and that absolute certainty of any\nkind is a dream. He may well say, as he has lately said: \"Alas! blind\nprisoners as we are, laboring at the overthrow the past, we are\nengaged in a work which we do not understand. We yield to a power of\nwhich it seems at times that we are the victims as well as the\ninstruments. The terrible logic whose formulas we wield crushes us\nwhile we are crushing others with it.\"\n\nThe moral of these and other such histories--the moral of Froude and\nFrancis Newman and Clough--is that as God never made his children for\nperplexity and anguish, he never made them for doubt, and must have\nprovided a secure asylum from it, not in ignorance or thoughtlessness,\nbut in a system of divinely guaranteed authority. The lesson from the\nNemesis of doubt is the conclusion of Augustine Thierry: \"I have need\nof an infallible authority, I have need of rest for my soul. I open my\neyes, and I see one only authority, that of the Catholic Church. I\nbelieve what the Catholic Church teaches; I receive her Credo.\"\n\n----------\n\n{559}\n\nTranslated from the German\n\n\nWHAT MOST REJOICES THE HEART OF MAN?\n\n\nIt was two days before the holy Christmas of the old year, and a very\nhard season when Martin (a farmer, to whom heaven had granted a rich\nharvest, to reward him for the faithful tillage of his land) entered\nthe house. He had taken his grain to the market-town, and, thanks to\nthe brisk demand, had parted with it at an unusually high price. And\nnow, returning home with a full purse, he called his wife, and pouring\nout the money before her on the table, said laughingly: \"Look, Agnes,\nthat will give us a rare treat! what thinkest thou, mother? What most\nrejoices the heart of man? I want something that shall make me right\njoyful.\"\n\n\"O Martin!\" replied the wife, \"it must be found, then. But this whole\nday has my heart been very heavy; and even if I made something very\nnice indeed, I don't think it would go to the right spot;\" and when\nMartin asked why, she continued: \"Thou hadst not been gone long\nyesterday morning when in came our neighbor's Clara, weeping and\nmourning, and said her father was like to die, and would I for God's\nsake come to their assistance and give him something nourishing. I\ncould understand, then, how matters still it, and taking with me just\nwhatever there was in the house, I ran down to the hut. O dear God!\nwhat misery was there! The man lay on a little straw, so white and\nfeeble; the poor wife knelt beside him, crying and sobbing; and their\nchildren hung round them, half naked, and living pictures of hunger,\nand not a bit of bread in the whole house. And indeed, Martin, that is\nnot the only home where such want is! I don't know, but it seems as if\nI ought not to enjoy one cheerful hour while so much wretchedness\nsurrounds us.\"\n\nWhile Martin let his wife speak out her thoughts, his eyes were\nmusingly bent before him. Then he rose, and grasping Agnes's hand,\nexclaimed: \"Now I know what to do, mother! A joyful heart will I have,\nfor doing good to others gladdens the heart more than wine and good\ncheer. Let us see, then, what the dear God has given us.\" And now he\ncounted out from the money first the rent due to his landlord, then\nenough to pay all that he owed, and lastily all that must go toward\npreparing for the next year s crop. Still there remained a pretty\nlittle sum, so he said: \"Now, mother, count up the poor of our\nvillage, and heat the oven, and bake for every grown person two big\nloaves, and for every child a smaller one; and then send the bread\nround, adding to each loaf a jug of wine and two florins. Then when\nthe people have a Merry Christmas, and can say grace without tears,\nour hearts will be light, I am thinking, even if we set nothing on the\ntable besides our usual fare.\"\n\nNow when Agnes heard her husband speak thus, her heart grew very\nhappy, and she said yes to everything, and shook flour into the\nbread-trough, and baked all day and all night. So on that day when the\nchurch sings \"Gloria in excelsis Deo!\" there was not one in that whole\nparish who had not enough to eat; and many a one who for a long time\nhad not tasted wine refreshed himself on that day, thanking with heart\nand lips the farmer and his wife. These two had merely their usual\nhomely fare upon the table, but within their breasts were joyful\nhearts and the consciousness of a good deed.\n\n{560}\n\nSo far, so good; but something else happened afterward; for as,\naccording to the proverb, a pleasure never comes alone, so have good\nworks an especial power of multiplying themselves. And of that we are\nnow going to hear something.\n\nWhen it came to the landlord's ears that his farmer, who was no\ncapitalist, had made a Merry Christmas for himself in the love of the\nholy Christ-child, he was well pleased, and thought to himself that he\ntoo might try something of the same sort. Therefore he appointed a day\n(the octave of the blessed Christmas, New-Year's day) when all the\npoor in his parish should be invited to the castle. In the hall was a\nlong table covered with a fine white cloth for the poor people, and a\nsmaller one for himself and his family. At this small table he placed\nFarmer Martin and his wife Agnes, and near the head too, which has no\nsmall significance among knights and noblemen. But he said that he\nhonored such excellent people as his own friends and relations,\nbelieving that the heart makes better nobility than a long pedigree.\n\nWhen now the table was filled with the sons and daughters of poverty,\ngrace was said by the chaplain, while all remained standing and joined\ndevotedly in his prayer. Then were bread-cakes set on the board, and\nhuge pieces if roast beef, and for each person a bumper of good old\nwine; but if any one was ill and could not come to the feast, then was\nhis share despatched to his home, with a beautiful gold piece and a\nfriendly greeting from his gracious lord. So all the parish poor had a\nsecond time plenty to eat and drink, and more than one enjoyed himself\nbetter on that day than ever before in his life.\n\nWhen the people had had a good dinner, they thought the feast was at\nan end, and wished to express their thanks courteously to the host,\nbut he begged them to wait a little quarter of an hour longer, for\nsomething else was coming. Then four lottery vases were placed on the\ntable, one for the men, another for the women, a third for boys, and a\nfourth for girls; and when all the guests had been arranged ranged\naccording to age and family, one after another put his hand into a\nvase and drew forth a number, one fifteen, another twenty-one, a third\ntwo, and so on until each person had a number. Then they looked at\ntheir numbers and thought, What does this all mean? and they waited\nfull of expectation.\n\nSuddenly a side door opened, and the servants brought in a wooden\nframe, on the four sides of which hung all sorts of garments, one side\nfor men, another for women, and then for boys and girls, as at a fair;\nand everything was new and neat and strong, such as peasant-folks like\nto wear, and a number was fastened on each piece. Some one called out,\n\"Now look for the numbers that you have in your hands.\" The men looked\nshyly at each each other, as if to say, \"Can he really mean it?\" but\nthe women were more clever, and had soon found white and colored\nskirts, aprons, stockings, neckerchiefs, and handkerchiefs to match\ntheir numbers, and were helping their husbands and children in their\nsearch. Before long not one single thread hung on the frame, and every\none possessed his appointed prize, and was rejoicing over it, for it\nreally seemed as if to each person had fallen the very thing he most\nneeded. Of course many were there who were in need of everything.\n\nWhen now the time for leave-taking came, and the happy people thanked\ntheir gracious lord in their best manner, he shook hands with each one\nlike a good old friend or father, at the same moment slipping into the\npalm of every man a thaler. Then were there fresh rejoicings and\nrenewed thanks, and the worthy folk would not soon have made an end of\nit, if their benefactor had not quickly broken {561} a path through\nthe crowd who blessed him, and so eluded their acknowledgments.\n\nBut then their hearts being full to overflowing, they longed to have\nsome outlet to their gratitude; so they seated farmer and his wife in\ntwo chairs, placed them in a pretty wagon, to which they harnessed\nthemselves; and the worthy couple, in spite of expostulation, were\nborne home in triumph. Such rejoicings had not been seen for many a\nlong day, and even now do the people of B---- talk of brave Martin and\nhis excellent wife Agnes; of the feast and the lottery and the dollars\nof their kind and gracious lord in the castle yonder.\n\n--------\n\nFrom The Reader.\n\n\nTHE REPUBLIC OF ANDORRA.\n\n\nThe Val d'Andorra lies on the southern side of the central Pyrenees,\nbetween two of the highest mountains, the Maladetta and the Moncal. It\nis bounded on the north by the department of Ari\u00e8ge; on the south by\nthe district of Barrida, the territory of Urgel, and part of the\nviscounty of Castelbo; on the east by the valley of Carol and part of\nthe Cerdana; on the west at by the viscounty of Castelbo, the valleys\nof San Juan and Terrem, the Conca de Buch, and the communes of Os and\nTor. The principal mountain-passes into France are those of Valira,\nSoldeu, Fontargente, Siguer, Anzat, Arbella, and Rat; those\ncommunicating with Spain are Port Negre, Perefita, and Portella. Some\nof these are only passable during part of the year. The greatest\nlength of the territory is about forty miles; the greatest breadth\nabout twenty-four miles. The country is mountainous, but includes some\nexcellent pasturage. The highest summits visible are Las Mineras,\nCasamanya, Saturria, Montclar, San Julian, and Jugl\u00e1r. The principle\nrivers are the Valira, the Ordino, and the Os, none of which are\nnavigable. At the greatest elevation the snow remains upward of six\nmonths. In summer the rains are very frequent. The purity of both air\nand water renders the climate very healthy, and the inhabitants are\nremarkable for their longevity, many living to the age of one hundred.\nDevonian beds lie unconformably on upper silurian, which latter forms\na valley of depression, having the town of Andorra in its synclinal\naxis. There are many mines producing iron of the best quality; one of\nlead, several of alum, quartz, slate, some quarries of jaspers, and\nseveral kinds of marble. Besides the trees common to Europe, the flora\nincludes the cacao or chocolate. There are, likewise, many medicinal\nroots and plants. Wheat, barley, rye, and hemp are cultivated; and\ngrapes, figs, dates, and olives are also seen. In the low parts of the\nsouth tobacco is much grown. Indian corn is only occasionally to be\nmet with. The fauna include the bear, wild boar, wolf, boquetin\n(_Capra Pyrenaica?_), chamois, mule, fox, blackcock, or _gallina de\nmonte_, squirrel, hare, partridge, pheasant, and several species of\neagles; there are also a great many blackbirds and nightingales. The\npopulation of the whole republic has been estimated as low as 5,000,\nand even higher than 15,000, but it probably does not exceed 10,000;\nthat of the capital has been reckoned as high as 2,800, but this\nprobably refers to the whole parish, {562} and is, even then, greatly\nover-estimated. The name Andorra has been derived from the Arabic, but\nit is, without doubt, considerably older than the time of the Moors.\nIt is probably from the Gaelic _an-dobhar, an-dour_, which will\nvariously translate, \"the water,\" \"the territory,\" \"the border of a\ncountry.\" In the Roman period the Val d'Andorra formed part of the\ncountry of the Ceretani, who gave their name to the Cerdana; and, at\nthe time of the Goths, of the district called Marea de Espana. It was\nthe last tract of country of which Moors obtained possession in\nCatalonia, and the first which they abandoned. There are traditions of\nthe republic even prior to the time of Charlemagne. Catalonia, being\ninvaded by the Moors, the Andorrans, in 778, asked aid of the emperor,\nwho thereupon crossed the Pyrenees, and having united his forces with\nthose of Catalonia, which consisted principally of the mountaineers of\nAndorra, after a brilliant campaign drove the Moors to the left bank\nof the Ebro. Having established a military organization for the\ndefence of the territory, Charlemagne recognized certain rights in\nfavor of the Andorrans; but, at the same time, gave to the see of\nUrgel the tithes of the six parishes into which the valley of Andorra\nwas divided. The Moors having again invaded the territory, the emperor\ndespatched his son, Louis le Debonnaire, who drove out the Moors, and\nceded the sovereignty of the valley to Sisebertus, first bishop of\nUrgel. The charter bears the date of 803, and the signature of\nLudovicus Pius, the name by which Louis has always been known to the\nrepublic. Charles the Bold having illegally granted to the Counts of\nUrgel the sovereignty over the lands of the republic, another dispute\narose between the bishop and the counts, and the independence of the\nvalley was again disturbed. Upon this the bishop asked assistance of\nRaymond of Foix, and an alliance was entered into by which the\nindependence of the valley wad vested jointly in the house of Foix and\nthe see of Urgel, and Raymond forthwith expelled the Counts of Urgel\nfrom Andorra. This took place in the twelfth century. The bishop\nfailing to surrender the moiety of the republican lands, Bernard of\nFoix, in 1241, laid siege to the city of Urgel, and the Bishop was not\nonly compelled to yield to the demands of the count, but also, within\na certain time, to procurers of papal ratification of the investiture\nof the house of Foix in the joint sovereignty of the republic. The\nconvention having been again violated by the see of Urgel, it was\nfinally settled, in 1278, that the right of suzeraint\u00e9 should be\npossessed jointly by the Bishop of Urgel and the Counts of Foix. This\ntree is the act of independence Of the republic, and is known to the\npeople of Andorra by the name of \"Parialge.\" It stipulated that the\nrepublic should pay annually a tribute of 960 francs to the Counts of\nFoix, and half that amount to the see of Urgel, and that each should\nhave the privilege of nominating one of the two officers called\nviguiers. The house of Foix being united, first with that of B\u00e9arn,\nand then to that of Moncada and Castellvel Rosanes, was finally\nabsorbed in the house of Bourbon, and the joint protectorate became at\nthe end of the sixteenth century, merged in the government of France,\nand the see of Urgel. On 25th March following a treaty was concluded\nby which the republic should pay the annual tribute to the\nreceiver-general of the department of Ari\u00e8ge, in return for which it\nwas to receive some commercial privileges as to the free export of\ncertain goods. It was further stipulated that one of the viguiers of\nthe republic should be chosen from the department of Ari\u00e8ge, and that\nthree deputies of the Valley should nearly take an oath to the prefect\nof the same department. Napoleon is said to have affixed his name to\nthe original charter of Charlemagne. {563} The privileges of the\nAndorrans have been several times acknowledged by France and Spain.\nEven the war with Spain did not injure the neutrality of the republic.\nIn 1794, a French column having penetrated into the centre of Andorra,\nfor the purpose of laying siege to the city of Urgel, the Andorrans\nsent a deputation to assert the neutrality and independence of the\nvalley, and General Charlet gave immediate orders to withdraw. The\nAndorrans have never taken part in the wars of their neighbors. The\nrich pasturages between Hospitalet, in France, and Soldeu, in Andorra,\nin former times attracted the cupidity of the people of Hospitalet,\nwho have several times endeavored to take forcible possession of them:\nthe Andorrans having appealed to the law, judgment was given in their\nfavor in 1835 by the Court Royal of Toulouse. There is no form of\nsovereignty in Europe exactly similar to that of Andorra. The republic\nis governed by a syndic, a council of twenty-four, together with two\nviguiers or magistrates, and two judges. The French government and the\nsee or Urgel possess a co-ordinate right of confirmation over the\nappointment of the syndic. The twenty-four members of the council\nconsist of the twelve consuls who represent the six parishes or\ncommunes, and the twelve consuls who held office during the preceding\nyear. These latter are called councillors. One of the viguiers is\nappointed by the French government, the other Bishop of Urgel. The\nformer is chosen for life, and is generally a magistrate of the\ndepartment of Ari\u00e8ge; the latter holds office for three years only,\nand is chosen from among the subjects of the republic. He is not\nrequired to be an educated man. The viguiers alone exercise the\ncriminal authority. Civil justice is rendered by two other judges, one\nof whom is appointed by each viguier from a list of six members, drawn\nup and presented by the syndic. In both criminal and civil cases the\njudges are guided by equity, common sense, and custom only, and yet no\ncomplaints are heard of. Parties to suits, both criminal and civil,\nhave the right of appearing by counsel, who is styled _rahonador_, or\nspeaker. The decision of the criminal courts is communicated to the\ncouncil, who reassemble to receive it. The sentence of the court, once\nproclaimed by the council, is irrevocable, and is put in execution\nwithin twenty-four hours. The criminal court is rarely convoked. There\nare few crimes committed in the republic. One man was executed for\nmurder about six years since. The expenses of justice are paid partly\nby the delinquents, partly by the council. The armed forces consist of\nsix companies, one for each parish, and scarcely amount to 600, but in\ncase of need all the inhabitants are soldiers. There is no enlistment;\none individual between the age of sixteen and sixty is chosen from\neach family. There is no national flag, and no drums are used. The\nservice is unpaid. Public instruction is in the worst state. The\npriest of each parish is obliged to provide a school in his own house,\nbut no one is compelled to send his children. Those who desire a\nbetter education for their children send them either to France or\nCatalonia. The only form of religion is the Roman Catholic. Political\nrefugees from Spain and France are always hospitably received.\nForeigners resident in the republic pay yearly five Catalan sous, and\nenjoy all the privileges of the natives, except that of holding any\npublic office. If a foreigner marries an heiress, he is accounted a\ncitizen, but he must first obtain an authorization from the\ncouncil-general. The Andorrans are somewhat above the ordinary size of\nSpaniards. In stature they are thin and wiry. In character they are\nactive, proud, industrious, independent, religious, faithful to their\nancient customs, and very jealous of their liberties. They are\ninquisitive, great talkers, but suddenly dumb and ignorant when they\nimagine their interest at stake. Those engaged in public affairs are\ngenerally {564} hospitable, but most of the people are rather\nsuspicious of strangers. They speak the Catalan dialect, which is a\ncompound of Castilian and the ancient languages of the south of\nFrance. They also use many modern French words, which they pronounce\nafter their own fashion. The people are poor, and glory in their\npoverty, as they thereby preserve their independence. Should they grow\nrich, they would be sure to be absorbed either by France or Spain. A\nlarge portion of the wealth of the republic consists in its flocks of\nsheep. Each landowner is possessed of a considerable flock. The price\nof a sheep ranges from twelve to twenty francs. The fleeces suffice to\nclothe the whole of the male population. The exports into Spain\nconsist of iron, in large quantities, sheep, mules, and other cattle;\ncloths, blankets, cheese, butter, and excellent hams. Those into\nFrance include untanned skins, sheep, mules, calves and wool. The\nnumber of sheep and mules sent annually into Spain and France amounts\nto 1,000. Considering the size of the republic, the imports from Spain\nare considerable: they include some of the necessaries of life, as\ncorn and salt. The only imports from France are fish and compound\nliquors. There is a good deal of contraband between the republic and\nSpain and France. It consists principally in wines, vinegar, salt, and\na small quantity of silk. The contrabandistas between the valley and\nSpain are generally Spaniards. There are no land conveyances, and the\ntransport of goods and merchandise is carried on with horses and\nmules. There are no restrictions on commerce, and no stamps; and no\npassports are required. The republic contains six parishes or\ncommunes, namely, Andorra la Vieja, San Juli\u00e1 de Loria, Canillo,\nOrdino, En Camp, and La Massana. There are also thirty-four villages\nand hamlets, the chief of which are Escaldas, Santa Caloma, and\nSoldeu. There are but few ancient remains in the republic. The\ncapital, Andorra la Vieja, or \"The Old\" is so called to distinguish it\nfrom Andorra in Spain, Province Teruel. There is a good weekly market,\nand considerable business is transacted in imported corn. It is a\nmiserable place, with houses built of the _d\u00e9bris_ of schist and\ngranite, and generally without stucco. During the civil wars it\nsuffered greatly from hostile attacks, and the suspension of commerce.\nThe palace, called Casa del Valle, is an ancient building, constructed\nof rough pieces of granite. The _fa\u00e7ade_ is heavy and massive, and has\nonly three windows, of unequal dimensions, with some louvers;  in its\nleft angle is a turret pierced with loopholes, and surmounted with a\ncross. Above the portal, which resembles a _porte coch\u00e8re_, is  the\ninscription _Domus_ consilii, _sedes justitiae_, under which is and\nescutcheon of white marble, with the arms of the republic. The\ninterior of the palace is in a state of complete ruin. On the ground\nfloor is the national prison and the stables, where the members of the\ncouncil have the privilege of putting up their horses during the\nsessions. The kitchen is on a grand scale, with immense hearts and\ncauldrons. A staircase, which savors of antiquity, leads to the\nchamber on the first floor, where the council meets. It is a vast hall\nof an imposing aspect. At one end is a chair for the syndic, who sits\nas president of the assembly; along either wall are benches of oak for\nthe twenty-four councillors; and between the corridors is a picture of\nJesus Christ. In another part of the hall are preserved in the\narchives of the government, which include the grant of Charlemagne and\nhis son. They are kept in an armory or cupboard in the wall, closed by\ntwo wooden shutters, where they have remained intact since the\nexpulsion of the Moors. The cabinet has six different locks and keys,\nwhich are kept by the executive officers of the six communes whose\ndocuments have been separately deposited. This cabinet has no outer\ndoor, and can only be opened in the presence of the six heads of the\ndepartments, who are bound to be present at the deliberations {565} of\nthe council. There are five sessions of the council annually, but when\nnecessary, extraordinary sessions are also held. When the general\ncouncil is unable to assemble, the syndic general, or, in his absence,\nthe sub-syndic, represent it, and act in its name; sometimes, also, a\njunta general is convoked, at which assist a consul, or a consul and a\ncouncillor, for each parish. In the juntas, matters of minor interest\nare discussed, and the consuls and councillors who take part in them\nare entrusted with the powers of their colleagues. To the general\ncouncil pertains everything relating to police, and all disputes in\ncommercial matters. The chapel is dedicated to San Heremengol,\nformerly Bishop of Urgel and Prince of Andorra, and will repay a\nvisit.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nCATHOLIC CHRISTMAS.\n\n\nThe evening of the last day of the church's advent arrives. She\ngathers her ministers around her, and, singing hymns of glad\nexpectation, they remain in her temples, even until midnight. Let us\nlisten to the grand harmony!\n\nDivided into two vast bodies, they peal forth the verses of the royal\nprophet in alternate chorus; and who could tire hearkening? Well does\nDurendus say, that \"the two choirs typify the angels and the spirits\nof just men, while they cheerfully and mutually excite each other in\nthis holy exercise.\" We fancy ourselves among the choirs of heaven, as\nSt. Ignatius once was in spirit, when he learned the method of\nalternate chanting.\n\nOh! whose heart does not yearn toward the church in these her days of\nlonging! She has laid away from her all that is dazzling and joyous;\nyet is she most charming. Anxious love, like a sun, burns over her,\naltering her color; yet is she all beauty--bright and rich and\nwarm--her aspect teeming with purity and love and inspiration. \"I am\nblack, but beautiful.\" (Cant. i. 4)\n\nIt is midnight. Long since men ceased from their labors. The din of\ntraffic has been hushed for hours. Yet there is a sound through all\nthe world. From every city and town and village, from spire-crowned\nhill and from holy valley, from numberless sweet nooks and by-ways, it\nswells forth, the sound of a grand harmony, the voices of myriads\nchanting. Now the tones speak of longing; now they tremble with\nexpectation; then there is a burst of rapture following the mellow\nwarbling of desire. It is the voice of the church longing for her\nBeloved! She shall be gratified, for even now there is a knocking at\nher temple gates. The chant is hushed, and a voice, gentle as the\nlisping of a child, breathes the sweet entreaty, \"Open to me, my\nsister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is full of dew and\nmy locks of the drops of the night.\" (Cant. v. 2.) Yes, lovely Babe,\ngladly will the temple-doors open to thee; for many a long and weary\nmile did thy mother journey with thee beneath her heart!\n\nWinter ruled the earth. Chill blew the breezes, and coldness was over\nall nature. Shivering had the aged saint and Mary asked for shelter,\nbut the inns were filled, and none in Bethlehem would trouble to\nreceive them. Riches were not theirs, and all saw that the {566}\nunknown mother's time was near; hence, fearing they might have to look\nto the child, they shut her from their dwellings. The only place of\nrefuge her holy spouse could find for his charge was a cheerless\nstable, hollowed from a rough, cold rock. The ox and the ass were\ntheir only earthly companions; hay and straw formed the rude couch\nupon which the mother brought forth her child at midnight. Jesus!\nSaviour! she wraps thee scantily in swaddling-clothes, and lays thee\nshivering in a manger. Well then may the dew and the drops of the\nnight hang heavy upon thy locks!\n\nBut, though in Bethlehem these unknown travellers were outcasts, God\ndid not desert them. The glimmerings of adoring angels' wings fell\nupon the mother's eyes to comfort her heart, for there were angels\nnear in numbers. They hovered over and within the hut, making it ring\nwith the most blessed hymn that mortal or angelic ears had ever heard:\n\"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will.\"\n\nInstantly upon this knocking the church rises to open to her Beloved,\nand now begins her joy. Now she will celebrate his birthday, and her\nheart leaps high in bidding him welcome. Her torches, her sanctuary\nlamps, the countless candles on her altars, all are lighted with the\nspeed of love; their shining shows her spouse that she was so full of\nexpectation, so confident of his coming, that she has already cast\naway her weeds of mourning and desire, and has arrayed her charms in\nher most precious robes. Evergreens and tapestry are twining and\nglowing all about her--in her niches, upon her piers, her arcades, her\nparapets, her cloister-galleries, her massive stalls, her carved and\nfretted ceilings. Her altars and her sanctuaries have festoons and\ngarlands, and crowns of sweetest design, and veils and hangings of\nchoicest embroidery. She peals her bells and sweeps her fingers over\nher organ-keys, and tunes her many instruments, to fill her temples\nwith the rapturous canticle of the day, \"Gloria in excelsis Deo.\"\n\nBut let us circumscribe our views. As we may behold the joy of the\nuniversal church in even her smallest division, let us see how, in the\ngood old Catholic times, the simplest villagers celebrated the first\nday of the Incarnate Eternal!\n\nThe few rich men among them have sent stores of flowers and fruits\nfrom their conservatories to deck the green branches gathered in the\nforest. Pious ladies have brought in the various ornaments, which they\nhave been preparing for weeks, as an offering for their new-born\nSaviour. The happy pastor and many of his spiritual flock have been\nbusy in the church four days, disposing the decorations with untiring\ningenuity and taste.\n\nNow it is almost midnight. The skies are clear and studded with\ntwinkling stars. Ice is over all the streams, snow is over all the\nstreets and fields, and weighs down the trees. Stillness is upon the\nthe village, yet not the stillness of slumber. You can see that\nsomething is transpiring which takes not place at other midnights; for\nlights are glimmer through the cottage-windows, and, now and then,\ncheerful forms are seen passing to and fro. They are all expecting,\nand they shall not be delayed; for hark! suddenly a merry peal of\nbells bursts over them; joyously it rings forth--now in soft, sweet\ncadence, and now in swelling harmony. It pours along the streets and\nfills the village dwellings. It echoes through the cloudless vault,\nover the snowy fields and the glassy streams, reaching even the\nscattered hamlets in the distance. Suddenly and joyously the music\nbursts upon all:\n\n  \"Adeste fideles, laeti, triumphantes\n  Venite, venite in Bethlehem.\"\n\nAnd the cottage-doors are thrown open, and groups of merry children\nsally forth gladly shouting, \"Christmas, Christmas!\"\n\n{567}\n\nThen the tapers are extinguished, and the villagers all hasten forth\nwith holy eagerness to see their Jesus cradled in the manger; and, as\nthey direct their steps toward the old church, they awaken the\nmidnight echoes with that sweet old carol:\n\n  \"Now the circling year have given\n   The joyful season, when from heaven\n   Life descended to the earth\n   In the Babe who took his birth\n        From our sweet Lady!\n\n  \"Behold him in the manger laid,\n   Owned by the cattle of the shed,\n   Who know their God meanest bands\n   Enswathed by the tender hands\n        Of our sweet Lady!\n\n  \"Now he smiles on Joseph blessed;\n   Now he seeks his mother's breast;\n   Now he sobs, and now he cries,\n   All beneath the guardian eyes\n        Of our sweet Lady!\n\n  \"Run, run, ye shepherds, haste and bring\n   Your simple homage to our King!\n   Ye heaven-called watchers, taste and see\n   Our God, meek-seated on the knee\n       Of our sweet Lady!\"\n\nThus they stream along from every cottage, along every pathway toward\nthe church, men, women, and little children, singing and chatting\nhappily. Far off in the moonlit distance you see small parties\nhastening over the white plains from their scattered homes to mingle\nin the festival. How beautifully do they remind us of those happy\nshepherds who left their flocks near the \"Tower of Ader,\" and went\nover to Bethlehem, to see the word that had come to pass!\n\nThe bells continue pealing out their music to the midnight, and the\nchurch continues filling. Listen to the half-suppressed ejaculation of\njoyous surprise as each new group enters the holy place and beholds\nits charming decorations! Over every window's curve, and hanging down\nby its sides, is a mighty wreath of evergreens. In front of every\nhallowed niche lights are burning, and wreaths of foliage hang over\nit. The pillars are all twined round and round, up to the very\nceiling, with ivy, holly, laurel, intermingled with those berries that\ngrow red in winter. But who shall describe the glories of the\nsanctuary! The arch that rises over it flows with the fullest folds of\ntapestry, white as snow, save where they are here and there\ninterwrought with flowers of rose-hued silk and thread of gold, and\nintertwined with holly and laurel, and boughs of the orange-tree with\nits golden clusters. On the altar-steps are vases filled with\nevergreens, slender strings of ivy twisting around tall branches and\nbending gracefully between them down even to the floor. The altar is\ncrowded with lighted candles, and along the intervals of the\ncandlesticks flow festoons of slender branches, leaves, and flowers. A\nstole of flowers decorates the very crucifix; the tabernacle sparkles\nin its richest veil.\n\nOh! in olden times even a village church was grand beyond description;\nfor then men took a pride in their religion. They loved to see God's\nBride in bridal splendor; they loved to see the Queen in regal\nvesture; they loved to see the Sister of the Church in heaven with\nsomething like heavenly glory around her. The rich man gave of his\nabundance, the poor man gave of his labor, ladies wrought\nembroidery--all in holy unison strained every nerve to make her\ntemples beautiful.\n\nNow the church has filled with kneeling forms. The rich and the poor,\nthe lady and the servant, the laborers and they for whom they labor,\nhere kneel side by side, they are all equal here, for they are all\nalike, are God's own children, the brethren of the Babe of Bethlehem.\n\nThe steeple-bells have ceased to peal, for not a single thought must\nnow wander outside. Eyes and ears and heart and soul and every feeling\nare intent upon the grand occurrences within.\n\nPresently blue clouds of sweet incense are seen floating toward the\nsanctuary, and modestly there comes a youth swinging a silver censer;\na long procession of little acolytes, clad in snow-white surplices and\nbearing lighted tapers, follow him slowly; a saintly looking priest,\nin precious vestments, closes the holy array. His {568} youthful\nattendants are chosen boys of blameless life and pleading aspect: and,\nindeed, they look pure and innocent and cherub-like, as they dispose\nthemselves around the holy place, and kneel toward the altar.\n\nThen amid half-suppressed, repentant cries for \"mercy on us,\" swelling\nforth from the choir, the psalm is said--the psalm of preparation, of\npraise, of hope, of humble confidence: the confession is made; prayers\nfor pardon, lights and gracious hearing are repeated. Then the priest\nascends \"unto the altar of God,\" and whispers prayers, speaking\nrapturously of the \"Child that is born to us, the Son that is given to\nus.\" But look at hie countenance as he returns slowly to the middle of\nthe altar; you can see that he is full of some grand event--his soul,\nhis heart, his feelings, all hold jubilee. One more entreaty for mercy\nrepeated again and again with passionate earnestness, and he raises\nhis eyes and his arms as though about to ascend in ecstasy, and, like\none inspired, he breaks forth in the angelic hymn, \"Gloria in excelsis\nDeo.\" It is the signal of jubilee. Suddenly there is a burst of many\nlittle bells, shaken by the hands of the surpliced children, ringing\nout their silver music until the hymn is ended by the priest; the\norgan's richest and fullest chords are struck, swelling forth in\nharmony like that which the rivers made in Paradise when they sang\ntheir first hymn of praise to him who set them flowing, and the full\nchoir of trained voices burst forth: \"Et in terra pax hominibus.\"\n\nTruly you think yourself at Bethlehem. It seems as though the Child\nwere just born--as though you heard the heavenly hosts singing their\ngrand anthem--saw the shepherds wondering and adoring--beheld the\nInfant lying in the manger, a fair, radiant, smiling little Babe, with\nan old saint beside it, leaning on his staff, and a comely virgin, in\na trance of motherly affection, kissing its bright forehead. So these\nvillagers seem to feel it all. A start of joy runs through the whole\nassembly, a radiance lights up every feature; friends kiss each other,\nfathers kiss their children, mothers kiss their little ones; a whisper\nruns from soul to soul through all the church--\"Pax hominibus.\"\n\nThen follow collect, the epistle, the gradual, a gospel, all full of\nthe grand event. And then the choir's jubilee begins again, as the\nanointed one at the altar intones \"Credo in unum Deum.\" Who shall tell\nthe stirless reverence of each prostrate form, as all bow yet lower at\nthe words that still the mystery of the night! Softly the organ\nwarbles in its mellowest keys; from the richest voice in all the choir\nsweetly flow the words \"Et Homo factus est.\" Every mind reflects, and\nevery heart is melted.\n\nThen comes the offertory; and all present, according to their various\nmeans, make their offerings for those \"who serve the altar,\" and for\nthe poor. While the priest raises in offering the paten with the Post\nand the chalice with wine, the villagers also, kneeling, make an\noffering of their homage to their new-born Redeemer; and mothers lift\ntheir little ones to heaven in spirit, praying that they may advance\n\"in wisdom and age and grace with God and men,\" as did the Child of\nMary. Then follows the washing of the heads, with its appropriate\nprayers; then, the secretas, the preface, the whispered prayers for\nGod's church, for friends and benefactors, for all the living\nfaithful.\n\nThe moment of consecration draws nigh. Books are laid aside, hands are\nclasped upon the breast, every head is bent. The sweet voices in the\nchoir have been hushed; the organ's silvery tones, murmuring more and\nmore softly, have at length died away, awe-stricken by the silence\nthat fills God's house. Yes! silence fills it, for silence now seems a\nsomething--a breathless, pulseless, but mighty spirit feeling all\nthis temple, as the cloud of God's glory once filled the tabernacle.\nYou think you could almost {569} most hear a spirit move, you feel as\nthough you were among the angels when they waited breathless to behold\nthe effect of the sublime utterance, \"Let there be light.\" Bending low\nin reverend humility, the priest in a whisper of awe speaks the\nalmighty words, \"This is my body,\" \"This is the chalice of my blood;\"\nthe light breathing of that whisper is heard even in the bosom of the\nEternal Father, the golden gates of Paradise are thrown open, and God\n\"bows the heavens and comes down.\" He is here, this church is now the\nhut of Bethlehem, this altar is the manger; for the Child is born upon\nit as really as the Virgin-mother there brought him forth.\n\nAs when of old light was made, there was a music of the spheres, of\nthe sun and moon and all the stars and planets, singing their morning\nhymn of gratitude, so is the stillness now also broken, so does the\nchoir, warbling in swelling glee, burst forth in grand climax,\n\"Hosanna in excelsis.\" And in the mean time priest and people united\nutter to their new-born Saviour many rich and beautiful prayers for\nthe living, for the faithful departed, for themselves.\n\nThe villagers are absorbed in prayer; it seems as though their fervor\nkept redoubling, as though the flames of holy love burned higher and\nhigher every instant. Well they may, for the moment is approaching in\nwhich each heart will be a manger in which Jesus will be laid, each\nbreast a tabernacle in which love itself shall dwell. Already there is\na move among them; with modest gait, with clasped hands and downcast\neyes, they advance to the sanctuary, the mystic bread is given to them\nline after line, and, bearing their God with them, they all return in\nreverence to give thanks, to petition for good things. Serenity is in\ntheir eyes and on their features, joy is in their hearts, rapture in\ntheir souls, peace among their feelings, and Jesus within their bosoms\nharmonizing all. O truly happy Christmas! O the bliss that now is\ntheirs, the comfort of this moment! Well may the chanters hymn: \"O\nJesus, God! Great God! Good Pastor! Sweet Lamb! O Jesus, _my_ Jesus! O\nBread! O Manna! O Power! what dost thou not grant to man!\"\n\nThen praises and thanks are sung joyously by the priest, and his hand\nis stretched in blessing from the altar. The Mass is over, and the\nprocession moves from the sanctuary, while the choir chants aloud,\n\"Praise the Lord all ye nations, praise him all ye people. Because his\nmercy is confirmed upon us, and the truth of the Lord remaineth for\never.\" (Ps. cxvi.)\n\nThe chant dies away, and for awhile not a sound is heard through all\nthe sacred building. No one stirs as yet; all remain some time to\nreturn thanks, to allow the impression of the festival to sink deep\ninto their souls. At length they rise, and bowing lowly toward the\naltar, they go forth. At the church-door hands are shaken, kisses\ngiven, warm embraces are exchanged, and joy and happiness and all the\nblessings of the Child's nativity are wished and wished again.\n\nBut follow them home from their midnight celebration. For a long time\nthe village slumbers not; lights glimmer through the cottage-windows,\nand within groups are kneeling around a little home-made oratory, with\na little crib in the middle, and candles around it. This is of greater\nimportance than the gathering around the yule-fire or the decked tree.\nMoreover, all did not go home when Mass was over. Go back to the\nchurch, and behold those silent figures praying in every posture that\nfeeling can suggest. There, before that tabernacle, a mother prays the\ndivine Child for her own babe; a virgin prays for purity like to that\nof the Virgin-mother; the child of misery seeks consolation from him\nwho was born in a stable; many repeat over and over again the canticle\nof the angels, and all beg the blessings of him over whom the angels\nsang it. At length these also are gone; the lights {570} are quenched\nabout the altar, all, save the silver lamp which is never\nextinguished; all is still as was the stable when the shepherds had\nadored and gone back to their flocks.\n\nBut the festival of our Saviour's birth is not over yet. \"As the day\ncomes round in music and in light;\" you again see the villagers\nwending their way to the church; and a third time, when the sun is in\nthe mid-arch of heaven. Each time is witnessed the same sublime\ncelebration that we beheld at midnight; for three births of Christ are\ncelebrated. His birth from the Father before lime began; his birth\nfrom the immaculate Virgin as a wailing babe at Bethlehem; his mystic\nbirth, by faith and by the sacrament of love, in the heart of each\nhumble adorer.\n\nSuch was Christmas in the happy olden times. Alas! that a blight\nshould ever have come upon it. Truly they have not done well to\ndespoil that village church of all its charming features. Well may the\nchurch exclaim, weeping: \"The keepers that go about the city found me;\nthey struck me, and wounded me: the keepers of the walls took my vail\nfrom me.\" (Cant, v. 7.) Fondly do we trust she will soon again be\nclothed in splendor. The pope that reigned when England fell away\ngrieved sadly for her fall. In his distress he put away the triple\ncrown; and even now his statue sits uncrowned, with downcast eyes, as\nthough his grief had hardened him to stone. But soon, we trust, he\nwill again lift up his eyes. Soon, we trust, will his successors\nrejoiced to find the crown replaced, not by mortal, but by angel\nhands. Shall we not hope and pray that our own dear land, also, will\nform not the least brilliant jewel in that crown? One day this church\nwill again deck herself with the flowers she once wore, but which\nrebellious hands toward to pieces, scattering the leaves around her.\nThen shall we once again celebrate the good old Catholic Christmas\ntimes, and celebrate them with the increased joy which is born of the\nwanderer's returned. God granted it speedily!\n\n------\n\n\nMISCELLANY\n\n\n_Spots on the Sun.--Science Review_.--We would draw the attention of\nour scientific readers to a remarkable opinion and theory of Sir John\nHerschel's with regard to the nature of those curious objects\ndiscovered by Mr. Nasmyth on the surface of the sun, and generally\ncalled, from their peculiar shape, \"willow leaves.\" We believe Sir\nJohn first propounded this theory in an article on the sun, published\nin Good Words, but it does not seem to have been noticed by many\nastronomers. However wild the hypothesis may appear, it has just\nreceived a further sanction from its eminent author, by its\nrepublication in his new book of Familiar Lectures, which we notice\nelsewhere. Sir John says: \"Nothing remains but to consider them (the\nso-called willow leaves) as separate and independent sheets, flakes,\nor scales, having some sort of solidity. And these flakes, be they\nwhat they may, and whatever may be said about the dashing of meteoric\nstones into the sun's atmosphere, etc., are evidently the immediate\nsources of the solar light and heat by whatever mechanism for whatever\nprocesses they may be enabled to develop, and, as it were, elaborate\nthese elements from the bosom of the non-luminous fluid in which they\nappear to float. Looked at in this point of view, we cannot refuse to\nregard them as organisms of some peculiar and amazing kind; and though\nit would be too daring to speak of such organization as partaking of\nthe nature of life, yet we do know that vital action is competent to\ndevelop both heat, light, and electricity.\" Strange and startling as\nis such an explanation, yet scientific men will remember that when we\n{571} knew as little about the cause of the black lines seen in the\nspectrum of the sun as we now know about these appearances on the sun\nitself, Sir John Herschel suggested, in 1833, that very explanation\nwhich was the foundation of the memorable law announced by the German\nphilosopher, Kirchhoff, in 1859--a law now universally accepted as\naffording a perfect solution to the long-standing puzzle of\nFraunhofer's lines.\n\n\n\n_Simple Net for the Capture of Oceanic Animals,--Science Review_.--In\na paper read before the Microscopical Society of London on the fauna\nof mid-ocean, Major S. R. Owen gives the following directions for the\npreparation of a simple form of net for the above purpose, and which\nmaybe rigged out at a few hours' notice. A grommet should be made for\nthe mouth, to which three cords may be attached to connect it with the\ntowing-line; that line should be a good stout piece of stuff and\ncapable of bearing a great strain. To the grommet should be attached,\nfirst, a bag, the upper part of which may be made of a thin canvas,\nthe lower part of strong jean, ending in a piece of close calico or\nlinen; the bottom must be left open, and tied round with a tape when\nused; this will be found convenient for taking out the contents, and\nby leaving it open and towing it so for a short time it can be\nthoroughly washed. Over the whole an outer covering of the strongest\nsail-cloth should be put, the upper part, in like manner, attached to\nthe grommet, the lower part left open, and a portion for a foot or\neighteen inches of the seam left to be coarsely laced up with a piece\nof cord, the same being done for the bottom itself. If necessary, a\nthird covering may be put between these of any strong but rather\nporous material; but this in its turn should be left open at the\nbottom, and only tied when required for use. Its length should be so\nadjusted when tied that the inner lining of calico may rest against\nit, and be relieved from the strain. The outer sail-cloth should, in\nlike manner, be laced up to receive and support the whole.\n\n\n\n_A New Magnesium Lamp_.--An ingenious form of magnesium lamp, the\ninvention of Mr. H. Larkin, and which was first exhibited at the Royal\nInstitution a couple of months since, was shown at the _soir\u00e9es_ of\nthe British Association at Nottingham. Instead of the ordinary ribbon\nor wire of the commoner forms of magnesium lamps, magnesium powder is\nemployed. Hence all machinery is dispensed with, the magnesium being\ncontained in a reservoir, from a hole in the bottom of which it falls\nlike sand from an hour-glass. The powder is allowed to fall upon the\nflame of a small gas-jet, and by this it is inflamed, giving all its\nusual illumination. In order that a sufficient quantity of powder may\nbe employed, and that the hole in the reservoir may be large enough to\nallow of a regular flow, without waste of magnesium, the latter is\nmixed with fine sand. The size of the aperture is regulated by a\nstopcock. When it is desired to light the lamp, the gas is first\nturned on, just sufficiently to produce a small jet at the mouth of\nthe tube, which small jet, being once kindled, may be allowed to burn\nany convenient time, until the moment the magnesium light is required.\nAll that is then needed is to turn on the metallic powder, which\ninstantly descends and becomes ignited as it passes through the\nburning gas. This action of turning on and off the metallic powder may\nbe repeated without putting out the gas, as often and as quickly as\ndesired; so that, in addition to the ordinary purpose to which lamps\nare applied, an instant or an intermittent light of great brilliancy,\nsuitable for signals or for light-houses, may be very simply produced\nwith certainty of effect and without the smallest waste of metal. The\nfirst evening an objection was made that the blue tone of the light\ncreated a cold and somewhat ghastly effect. On the second occasion Mr.\nLarkin remedied this by mixing with the magnesium a certain quantity\nof nitrate of strontia.--_Journal of the Society of Arts_.\n\n\n\n_An Artificial Eye for restoring Sight_.--An apparatus of this kind,\nwhose efficiency we much doubt, has been described by M. Blanchet, in\na paper in which he details the operation for its insertion under the\ntitle of Helio-prothesis. The operation consists in puncturing the eye\nin the direction of the antero-posterior axis with a narrow bistoury,\nand introducing a piece of apparatus to which M. Blanchet gives the\nname of \"phosphore.\" The operation in most instances produces little\npain, and when the globe of the eye has undergone degeneration there\nis no pain at all, and the \"phosphore\" apparatus is {572} introduced\nwithout difficulty. The description of this contrivance is this: \"It\nconsists of a shell of enamel, and of a tube closed at both its ends\nby glasses, whose form varies according to circumstances.\" M. Blanchet\nthus describes the operation: \"The patient's head being supported by\nan assistant, the upper eyelid is raised by an elevator, and the lower\none is depressed. The operator then punctures the eye with a narrow\nbistoury, adapting the width of his incision to the diameter of the\n'phosphore' tube which he intends to insert. The translucent humor\nhaving escaped, the 'phosphore' apparatus is applied, and almost\nimmediately, or after a short time, the patient is partially restored\nto sight!\" Before introducing the apparatus it is necessary to\ncalculate the antero-posterior diameter of the eye, and if the lens\nhas cataract it must be removed. Inasmuch as the range of vision\ndepends on the quantity of the humor left behind, M. Blanchet\nrecommends the employment of spectacles of various kinds.--_Popular\nScience Review._\n\n\n\n_Action of Different Colored Lights on the Retina_.--It is known to\nphysiologists that when a ray of light falls upon the retina, the\nimpression it produces remains for a definite period, according to\ncalculation about the _third of a second_. It is this fact which is\nused to explain why a burning brand, when twirled rapidly round, gives\nthe appearance of a ring of light. But till quite recently it had not\nbeen shown whether the different colors of light had the same degree\nof persistence upon the retina. The subject has quite lately been\ntaken up by the Abb\u00e9 Laborde, who shows that, just as the prism\nseparates the colors at different angles, so the retina absorbs the\ncallers, or the impressions produced thereby, in different times. In\nconducting his experiment to prove this, the abb\u00e9 receives the\nsunlight through an aperture in a shutter into a darkened chamber. The\naperture is about three millimetres wide by six high. In the course of\nthe beam and in the middle the chamber there is placed a disk of\nmetal, the circumference of which is pierced by apertures\ncorresponding to the aperture in the shutter. This disk is caused to\nrevolve by clockwork. Behind the disc is placed a plate of ground\nglass to receive this spot of light. The disk being then caused to\nrevolve rapidly, the spot appears at first white, but as the\nrevolution become more rapid the borders of the spot and the colors\nwhich successively appear are in their order of succession as follows:\nblue, green, red, white, green, blue.--_Comptes Rendus_.\n\n\n\n_The Origin of Diamonds._--a curious, and it seems to us very\nimprobable, theory of the origin of diamonds was put foreword by M.\nChancourtios in an essay published in the _Comptes Rendus_ for June\n25th. The author tries to show in this that diamonds have been\nproduced by and incomplete oxidation of the carbides of hydrogen, in\npretty much the same fashion as the sulphur in the _Solfatara,_\ndescribed by Professor Ansted in one of our late numbers, results from\nan incomplete oxidation of sulphuretted hydrogen, all of whose\nhydrogen is converted into water, while only a part of the sulphur is\nchanged into sulfurous acid. It is by a similar process that petroleum\nhas given rise to bitumen, and this again two graphite. \"If, then\"\nsays the author, \"a mixture of hydrocarbon gases and vapor of water be\nsubmitted to slow oxidation, diamonds may possibly be obtained.\" It is\neven possible, he observes, that the tubes which convey common\ncoal-gas along the streets of Paris may contain such artificial\ndiamonds in abundance.--_Popular Science Review_.\n\n------\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS.\n\n\nBallads, Lyrics, and Hymns. By Alice Carey, 8vo., pp. 333. New York:\nHurd Houghton. 1866.\n\nLiterature knows no sex, but critics do, and in courtesy we must say\nto Miss Carey, we think better of her than of her book; and while\njudging what is before us purely on its aesthetic merits, we incline\nto believe that the selections here compiled do not show her at her\nbest. This book might just possibly {573} have been good, only it is\nnot. It appears to consist of gatherings from the grist of a\nrespectable and old-established mill, whose brand is familiarly known\nwherever mild magazines and sensation periodicals have penetrated. The\nmost prominent quality it demonstrates is the tireless industry--or\nthe well-oiled machinery--of the fair miller. The style throughout is\njust of the kind to be the first in a \"Poet's Corner;\" best\ncharacterized, perhaps, by the word \"unexceptionable,\" as used by the\ndomestic critic, if one there be, of Frank Leslie or the Ledger.\nGenerally, there is nothing whenever to quarrel with--grammatically,\nsocially, theologically, or practically. We should not be in the least\nsurprised if Miss Carey's manuscripts even came in accurately\npunctuated. The whole book is like the perfection of a gentleman's\ntoilet; every constituent part is so correctly \"got up,\" that once out\nof sight, we cannot recall a single thing beyond the impression of the\n_tout ensemble_.\n\nThere is considerable thinking, without any notable novelties in\nthought. The fact is, no one who has not tried can appreciate the\ndifficulty of finding something salient to fasten an opinion on. The\nmain impression of the serious and heavy parts of the volume on our\nmind was that the authoress loved God, meant to be religious and\ntender-hearted, and thought the world cold and the sectarians\nnarrow-minded: laudable conclusions all, which we rather agree with on\nthe whole, but which do not show cause why they should exist in such\nsplendid binding.\n\nIf this were all;  if the book consisted utterly, as it does mainly,\nof versified unremarkableness, all were well enough. It would sell all\nthe same, and descend in its due course to the limbo of respectable\nmediocrity, which cannot be damned because it never had a chance to be\nsaved. But there are gleams amid the commonplace that make it, to our\nmind, one of the saddest books we ever opened--said with the\nunfulfilled promise of a busy yet wasted life. While there is not, we\nbelieve, a single true poem in her book, we do think Miss Carey might\nonce have written poetry. There are traces of talent, like the\nabrasions on the high Alpine ridges where avalanches or glaciers went\nby them that are long since melted into the valley below, and gone to\njoin the sea. We do not think Miss Carey ever had a very great supply\nof poetic power--never so much as Phoebe Carey, who has enough poetry\nin her to equip any ten of the other lady contributors whose versicles\npay as well as hers; but what there was has been sapped and drained\noff as fast as it accumulated, in a thousand paltry rillets of verse\nthat at most can only be silver threads in the passing sunshine. Had\nshe ever been suffered to let her thoughts and fancies gather and\nmingle, perhaps she could have written well. She has not only\nconsiderable command of language, but some character: there has always\nbeen something respectable about Miss Carey that set her apart,\nsomehow, from the other newspaper writers of miscellaneous verses, and\nto it she probably owes the present distinction of being the only one\nwhose productions are thought worth making a book from. But the woman\nhas never had a chance. As fast as an idea budded, it was contracted\nfor in advance and plucked long before ripeness, for the greedy\nchildren that will have their green fruit. If a fancy strayed into her\nbrain, it was not hers to do with as she liked. It must be carved and\nserved up in as many different styles as possible; made into a long\npoem for one paper and a short poem for another, and dashed into a\nthird as a flavoring ingredient for a string of hired rhymes. Now, is\nthere not a strange pathos in the idea of making a life-long business\nof doing that ill which one might do well, and which is only worth\nexistence when well done; of dribbling and frittering away every finer\nimpulse; of chipping the heart's crystals up into glaziers' diamonds;\nof subsisting on oneself, Prometheus and vulture in one? And how\ninfinitely sadder with the consciousness all the while that if one\ncould but get a respite, this same work, wrought in freedom, might win\nall that hope asks?\n\nConsciously or unconsciously, this, we believe, is the discipline\nthrough which Miss Carey has passed. We think so from the manner, and\nfrom the places, in which we come upon the fragments of promise that\nshine here and there. They are often repeated in other\nlines--sometimes verbatim; they are not the substance but always the\nsauce of the poem; they are never sustained or developed. Everything\ngoes to show that she has reached that fatal state of enervation when\nthe mind, from long desuetude, {574} and from never having a fair\nchance to think out anything, he comes next to incapable of any\ncontinued political thought at all. The exertion of developing a happy\nidea into its best form is too much for the unused and enfeebled\nimagination.\n\nSo much for the conjectural inside view of these verses, the actual\noutside view remains. Whether it be a sad fact or simply a fact, there\nis nothing to read twice in the book. It is not poetry, but it is a\npiece of very good judgment on the part of the publisher--just what\nthey want. And if we understand their motives, we shall earn their\ngood will by saying that this is a safe, trustworthy, and entirely\nharmless work, innocuous to families and schools, superbly bound,\nfinished, and printed, and fit, beyond almost any work we know of, for\na present from very affectionate young men to very amiable young\nladies.\n\n\n\nBEETHOVEN'S LETTERS. (1790-1836.) From the collection of Dr. Ludwig\nNohl; also his Letters to the Archduke Rudolph, Cardinal-Archbishop of\nOlmutz, from the collection of Dr. Ludwig Ritter von Kochel.\nTranslated by Lady Wallace; with a portrait and facsimile. 2 vols.,\n12mo. Hurd & Houghton.\n\nThese letters of the illustrious _maestro_ are arranged under three\nheads: Life's Joy a and Sorrows, Life's Mission, Life's Troubles and\nClose. They are of quite a miscellaneous character, and refer to every\nconceivable event of life, displaying much good humor and not a little\nill humor in their short, quick, impatient sentences. As a\nletter-writer he is far inferior to Mozart, with whom the reader comes\nat once into sympathy, and of whose letters very few indeed are\nwanting in sentiments of universal interest. On the contrary, a very\nlarge number of these letters of Beethoven will be read simply because\nBeethoven wrote them, and will not bear a reperusal Yet they will, no\ndoubt, find a welcome place beside those of his great brother artist\non the table of every admirer of the grand music or these two grand\ngeniuses. His enthusiastic, and we may add, somewhat imaginative\neditor and compiler, Dr. Nohl, is perhaps better qualified to form a\njudgment upon the general tenor and worth of these letters than we\nare, and we therefore quote the following from his preface to the\npresent work: \"If not fettered by petty feelings, the reader will\nquickly surmount the casual obstacles and stumbling-blocks which the\nfirst perusal of these letters may seem to present, and quickly feel\nhimself transported at a single stride into a stream where a strange\nroaring and rushing is heard, but above which loftier tones resound\nwith magic and exciting power. For a acute year life breathes in these\nlines; and under-current runs through their apparently unconnected\nimport, uniting them as with and electric chain, and with firmer links\nthan any mere coherence of subjects could have effected. I experienced\nthis myself to the most remarkable degree when I first made the\nattempt to arrange, in accordance with their period and substance, the\nhundreds of individual pages bearing neither date nor address, and I\nwas soon convinced that a connected text (such as Mozart's letters\nhave, and ought to have) would be here entirely superfluous, as even\nthe best biographical commentary would be very dry work, interrupting\nthe electric current of the whole, and thus destroying its peculiar\neffect.\"\n\nThe volumes are published in scholarly style, and present a very\nreadable and attractive page.\n\n\nLONDON POEMS. By Robert Buchanan 12 mo, pp. 272. Alexander Strahan,\nLondon and New-York.\n\nThe elegant dress of this volume, so characteristic of Mr. Strahan's\npublications, is calculated to make one shy of saying anything\nderogatory to its character; but we are held to say that we decidedly\nobject to Mr. Buchanan's poetry in any dress. The greater part of\nthese poems are to us positively repulsive. They are but little more\nthan rudely hand sketches of certain phases of low life in London,\nimmoral and irreligious in tone, and utterly wanting in that spiritual\nexpression which invests the true poet with the mantle of inspiration.\nThe poet may describe vice if he will, but let him not dare to excuse\nit or throw a charm about it if he would not raised a storm of\nindignation in the bosoms of the virtuous and the truthful. Poetry is\na divine art; the poet must discharge at once the high office of\nteacher as well as psalmist, and every {575} line should bear the\nimpress of divine truth nobility, and purity. That which is false,\nbase, boorish, and obscene is none the less detestable for being put\nin rhythm.\n\n\n\nFREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS COURT. An historical novel. By L.\nM\u00fchlbach. Translated from the German by Mrs. Chapman Coleman and\ndaughters. 12mo. New-York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.\n\nThe rapidity with which the novels of Miss M\u00fchlbach have risen into\npopularity in this country is a pretty good indication of their merit.\nThey are free from the false sensationalism which furnishes the spice\nof the lower school of modern fiction; and they treat of historical\nsubjects and characters with an honest intention to exhibit historical\ntruth, and not as a mere framework for the display of a trashy story.\nMany of the scenes are drawn with a fidelity and an effectiveness\nwhich show at the same time a close familiarity with the times and\npersons with which the novel is concerned and a very considerable\nliterary skill; but the dialogues are not always well managed, the\ndiction being sometimes too trivial and sometimes too stilted. Despite\nthis minor defect, the book is full enough of interest: and our wonder\nis, considering the great and long-established popularity of Miss\nM\u00fchlbach in Germany, that her writings were not translated into our\nlanguage long ago. It is a singular fact that the present work, and\nsome other historical novels from the same pen which D. Appleton & Co.\nhave now in press, were translated and first printed in the\nConfederate States during the late rebellion.\n\n\n\nTHE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.\nBy Emily Davies. 16mo, pp. 191. London\nand New-York: Alexander Strahan. 1866.\n\nThis is a well-written plea for reform in the present system of female\neducation; not for a reform which would ignore the difference in the\ncharacter and duties of the two sexes, but one which would open to\nwomen various callings for which nature has specially fitted them, but\nwhich they are now shut out either by defective training or by the\nprejudices of society. Miss Davies's little treatise is an appropriate\ncompanion work for a volume of similar essays by Miss Parkes which we\nnoticed two or three months ago; and though both of them are more\napplicable to the state of things in England than to the better\ncondition of women in our own country there is much in both which\ndeserves our serious consideration.\n\n\n\nA GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,\nfrom the commencement of the Christian Era until the present time. By\nM. l'abb\u00e9 J. E. Darras. Vol. IV. New-York: P. O'Shea. 1866.\n\nThe fourth volume of this highly esteemed work completes the\npublication of the original history of M. Darras. It comprises the\nlast, and to us for many reasons the most interesting period of the\nhistory of the church; that which begins with the rise of\nProtestantism down to the pontificate of Gregory XVI. To this volume\nis added as an appendix a very concise and valuable historical sketch\nof the origin and progress of the Church in the United States by the\nRev. Dr. C. I. White, of Washington City. We have already warmly\ncommended this work to our readers. It will take its place, of course,\nin all our colleges and literary societies, and become as familiar to\nour American as it is already to all French students; but we wish for\nit also a wide distribution in the family circle. There is no reason\nwhy such useful and entertaining works as this should not be kept at\nhand and under the eye of our youth at home. A good knowledge of the\nchurch's life, labors, trials, and victories is necessary to every\nCatholic in our day, both for an intelligent appreciation of his faith\nas well as to be able to combat the attacks that faith receives\nthrough misrepresentation of the facts of history, and the unblushing\nfalsehoods concerning the Papacy, which are so foul a blot upon the\npages of history and controversy written by Protestant and infidel\nenemies of the church. The present work is the best history of the\nchurch we possess in the English language. It is such a one as we have\nneeded a long time, and we again thank the enterprising publisher for\nthe boon he has thus conferred upon the Catholic public.\n\n{576}\n\n\nTHE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS.\nby Father Thomas of Jesus. Reprinted from the last London Edition. New\nYork: P O'Shea, 27 Barclay st. 1866.\n\n\nThis is a work composed by a great saint, and justly deserving of the\ngreat reputation it has always enjoyed as one of the best of spiritual\nbooks. It contains an inexhaustible mine of meditation, sufficient to\nlast a person during his whole life, and just as new and fresh after\nthe hundreds perusal as during the first. It is as a book for\nmeditation that it should be used, and for this purpose it cannot be\ntoo highly recommended to religious communities or to devout persons\nin the world who desire and need a guide and model for the practice of\nmeditation.\n\n\nTHE LIFE AND LIGHT OF MEN.\nAn essay. by John Young LL.D. Edin. Strahan.\n\n\nDr. Young was formerly a Presbyterian minister, but resigned his\nposition on account of his inability to believe the Presbyterian\ndoctrines, especially that of the vicarious atonement and imputed\nrighteousness of Christ. The present work is leveled against this\ndoctrine. The author has tolerably clear views of the Incarnation, and\nsome other Catholic doctrines. His learning appears to be\nconsiderable, the tone of his mind very just and moderate, and his\nintellectual and literary ability of no mean order. He is one instance\namong a thousand others, of a noble, religious mind striving to rise\nabove the common Protestant orthodoxy without floating away into\nrationalism. We recommend his book to our Calvinistic friends. What\nthe excellent author is yearning after is Catholic theology. This, and\nthis alone, would satisfy him, for it alone can satisfy any mind that\nwishes to believe in the Christian revelation and at the same time the\nrational.\n\n\n\nTHE LIFE OF ST. VINCENT DEPAUL, AND ITS LESSONS.\nA lecture. By Rev. T. S. Preston, R. Coddington.\n\nThe publication of this lecture will gratify many who were not  able\nto be present at its delivery. The orator gives a short account of the\nlife and great labors of the apostle of charity, and then shows the\ndifference between charity as a Christian virtue and simple, natural\nphilanthropy, both in principle and their means and plans of action.\nIn works of benevolence, that which the Christian saint is careless\nabout and avoids to the utmost of his power, is considered by the\nworld as of vital necessity to secure success, the approval and\napplause of men. This truth is well brought out in the lecture, and is\none which it is necessary to keep before our minds in this puffing\nage. The proceeds of the sale of the lecture is accredited to the\nbenefit of the conference of St. Vincent de Paul, attached to St.\nAnn's Church in the city.\n\n\n\n\nALTE UND NEUR WELT. Benziger Bros. New York.\n\nThis is a Catholic monthly magazine in the German language, enriched\nwith copious illustrations. The type and paper are of very superior\nquality, and the contents very various and, we should think,\nwell-chosen. The illustrations are by far the best which can be found\nin any periodical published in America, and many of them equal to\nthose of the best European magazines. The work as a whole reflects the\ngreatest credit on its conductors, and deserves the most extensive\npatronage from our numerous and intelligent German Catholic\npopulation. We recommend it also to those who are studying the German\nlanguage, or interested in German literature. The illustrations alone\nare worth the price of subscription, which is $4.00 a year.\n\n\nBOOKS RECEIVED.\n\nFrom D. & J. Sadlier & Co. New York. The denouncement; or, the Last\nBaron of Crana, and The Boyne Water. By the Brothers Banim. 2 vols.\n12mo, pp. 448 and 559; Parts 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36 of\nD'Artaud's Lives of the Popes.\n\n\nFrom Ticknor & Fields, Boston. How New York is Governed. By James\nParton, reprinted from the North American Review. Pamphlet.\n\n\nFrom P. O'Shea, New York. The Purgatorian Manual; or, a Selection of\nPrayers and Devotions with appropriate reflections for the use of the\nmembers of the Purgatorian Society in the Diocese of New York, and\nadapted for general use. By Rev. Thomas S. Preston, pastor of St.\nAnn's and Chancellor of the Diocese. Approved by the most Rev. John\nMcCloskey, D.D., archbishop of New York, pp. 452; The Imitation of\nChrist in Two Books, translated by Richard Challoner, D.D. 48mo, pp.\n308; Instructions on the Commandments of God, and Holy Sacraments. By\nSt. Alphonsus Liguori. 48mo, pp. 288. The Spiritual Combat; or, the\nChristian Defended against the Enemy of his Salvation. 48mo, pp. 256;\nLittle Office of the Blessed Virgin, in Latin and English. 12mo, pp.\n178.\n\n\n\nWe have received an Oration delivered before the members of St. Mary's\nOrphan Association of Nashville, Tenn., July 4th, 1866, by Rev. A. J.\nRyan, author of The Concord Banner, etc.\n\n------------\n\n{577}\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD\n\n\nVOL. IV., NO. 23--FEBRUARY, 1867.\n\n\n\nTHE POPE AND THE REVOLUTION\n\n\nBY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.\n\n\n  [This sermon is given to the world in consequence of its having been\n  made the subject in the public prints of various reports and\n  comments, which, though both friendly and fair to the author, as far\n  as he has seen them, nevertheless, from the necessity of the case,\n  have proceeded from information inexact in points of detail.\n\n  It is now published from the copy written beforehand, and does not\n  differ from the copy, as delivered, except in such corrections of a\n  critical nature as are imperative when a composition, written\n  _currente calamo_, has to be prepared for the press. There is one\n  passage, however, which it has been found necessary to enlarge, with\n  a view of expressing more exactly the sentiment which it contained,\n  namely, the comparison made between Italian and English Catholics.\n\n  The author submits the whole, as he does all his publications, to\n  the judgment of Holy Church.]\n  October 13, 1866.\n\n\n  The church shone brightly in her youthful days,\n    Ere the world on her smiled\n  So now, an outcast, she would pour her rays\n    Keen, free, and undefiled;\n  Yet would I not that arm of force were mine,\n  To thrust her from her awful ancient shrine.\n\n  'Twas duty bound each convert-king to rear\n    His mother from the dust;\n  And pious was it to enrich, nor fear\n    Christ for the rest to trust:\n  And who shall dare make common or unclean\n    What once has on the holy altar been?\n\n  Dear Brothers! hence, while ye for ill prepare,\n    Triumph Is still your own;\n  Blest is a pilgrim church! yet shrink to share\n    The curse of throwing down.\n  So will we toll in our old place to stand,\n  Watching, not dreading, the despoiler's hand.\n\n        _Vid_. Lyra Apostolica.\n\n\n\nSERMON.\n\nThis day, the feast of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has\nbeen specially devoted by our ecclesiastical superiors to be a day of\nprayer for the sovereign pontiff, our holy father, Pope Pius the\nNinth.\n\nHis lordship, our bishop, has addressed a pastoral letter to his\nclergy upon the subject, and at the end of it he says: \"Than that\nfestival none can be more appropriate, as it is especially devoted to\ncelebrating the triumphs of the Holy See obtained by prayer. We\ntherefore propose and direct that on the festival of the Rosary, the\nchief mass in each church and chapel of our diocese be celebrated with\nas much solemnity as circumstances will allow of. And that after the\nmass the psalm {578} _Miserere_ and the Litany of the Saints be sung\nor recited. That the faithful be invited to offer one communion for\nthe Pope's intention. And that, where it can be done, one part at\nleast of the rosary be publicly said at some convenient time in the\nchurch, for the same intention.\"\n\nThen he adds: \"In the sermon at the mass of the festival, it is our\nwish that the preacher should instruct the faithful on their\nobligations to the Holy See, and on the duty especially incumbent on\nus at this time of praying for the Pope.\"\n\nI. \"Our obligations to the Holy See.\" What Catholic can doubt of our\nobligations to the Holy See? especially what Catholic under the shadow\nand teaching of St. Philip Neri can doubt those obligations, in both\nsenses of the word \"obligation,\" the tie of duty and the tie of\ngratitude?\n\n1. For first as to duty. Our duty to the Holy See, to the chair of St.\nPeter, is to be measured by what the church teaches us concerning that\nHoly See and of him who sits in it. Now St. Peter, who first occupied\nit, was the Vicar of Christ. You know well, my brethren, our Lord and\nSaviour Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross for us, thereby bought\nfor us the kingdom of heaven. \"When thou hadst overcome the sting of\ndeath,\" says the hymn, \"thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to those\nwho believe.\" He opens, and he shuts; he gives grace, he withdraws it;\nhe judges, he pardons, he condemns. Accordingly, he speaks of himself\nin the Apocalypse as \"him who is the holy and the true, him that hath\nthe key of David (the key, that is, of the chosen king of the chosen\npeople), him that openeth and no man shutteth, that shutteth and no\nman openeth.\" And what our Lord, the supreme judge, is in heaven, that\nwas St. Peter on earth; he had the keys of the kingdom, according to\nthe text, \"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,\nand the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to\nthee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind\nupon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt\nloose on earth, be loosed also in heaven.\"\n\nNext, let it be considered, the kingdom which our Lord set up with St.\nPeter at its head was decreed in the counsels of God to last to the\nand of all things, according to the words I have just quoted, \"The\ngates of hell show not prevail against it.\" And again, \"Behold I am\nwith you all days, even to the consummation of the world.\" And in the\nwords of the prophet Isaias, speaking of that divinely established\nchurch, then in the future, \"This is my covenant with them, My spirit\nthat is in thee, and my words which I have put in thy month, shall not\ndepart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of\nthe mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for\never.\" And the prophet Daniel says, \"The God of heaven will set up a\nkingdom that shall never be destroyed . . . and it shall break in\npieces and shall consume all those kingdoms (of the earth, which went\nbefore it), and itself shall stand for ever.\"\n\nThat kingdom our Lord set up when he came on earth, and especially\nafter his resurrection; for we are told by St. Luke that this was his\ngracious employment, when he visited the apostles from time to time,\nduring the forty days which intervened between Easter day and the day\nof his ascension. \"He showed himself alive to the apostles,\" says the\nevangelist, \"after his passion by many proofs, for forty days\nappearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God.\" And\naccordingly, when at length he had ascended on high, and had sent down\n\"the promise of his Father,\" the Holy Ghost, upon his apostles, they\nforthwith entered upon their high duties, and brought that kingdom or\nchurch into shape, and supplied it with members, and enlarged it, and\ncarried it into all lands. As to St. Peter, he acted as the head of\nthe church,  according to the previous {579} words of Christ; and,\nstill according to his Lord's supreme will, he at length placed\nhimself in the see of Rome, where he was martyred. And what was then\ndone, in its substance cannot be undone. \"God is not as a man that he\nshould lie, nor as the son of man, that he should change. Hath he said\nthen, and shall he not do? Hath he said then, and will he not fulfil?\"\nAnd, as St. Paul says, \"The gifts and the calling of God are without\nrepentance.\"  His church, then, in all necessary matters, is as\nunchangeable as he. Its framework, its polity, its ranks, its offices,\nits creed, its privileges, the promises made to it, its fortunes in\nthe world, are ever what they have been.\n\nTherefore, as it was in the world, but not _of_ the world, in the\napostles' times, so it is now; as it was \"in honor and dishonor, in\nevil report and good report, as chastised but not killed, as having\nnothing and possessing all things,\" in the apostles' times, so it is\nnow; as then it taught the truth, so it does now; and as then it had\nthe sacraments of grace, so has it now; as then it had a hierarchy or\nholy government of bishops, priests, and deacons, so has it now; and\nas it had a head then, so must it have a head now. Who is that visible\nhead? who is the vicar of Christ? who has now the keys of the kingdom\nof heaven, as St. Peter had then? Who is it who binds and looses on\nearth, that our Lord may bind and loose in heaven? Who, I say, is the\nsuccessor to St. Peter, since a successor there must be, in his\nsovereign authority over the church? It is he who sits in St. Peter's\nchair; it is the Bishop of Rome. We all know _this_; it is part of our\n_faith_; I am not proving it to you, my brethren. The visible headship\nof the church, which was with St. Peter while he lived, has been\nlodged ever since in his chair; the successors in his headship are the\nsuccessors in his chair, the continuous line of Bishops of Rome, or\nPopes, as they are called, one after another, as years have rolled on,\none dying and another coming, down to this day, when we see Pius the\nNinth sustaining the weight of the glorious apostolate, and that for\ntwenty years past--a tremendous weight, a ministry involving momentous\nduties, innumerable anxieties, and immense responsibilities, as it\never has done.\n\nAnd now, though I might say much more about the prerogatives of the\nHoly Father, the visible head of the church, I have said more than\nenough for the purpose which has led to my speaking about him at all.\nI have said that, like St. Peter, he is the vicar of his Lord. He can\njudge, and he can acquit; he can pardon, and he can condemn; he can\ncommand, and he can permit; he can forbid, and he can punish. He has a\nsupreme jurisdiction over the people of God. He can stop the ordinary\ncourse of sacramental mercies; he can excommunicate from the ordinary\ngrace of redemption; and he can remove again the ban which he has\ninflicted. It is the rule of Christ's providence, that what his vicar\ndoes in severity or in mercy upon earth, he himself confirms in\nheaven. And in saying all this I have said enough for my purpose,\nbecause that purpose is to define our obligations to him. That is the\npoint on which our bishop has fixed our attention; \"our obligations to\nthe Holy See;\" and what need I say more to measure our own duty to it\nand to him who sits in it, than to say that, in his administration of\nChrist's kingdom, in his religious acts, we must never oppose his\nwill, or dispute his word, or criticise his policy, or shrink from his\nside? There are kings of the earth who have despotic authority, which\ntheir subjects obey indeed and disown in their hearts; but we must\nnever murmur at that absolute rule which the sovereign pontiff has\nover us, because it is given to him by Christ, and, in obeying him, we\nare obeying his Lord. We must never suffer ourselves to doubt, that,\nin his government of the church, he is guided by an intelligence more\nthan human. His yoke is the yoke of Christ, _he_ has the\nresponsibility {580} of his own acts, not we; and to his Lord must he\nrender account, not to us. Even in secular matters it is ever safe to\nbe on his side, dangerous to be on the side of his enemies. Our duty\nis, not indeed to mix up Christ's vicar with this or that party of\nmen, because he in his high station is above all parties, but to look\nat his acts, and to follow him whither he goeth, and never to desert\nhim, however we may be tried, but to defend him at all hazards, and\nagainst all comers, as a son would a father, and us a wife a husband,\nknowing that his cause is the cause of God. And so, as regards his\nsuccessors, if we live to see them; it is our duty to give _them_ in\nlike manner our dutiful allegiance and our unfeigned service, and to\nfollow them also whithersoever they go, having that same confidence\nthat each in his turn and in his own day will do God's work and will,\nwhich we felt in their predecessors, now taken away to their eternal\nreward.\n\n2. And now let us consider our obligations to the sovereign pontiff in\nthe second sense, which is contained under the word \"obligation.\" \"In\nthe sermon in the mass,\" says the bishop, \"it is our wish that the\npreacher should instruct the faithful on their obligations to the Holy\nSee;\" and certainly those obligations, that is, the claims of the Holy\nSee upon our gratitude, are very great. We in this country owe our\nhighest blessings to the see of St. Peter--to the succession of\nbishops who have filled his apostolic chair. For first it was a Pope\nwho sent missionaries to this island in the beginning of the church,\nwhen the island was yet in pagan darkness. Then again, when our\nbarbarous ancestors, the Saxons, crossed over from the continent and\noverran the country, who but a Pope, St. Gregory the First, sent over\nSt. Augustine and his companions to convert them to Christianity? and\nby God's grace they and their successors did the great work in the\ncourse of a hundred years. From that time, twelve hundred years ago\nour nation has ever been Christian. And then in the lawless times each\nfollowed, and the break-up of the old world all over Europe, and the\nformation of the new, it was the  Popes, humanly speaking, who saved\nthe religion of Christ from being utterly lost and coming to an and,\nand not in England only, but on the continent; that is, our Lord made\nuse of that succession of his vicars to fulfil his gracious promise,\nthat his religion should never fail. The Pope and the bishops of the\nchurch, acting together in that miserable time, rescued from\ndestruction all that makes up our present happiness, spiritual and\ntemporal. Without them the world would have relapsed into\nbarbarism--but God willed otherwise; and especially the Roman\npontiffs, the successors of St. Peter, the centre of Catholic unity,\nthe vicars of Christ, which primarily related to the Almighty Redeemer\nhimself: \"I have a lead help upon one that is mighty, and I have\nexalted one chosen quote of the people. I have found David my servant,\nwith my holy oil have I anointed him. For my hand shall help him, and\nmy arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall have no advantage over\nhim, nor the son of iniquity have power to hurt him. I will put to\nflight his enemies before his face, and them that hate him I will put\nto flight. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name\nshall his horn be exalted. He shall cry out to me, Thou art my Father,\nmy God, and the support of my salvation. And I will make him my\nfirst-born, high above the kings of the earth. I will keep my mercy\nfor him for ever, and my coveted shall be faithful to him.\"\n\nAnd the Almighty did this in pity toward his people, and for the sake\nof his religion, and by virtue of his promise, and for the merits of\nthe most precious blood of his own dearly beloved Son, Whom the Popes\nrepresented. As Moses and Aaron, as Josue,  as {581} Samuel, as David,\nwere the leaders of the Lord's host in the old time, and carried on\nthe chosen people of Israel from age to age, in spite of their enemies\nround about, so have the Popes from the beginning of the gospel, and\nespecially in those middle ages when anarchy prevailed, been faithful\nservants of their Lord, watching and fighting against sin and\ninjustice and unbelief and ignorance, and spreading abroad far and\nwide the knowledge of Christian truth.\n\nSuch they have been in every age, and such are the obligations which\nmankind owes to them; and, if I am to pass on to speak of the present\npontiff, and of our own obligations to him, then I would have you\nrecollect, my brethren, that it is he who has taken the Catholics of\nEngland out of their unformed state and made them a church. He it is\nwho has redressed a misfortune of nearly three hundred years'\nstanding. Twenty years ago we were a mere collection of individuals;\nbut Pope Pius has brought us together, has given us bishops, and\ncreated out of us a body politic, which, please God, as time goes on,\nwill play an important part in Christendom, with a character, an\nintellect, and a power of its own, with schools of its own, with a\ndefinite influence in the counsels of the Holy Church Catholic, as\nEngland had of old time.\n\nThis has been his great act toward our country; and then specially, as\nto his great act toward us here, toward me. One of his first acts\nafter he was Pope was, in his great condescension,  to call me to\nRome; then, when I got there, he bade me send for my friends to be\nwith me; and he formed us into and oratory. And thus it came to pass\nthat, on my return to England, I was able to associate myself with\nothers who had not gone to Rome, till we were so many in number that\nnot only did we establish our own oratory here, whither the Pope had\nspecially sent us, but we found we could throw off from's a colony of\nzealous and able priests into the metropolis, and establish there,\nwith the powers with which the Pope had furnished me, and the sanction\nof the late cardinal, that oratory which has done and still does so\nmuch good among the Catholics of London.\n\nSuch is the Pope now happily reigning in the chair of St. Peter; such\nare our personal obligations to him; such has he been toward England,\nsuch toward us, toward you, my brethren. Such he is in his benefits,\nand, great as are the claims of those benefits upon us, great equally\nare the claims on us of his personal character and of his many\nvirtues. He is one whom to see is to love; one who overcomes even\nstrangers, even enemies, by his very look and voice; whose presence\nsubdues, whose memory haunts, even the sturdy resolute mind of the\nEnglish Protestant. Such is the Holy Father of Christendom, the worthy\nsuccessor of a long and glorious line. Such is he; and great as he is\nin office, and in his beneficent acts and virtuous life, as great is\nhe in the severity of his trials, in the complication of his duties,\nand in the gravity of his perils--perils which are at this moment\nclosing him in on every side; and therefore it is, on account of the\ncrisis of the long-protracted troubles of his pontificate which seems\nnear at hand, that our bishop has set apart this day for special\nsolemnities, the feast of the Holy Rosary, and has directed us to\n\"instruct the faithful on their _obligations_ to the Holy See,\" and\nnot only so, but also \"on the duty especially incumbent on us at this\ntime of _praying_ for the Pope.\"\n\n\nII. This, then, is the second point to which I have to direct your\nattention, my brethren--the duty of praying for the Holy Father; but,\nbefore doing so, I must tell you what the Pope's long-protracted\ntroubles are about, and what the crisis is which seems approaching, I\nwill do it in as few words as I can.\n\nMore than a thousand years ago, nay, near upon fifteen hundred, began\nthat great struggle, which I spoke of {582} just now, between the old\nand the new inhabitants of this part of the world. Whole populations\nof barbarians overrun the whole face of the country, that is, of\nEngland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the re\u00abt of Europe. They\nwere heathens, and they got the better of the Christians; and religion\nseemed likely to fail together with that old Christian stock. But, as\nI have said, the Pope and the bishops of the church took heart, and\nset about converting the new-comers, as in a former age they had\nconverted those who now had come to misfortune; and, through God's\nmercy, they succeeded. The Saxon English--Anglo-Saxons, as they are\ncalled--are among those whom the Pope converted, as I said just now.\nThe new convert people, as you may suppose, were very grateful to the\nPope and bishops, and they showed their gratitude by giving them large\npossessions, which were of great use, in the bad times that followed,\nin maintaining the influence of Christianity in the world. Thus the\nCatholic Church became rich and powerful. The bishops became princes,\nand the Pope became a sovereign ruler, with a large extent of country\nall his own. This state of things lasted for many hundred years; and\nthe Pope and bishops became richer and richer, more and more powerful,\nuntil at length the Protestant revolt took place, three hundred years\nago, and ever since that time, in a temporal point of view, they have\nbecome of less and less importance, and less and less prosperous.\nGeneration after generation the enemies of the church, on the other\nhand, have become bolder and bolder, more powerful, and more\nsuccessful in their measures against the Catholic faith. By this time\nthe church has well-nigh lost all its wealth and all its power; its\nbishops have been degraded from their high places in the world, and in\nmany countries have scarcely more, or not more, of weight or of\nprivilege than the ministers of the sects which have split off from\nit. However, though the bishops lost, as time went on, their temporal\nrank, the Pope did lose his; he has been an exception to the rule;\naccording to the providence of God, he has retained Rome, and the\nterritories around about Rome, far and wide, as his own possession\nwithout let or hindrance. But now at length, by the operation of the\nsame causes which have destroyed the power of the bishops, the Holy\nFather is in danger of losing his temporal possessions. For the last\nhundred years he has had from time to time serious reverses, but he\nrecovered his ground. Six years ago he lost the greater part of his\ndominions--, all but Rome and the country immediately about it,--and\nnow the worst of difficulties has occurred as regards the territories\nwhich remain to him. His enemies have succeeded, as it would seem, in\npersuading at least a large portion of his subjects to side with them.\nThis is a real and very trying difficulty. While his subjects are for\nhim, no one can have a word to say against his temporal rule; but who\ncan force a sovereign on people which deliberately rejects him? You\nmay attempt it for awhile, but at length the people, if they persist,\nwill get their way.\n\nThey give out then, that the Pope's government is behind the age--that\nonce indeed it was as good as other governments, but that now other\ngovernments have got better, and his has not--that he can either keep\norder within his territory, nor defend it from attacks from\nwithout--that his police and his finances are in a bad state--that\nhis people are discontented within--that he does not show them how to\nbecome rich--that he keeps them from improving their minds--that he\ntreats them as children--that he opens no career for young and\nenergetic minds, but condemns them to inactivity and sloth--that he is\nan old man--that he is an ecclesiastic--that, considering his great\nspiritual duties, he has no time left him for temporal concerns--and\nthat a bad rebellious government is a scandal to religion.\n\n{583}\n\nI have stated their arguments as fairly as I can, but you must not for\nan instant suppose, my brethren, that I admit either their principles\nor their facts. It is a simple paradox to say that ecclesiastical and\ntemporal power cannot lawfully, religiously, and usefully be joined\ntogether. Look at what are called the middle ages--that is, the period\nwhich intervenes between the old Roman empire and the modern world; as\nI have said, the Pope and the bishops saved religion and civil order\nfrom destruction in those tempestuous times--and they did so _by\nmeans_ of the secular power which they possessed. And next, going on\nto the principles which the Pope's enemies lay down as so very\ncertain, who will grant to them, who has any pretension to be a\nreligious man, that progress in temporal possessions is the greatest\nof goods, and that everything else, however sacred, must give way\nbefore it? On the contrary, health, long life, security, liberty,\nknowledge, are certainly great goods, but the possession of heaven is\na far greater good than all of them together. With all the progress in\nworldly happiness which we possibly could make, we could not make\nourselves immortal--death must come; that will be a time when riches\nand worldly knowledge will avail us nothing, and true faith and divine\nlove and a past life of obedience will be all in all to us. If we were\ndriven to choose between the two, it would be a hundred times better\nto be Lazarus in this world than to be Dives in the next.\n\nHowever, the best answer to their arguments is contained in sacred\nhistory, which supplies us with a very apposite and instructive lesson\non the subject, and to it I am now going to refer.\n\nNow observe, in the first place, no Catholic maintains that that rule\nof the Pope as a king, in Rome and its provinces, which men are now\nhoping to take from him, is, strictly speaking, what is called a\ntheocracy, that is, a divine government. His government, indeed, in\nspiritual matters, in the Catholic Church throughout the world, might\nbe called a theocracy, because he is the vicar of Christ, and has the\nassistance of the Holy Ghost; but not such is his kingly rule in his\nown dominions. On the other hand, the rule exercised over the chosen\npeople, the Israelites, by Moses, Josue, Gideon, Eli, and Samuel, was\na theocracy: God was the king of the Israelites, not Moses and the\nrest--_they_ were but vicars or vicegerents of the Eternal Lord who\nbrought the nation out of Egypt. Now, when men object that the Pope's\ngovernment of his own states is not what it should be, and that\ntherefore he ought to lose them, because, forsooth, a religious rule\nshould be perfect or not at all, I take them at their word, if they\nare Christians, and refer them to the state of things among the\nIsraelites after the time of Moses, during the very centuries when\nthey had God for their king. Was that a period of peace, prosperity,\nand contentment? Is it an argument against the divine perfections,\nthat it was not such a period? Why is it, then, to be the condemnation\nof the Popes, who are but men, that their rule is but parallel in its\ncharacteristics to that of the King of Israel, who was God? He indeed\nhas his own all-wise purposes for what he does; he knows the end from\nthe beginning; he could have made his government as perfect and as\nprosperous as might have been expected from the words of Moses\nconcerning it, as perfect and prosperous as, from the words of the\nprophets, our anticipations might have been about the earthly reign of\nthe Messias. But this he did not do, because from the first he made\nthat perfection and that prosperity dependent upon the free will, upon\nthe cooperation of his people. Their loyal obedience to him was the\ncondition, expressly declared by him, of his fulfilling his promises.\nHe proposed to work out his purposes through them, and, when they\nrefused their share {584} in the work, everything went wrong. Now they\ndid refuse from the first; so that from the very first, he says of\nthem emphatically, they were a \"stiff-necked people.\"  This was at the\nbeginning of their history; and close upon the end of it, St. Stephen,\ninspired by the Holy Ghost, repeats the divine account of them: \"You\nstiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist\nthe Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do you also.\" In consequence\nof this obstinate disobedience, I say, God's promises were not\nfulfilled to them. That long lapse of five or six hundred years,\nduring which God was their king, was in good part a time, not of\nwell-being, but of calamity.\n\nNow, turning to the history of the papal monarchy for the last\nthousand years, the Roman people have not certainly the guilt of the\nIsraelites, because they were not opposing the direct rule of' God;\nand I would not attribute to them now a liability to the same dreadful\ncrimes which stain the annals of their an ancestors; but still, after\nall they have been a singularly stiff-necked people in time past,  and\nin consequence, there has been extreme confusion, I may say anarchy,\nunder the reign of the Popes; and the restless impatience of his rule\nwhich exists in the Roman territory now is only what has shown itself\nage after age in times past. The Roman people not seldom offered\nbodily violence to their Popes, killed some Popes, wounded others,\ndrove others from the city. On one occasion they assaulted the Pope at\nthe very altar in St. Peter's, and he was obliged to take to flight in\nhis pontifical vestments. Another time they insulted the clergy of\nRome; at another, they attacked and robbed the pilgrims who brought\nofferings from a distance to the shrine of St. Peter. Sometimes they\nsided with the German emperors against the Pope; sometimes with other\nenemies of his in Italy itself. As many as thirty-six Popes endured\nthis dreadful contest with their own subjects, till at last, in anger\nand disgust with Rome and Italy, they took refuge in France, where\nthey remained for seventy years, during the reigns of eight of their\nnumber.   [Footnote 170]\n\n  [Footnote 170: I take these facts as I find them in Gibbon's\n  History, the work which I have immediately at hand; but it would not\n  be difficult to collect a multitude of such instances from the\n  original historians of those times.]\n\nThat I may not be supposed to rest what I have said on insufficient\nauthorities, I will quote the words of that great saint, St. Bernard,\nabout the roman people, seven hundred years ago.\n\nWriting to Pope Eugenius during the troubles of the day, he says:\n\"What shall I say of the people? why, that it _is_ the Roman people. I\ncould not more concisely or fully express what I think of your\nsubjects. What has been so notorious for ages as the wantonness and\nhaughtiness of the Romans? a race unaccustomed to peace, accustomed to\ntumult; a race cruel and unmanageable up to this day, which knows not\nto submit, unless when it is unable to make fight. . . . I know the\nhardened heart of this people, but God is powerful even of these\nstones to raise up children to Abraham. . . . When will you find for\nme out of the whole of that populous city, who received you as Pope\nwithout bribe or hope of bribe? And then especially are they wishing\nto be masters, when they have professed to be servants. They promise\nto be trustworthy, that they may have the opportunity of injuring\nthose who trust them. . . . They are wise for evil, but they are\nignorant for good. Odious to earth and heaven, they have assailed both\nthe one and the other; impious towards God, reckless toward things\nsacred, factious among themselves, envious of their neighbors, inhuman\ntoward foreigners, . . . . they love none, and by none are loved. Too\nimpatient for submission, too helpless for rule; . . . importunate to\ngain an end, restless till they gain it, ungrateful when they have\ngained it. They have taught {585} their tongue to speak big words,\nwhile their performances are scanty indeed.\" [Footnote 171]\n\n    [Footnote 171:  St. Bernard is led to say this to the Pope in\n    consequence of the troubles created in Rome by Arnald of Bresela.\n    \"Ab obitu Caelestini hoc anno invalescere coepit istiusmodi\n    rebellio Romanorum adversus Pontficem, eodemque haeresis dicta\n    Politicorum, sive Arnaldistarum. Ea erant tempora infelicissime,\n    c\u00f9m Romani ipsi, quorum fides in universo orbe jam \u00e0 tempore\n    Apostolorum annunciata semper fuit, resilientes modo \u00e0 Pontifice,\n    dominandi cupidine, ex filiis Petri et discipulis Christi, fiunt\n    soboles et alumni pestilentissimi Arnaldi de Brixi\u00e2. Ver\u00f9m, c\u00f9m tu\n    Romanos audis, ne putes omnes e\u00e2dem insani\u00e2 percitos, nam\n    complures ex nobilium Romanorum familiis, iis relictis, pro\n    Pontifice rem ageoant, etc.\" Baron. Annal. in ann. 1144. 4.--_De\n    Consid_. iv. 2.]\n\n\nThus I begin, and now let us continue I parallel between the\nIsraelites and the Romans.\n\nI have said that, while the Israelites had God for their king, they\nhad a succession of great national disasters, arising indeed really\nfrom their falling off from him; but this they would have been slow to\nacknowledge. They fell into idolatry; then, in consequence, they fell\ninto the power of their enemies; then God in his mercy visited them,\nand raised up for them a deliverer and ruler--a judge, as he was\ncalled--who brought them to repentance, and then brought them out of\ntheir troubles; however, when the judge died, they fell back into\nidolatry, and then they fell under the power of their enemies again.\nThus for eight years they were in subjection to the king of\nMesopotamia; for eight years to the king of Moab; for twenty years to\nthe king of Canaan; for seven years to the Madianites; for eighteen\nyears to the Ammomites; and for forty years to the Philistines.\nAfterward Eli, the high priest, became their judge, and then disorders\nof another kind commenced. His sons, who were priests also, committed\ngrievous acts of impurity in the holy place, and in other ways caused\ngreat scandal. In consequence a heavy judgment came upon the people;\nthey were beaten in battle by the Philistines, and the ark of God was\ntaken. Then Samuel was raised up, a holy prophet and a judge, and in\nthe time of his vigor all went well; but he became old, and then he\nappointed his sons to take his place. They, however, were not like\nhim, and everything went wrong again. \"His sons walked not in his\nways,\" says the sacred record, \"but they turned aside after lucre, and\ntook bribes, and perverted judgment.\" This reduced the Israelites to\ndespair; they thought they never should have a good government while\nthings were as they were; and they came to the conclusion that they\nhad better not be governed by such men as Samuel, however holy he\nmight be, that public affairs ought to be put on an intelligible\nfooting, and be carried on upon system, which had never yet been done.\nSo they came to the conclusion that they had better have a king, like\nthe nations around them. They deliberately preferred the rule of man\nto the rule of God. They did not like to repent and give up their\nsins, as the true means of being prosperous; they thought it an easier\nway to temporal prosperity to have a king like the nations than to\npray and live virtuously. And not only the common people, but even the\ngrave and venerable seniors of the nation took up this view of what\nwas expedient for them. \"All the ancients of Israel, being assembled,\ncame to Samuel, . . . and they said to him . . . Make us a king to\njudge us, as all nations have.\" Observe, my brethren, this is just\nwhat the Roman people are saying now. They wish to throw off the\nauthority of the Pope, on the plea of the disorders which they\nattribute to his government, and to join themselves to the rest of\nItaly, and to have the King of Italy for their king. Some of them,\nindeed, wish to be without any king at all; but, whether they wish to\nhave a king or no, at least they wish to get free from the Pope.\n\nNow let us continue the parallel. When the prophet Samuel heard this\nrequest urged from such a quarter, and supported by the people\ngenerally, he was much moved. \"The word was displeasing in the eyes of\nSamuel,\" says the inspired writer, \"that they should say, Give us a\nking. And Samuel prayed to the Lord.\" {586} Almighty God answered him\nby saying, \"They have not rejected thee, but me;\" and he bade the\nprophet warn the people, what the king they sought after would be to\nthem when at length they had him. Samuel accordingly put before them\nexplicitly what treatment they would receive from him. \"He will take\nyour sons,\" he said, \"and will put them in his chariots; and he will\nmake them his horseman, and his running footmen to go before his\nchariots. He will take the tenth of your corn and the revenue of your\nvineyards. Your flocks also he will take, and you shall be his\nservants.\" Then the narrative proceeds, \"But the people would not hear\nthe voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but there shall be a king\nover us. And we also will be like all nations, and our king shall\njudge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles for us.\"\n\nNow here the parallel I am drawing is very exact. It is happier, I\nthink, for the bulk of a people to belong to a small state which makes\nlittle noise in the world than to a large one. At least in this day we\nfind small states, such an Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland, have\nspecial and singular temporal advantages. And the Roman people, too,\nunder the sway of the Popes, at least have had a very easy time of it;\nbut, alas that people is not sensible of this, or does not allow\nitself to keep it in mind. The Romans have not had those civil\ninconveniences which fall so heavy on the members of a first-class\npower. The pontifical government has been very gentle with them; but,\nif once they were joined to the kingdom of Italy, they would at length\nfind what it is to attain temporal greatness. The words of Samuel to\nthe Israelites would be fulfilled in them to the letter. Heavy taxes\nwould be laid on them; their children would be torn from them for the\narmy; and they would incur the other penalties of an ambition which\nprefers to have a share in a political adventure to being at the head\nof Catholic citizenship. We cannot have all things to our wish in this\nworld; we must take our choice between this advantage and that;\nperhaps the Roman people would like both to secure this world and the\nnext, if they could; perhaps, in seeking both, they may lose both; and\nperhaps, when they have lost more than they have gained, they may wish\ntheir old sovereign back again, as they have done in other centuries\nbefore this, and may regret that they have caused such grievous\ndisturbance for what at length they find out is little worth it.\n\nIn truth, after all, the question which they have to determine is, as\ni have intimated, not one of worldly prosperity and adversity, of\ngreatness or insignificance, of despotism or liberty, of position in\nthe world or in the church; but a question of spiritual life or death.\nThe sin of the Israelites was not that they desired good government,\nbut that they rejected God as their king. Their choosing to have \"a\nking like the nations\" around them was, in matter of fact, the first\nstep in a series of acts which at length lead them to their rejection\nof the Almighty as their God. When in spite of Samuel's remonstrances\nthey were obstinate, God let them have their way, and then in time\nthey became dissatisfied with their king for the very reasons which\nthe old prophet had set before them in vain. On Solomon's death, about\na hundred and twenty years after, the greater part of the nation broke\noff from his son on the very plea of Solomon's tyranny, and chose a\nnew king, who at once established idolatry all through their country.\n\nNow, I grant, to reject the Holy Father of course is not the sin of\nthe Israelites, for they rejected Almighty God himself: yet I wish I\nwas not forced to believe that a hatred of the Catholic religion is in\nfact at the bottom of that revolutionary spirit which at present seems\nso powerful in Rome. Progress, in the mouth of some people--of a great\nmany people--means apostasy. Not that I wouldn't deny that {587} there\nare sincere Catholics so dissatisfied with things as they were in\nItaly, as they are in Rome, that they are brought to think that no\nsocial change can be for the worse. Nor as if I pretended to be able\nto answer all the objections of those who take a political and secular\nview of the subject. But here I have nothing to do with secular\npolitics. In a sacred place I have only to view the matter\nreligiously. It would ill become me, in my station in the church and\nmy imperfect knowledge of the facts of the case, to speak four or\nagainst statesmen and governments, lines of policy or public acts, as\nif I were invested with any particular mission to give my judgment, or\nhad any access to sources of special information. I have not here to\ndetermine what may be politically more wise, or what may be socially\nmore advantageous, or what in a civil point of view would work more\nhappily, or what in an intellectual would tell better; my duty is to\nlead you, my brethren, to look at what is happening, as the sacred\nwriters would now view it and describe it were they on earth now to do\nso, and to attempt this by means of the light thrown upon present\noccurrences by what they actually have written, whether in the Old\nTestament or the New.\n\nWe must remove, I say, the veil off the face of events, as Scripture\nenables us to do, and try to speak of them as Scripture interprets\nthem for us. Speaking then in the sanctuary, I say that theories and\nschemes about government and administration, be a better or worse, and\nthe aims of mere statesmen and politicians, be they honest or be they\ndeceitful, these are not the determining causes of that series of\nmisfortunes under which the Holy See has so long been suffering. There\nis something deeper at work than anything human. It is not any refusal\nof the Pope to put his administration on a new footing, it is not any\ncraft or force of men high in public affairs, it is not any cowardice\nor frenzy of the people, which is the sufficient explanation of the\npresent confusion. What it is our duty here to bear in mind is the\nconstant restless agency over the earth of that bad angel who was a\nliar from the beginning, of whom Scripture speaks so much. The real\nmotive cause of the world's troubles is the abiding presence in it of\nthe apostate spirit, \"The prince of the power of this air,\" as St.\nPaul calls him, \"The spirit that now worketh on the children of\nunbelief.\"\n\nThings would go on well enough but for him. He it is who perverts to\nevil what is in itself good and right, sowing cockle amid the wheat.\nAdvance in knowledge, in science, in education, in the arts of life,\nin domestic economy, in municipal administration, in the conduct of\npublic affairs, is all good and from God, and might be conducted in a\nreligious way; but the evil spirit, jealous of good, makes use of it\nfor a bad end. And much more able is he to turn to his account the\ndesigns and measures of worldly politicians. He it is who spreads\nsuspicions and dislikes between class and class, between sovereigns\nand subjects, who makes men confuse together things good and bad, who\ninspires bigotry, party spirit, obstinacy, resentment, arrogance, and\nself-will, and hinders things from righting themselves, finding their\nlevel, and running smooth. His one purpose is so to match and arrange\nand combine and direct the opinions and the measures of Catholics and\nunbelievers, of Romans and foreigners, of sovereigns and popular\nleaders--all that is good, all that is bad, all that is violent or\nlukewarm in the good, all that is morally great and intellectually\npersuasive in the bad--as to inflict the widest possible damage, and\nutter ruin, if that were possible, on the church of God.\n\nDoubtless in St. Paul's time, in the age of heathen persecution, the\npersecutors had various good political arguments in behalf of their\ncruelty. Mobs indeed, or local magistrates, might be purposely cruel\ntoward the Christians; but the great Roman government {588} at a\ndistance, the great rulers and wise lawyers of the day, acted from\nviews of large policy; they had reasons of state, as the Kings of the\nearth have now; still our Lord and his apostles do not hesitate to\npass these by, and declare plainly that the persecution which they\nsanctioned or commanded was the word, not of man, but of Satan. And\nnow in like manner we are not engaged in a mere conflict between\nprogress and reaction, modern ideas and new, philosophy and theology,\nbut in one scene of the never-ending conflict between the anointed\nMediator and the devil, the church and the world; and, in St. Paul's\nwords, \"we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against\nprincipalities and powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness,\nagainst the spirits of wickedness in the high places.\"\n\nSuch is the apostle's judgment; and how, after giving it, does he\nproceed? \"Therefore,\" he says, \"take unto you the armor of God, that\nyou may be able to resist in the evil day and to stand in all things\nperfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and\nhaving on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the\npreparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of\nfaith, whereby you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the\nwicked. And take unto you the helmet of salvation and the sword of the\nSpirit, which is the word of God.\" And then he concludes his\nexhortation with words which most appositely bear upon the point\ntoward which all that I have been saying is directed--\"praying at all\ntimes with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching\ntherein with all instance and supplication for all the saints, and for\nme,\" that is, for the apostle himself, \"that speech may be given me,\nthat I may open my mouth with confidence to make known the mystery of\nthe gospel.\"\n\nHere, then, we are brought at length to the consideration of the duty\nof prayer for our living apostle and bishop of bishops, the Pope. I\nshall attempt to state distinctly what is to be the _object_ of our\nprayers for him, and secondly, what the _spirit_ in which we should\npray, and so I shall bring my remarks on this great subject to and\nend.\n\n1. In order to ascertain the exact _object_ of our prayers at this\ntime, we must ascertain what is the _occasion_ of them. You know, my\nbrethren, and I have already observed, that the Holy Father has been\nattacked in his temporal possessions again and again in these last\nyears, and we have all along been saying prayers daily in the mass in\nhis behalf. About six years ago the northern portion of his states\nthrew off his authority. Shortly after, a large foreign force,\nuninvited, as it would scene, by his people at-large--robbers I will\ncall them--(this is not a political sentiment, but a historical\nstatement, for I never heard any one, whatever his politics, who\ndefendant their act in itself, but only on the plea of its supreme\nexpedience, of some state necessity, or some theory of patriotism)--a\nforce of sacrilegious robbers--broke into provinces nearer to Rome by\na sudden movement, and, without any right except that of the stronger,\ngot possession of them, and keeps them to this day.   [Footnote 172]\n{589} Past outrages, such as these, are never to be forgotten; but\nstill they are not the occasion, nor do they give the matter, of our\npresent prayers. What that occasion, what that subject is, we seem to\nlearn from his lordship's letter to his clergy, in which our prayers\nare required. After speaking of the Pope's being \"stripped of part of\nhis dominions,\" and \"deprive of all the rest, with the exception of\nthe marshes and deserts that surround the Roman capital,\" he fastens\nour attention on the fact, that \"now at last is the Pope to be left\nstanding alone, and standing face to face with those unscrupulous\nadversaries, whose boast and whose vow to all the world is not to\nleave to him one single foot of Italian ground except beneath their\nsovereign sway.\" I understand, then, that the exact object of our\nprayers is, that the territory still is should not be violently taken\nhim, as have been as larger portions of his dominions of which I have\nalready spoken.\n\n  [Footnote 172: The following telegram in The Times of September\n  13th, 1860, containing Victor Emmanuel's formal justification for\n  his invasion and occupation of Umbria and the Marches in a time of\n  peace, is a document for after-times:\n\n  TURIN, Sept. 11, evening.\n\n  The king received to-day a deputation from the inhabitants of Umbria\n  and the Marches.\n\n  His majesty granted the protection which the deputation solicited,\n  and orders to have been given to the Sardinian troops to enter those\n  provinces by the following proclamation:\n\n  \"Soldiers! You are about to enter the Marches and Umbria, in order\n  to establish civil order in the towns now desolated by this rule,\n  and to give to the people a liberty of expressing their own wishes.\n  You will not fight against the armies of any of the powers, but will\n  free those unhappy Italian provinces from the bands of foreign\n  adventurers which infest them. You do not go to revenge injuries\n  done to me and Italy, but to prevent the popular hatred from\n  unloosing itself against the oppressors of the country.\n\n  \"By your example you will teach the people forgiveness of offenses,\n  and Christian tolerance to the man compared the love of the Italian\n  fatherland to Islamism.\n\n  \"At peace with all the great powers, and holding myself aloof from\n  any provocation, I intend to read Central Italy of one continual\n  cause of trouble and discord. I intend to respect the seat of the\n  chief of the church, to whom I am ever ready to give, in accordance\n  with the allied and friendly powers, all the guarantees of\n  independence and security which his misguided advisors have made\n  hope to obtain for him from the fanaticism of the wicked sect which\n  conspires against my authority and against the liberties of the\n  nation.\n\n  \"Soldiers! I am accused of ambition. Yes; i have one ambition, and\n  it is to re-establish the principles of moral order in Italy, and\n  preserve Europe from the continual dangers of revolution and war.\"\n\n  The next day The Times, in a leading article, thus commented on the\n  above:\n\n  \"Victor Emmanuel has in Garibaldi a most formidable competitor. . . .\n  [Piedmont] must therefore, at whatever cost or risk, make herself\n  once more mistress of the revolution. She must lead that she may not\n  be forced to follow. She must revolutionize the Papal States, in\n  order that she may put herself in a position to arrest dangerous\n  revolutionary movement against Venetia. . . . These motives are\n  amply sufficient to account for the decisive movement of Victor\n  Emmanuel. He lives in revolutionary times, when self-preservation\n  has superseded all other considerations, and it would be childish to\n  apply to his situation the maxims of international law which are\n  applicable to periods of tranquility.\n\n  \"These being the motives which have held Piedmont to draw the sword,\n  we have next to see what are the grounds on which she justifies the\n  step. These grounds are two--the extraordinary misrule and\n  oppression of the Papal government, and the presence of large bands\n  of foreign mercenaries, by which the country is oppressed and\n  terrorized. The object is said to be to give the people an\n  opportunity of expressing their own wishes and the re-establishment\n  of civil order. The king promises to respect the seat of the chief\n  of the church--Rome, we suppose, and it's immediate environs; but,\n  while holding out this assurance, the manifesto speaks of the Pope\n  and his advisers in terms of bitterness and acrimony unusual in the\n  present age, even in a declaration of war. He will teach the people\n  forgiveness of offenses, and Christian tolerance to the Pope and his\n  general. He denounces the misguided advisors of the pontiff, and the\n  fanaticism of the wicked sect which conspires against his authority\n  and the liberties of the nation. This is harsh language, and is not\n  inconsistently seconded by the advance into the States of the Church\n  of an army of 50,000 men.\"\n\n  It was the old fable of the Wolf and the Lamb.]\n\n [End footnote 172]\n\nThis too, I conceive, is what is meant by praying for the Holy See.\n\"The duty of every true child of Holy Church,\" says the bishop, \"is to\noffer continuous and humble prayer for the Father of Christendom, and\nfor the protection of the Holy See.\" By the Holy See we may understand\nRome, considered as the seat of pontifical government. We are to pray\nfor Rome, the see, or seat, or metropolis of St. Peter and his\nsuccessors. Further, we are to pray for Rome as the seat, not only of\nhis spiritual government, but of his temporal. We are to pray that he\nmay continue king of Rome; that his subjects may come to a better\nmind; that instead of threatening and assailing him, or being too\ncowardly to withstand those who do, they may defend and obey him;\nthat, instead of being the heartless tormentors of an old and\nvenerable man, they may pay a willing homage to the apostle of God;\nthat instead of needing to be kept down year after year by troops from\nafar, as has been the case for so long a time, they may, \"with a great\nheart and a willing mind,\" form themselves into the glorious bodyguard\nof a glorious master; that they may obliterate and expiate what is so\ngreat a scandal to the world, so great an indignity to themselves, so\ngreat a grief to their father and king, that foreigners are kinder to\nhim than his own flesh and blood; that now at least, though in the end\nof days, they may reverse the past, and, after the ingratitude of\ncenturies, may unlearn the pattern of that rebellious people, who\nbegan by rejecting their God and ended by crucifying their Redeemer.\n\n2. So much for the _object_ of our prayers; secondly, as to the\n_spirit_ in which we should pray. As we ever say in prayer, \"Thy will\nbe done,\" so {590} we must say now. We do not absolutely know God's\nwill in this matter; we know indeed it is his will that we should ask;\nwe are not absolutely sure that it is his will that he should grant.\nThe very fact of our praying shows that we are uncertain about the\nevent. We pray when we are uncertain, not when we are certain. If we\nwere quite sure what God intended to do, whether to continue the\ntemporal power of the Pope or to end it, we should not pray. It is\nquite true indeed that the event may _depend upon our prayer_, but by\nsuch prayer is meant perseverance in prayer and union of prayers; and\nwe never can be certain that this condition of numbers and of fervor\nhas been sufficiently secured. We shall indeed gain our prayer if we\npray enough; but, since it is ever uncertain what is enough, it is\never uncertain what will be the event. There are Eastern\nsuperstitions, in which it is taught that, by means of a certain\nnumber of religious acts, by sacrifices, prayers, penances, a man of\nnecessity extorts from God what he wishes to gain, so that he may rise\nto supernatural greatness even against the will of God. Far be from us\nsuch blasphemous thoughts! We pray to God, we address the Blessed\nVirgin and the holy apostles, and the other guardians of Rome, to\ndefend the holy city; but we know the event lies absolutely in the\nhands of the All wise, whose ways are not as our ways, whose thoughts\nare not as our thoughts, and, unless we had been furnished with a\nspecial revelation on the matter, to be simply confident or to predict\nwould be presumption. Such is Christian prayer; it implies hope and\nfear. We are not certain we shall gain our petition, we are not\ncertain we shall not gain it. Were we certain that we should not, we\nshould give ourselves to resignation, not to prayer; were we certain\nwe should, we should employ ourselves, not in prayer, but in praise\nand thanksgiving. While we pray, then, in behalf of the Pope's\ntemporal power, we contemplate both sides of the alternative his\nretaining it and his losing it; and we prepare ourselves both for\nthanksgiving and resignation as the event may B. I conclude by\nconsidering each of these issues of his present difficulty.\n\n(I.) First, as to the event of his retaining his temporal power. I\nthink this side of the alternative (humanly speaking) to be highly\nprobable. I should be very much surprised if in the event he did not\nkeep it. I think the Romans will not be able to do without him; it is\nonly a minority even now which is against him; the majority of his\nsubjects are not wicked, so much as cowardly and incapable. Even if\nthey renounced him now for awhile, they will change their minds and\nwish for him again. They will find out that he is their real\ngreatness. Their city is a place of ruins, except so far as it is a\nplace shrines. It is the tomb and charnel-house of pagan impiety,\nexcept so far as it is sanctified and quickened by the blood of\nmartyrs and the relics of saints. To inhabit it would be a penance,\nwere it not for the presence of religion. Babylon is gone, Memphis is\ngone, Persepolis is gone; Rome would go, if the Pope went. Its very\nlife is the light of the sanctuary. It never could be a suitable\ncapital of a modern kingdom without a sweeping away of all that makes\nit beautiful and venerable to the world at large. And then, when its\nnew rulers had made of it a trim and brilliant city, they would find\nthemselves on an healthy soil and a defenceless plain. But, in truth,\nthe tradition of ages and inveteracy of associations make such a vast\nchange in Rome impossible. All mankind are parties to the inviolable\nunion of the Pope and his city. His autonomy is a first principle in\nEuropean politics, whether among Catholics or Protestants; and where\ncan it be secured so well as in that city which has so long been the\nseat of its exercise? Moreover, the desolateness of Rome is as\nbefitting to a kingdom which is not of this world as it is {591}\nincompatible with a creation of modern political theories. It is the\nreligious centre of millions all over the earth, who care nothing for\nthe Romans who happen to live there, and much for the martyred\napostles who so long have lain buried there; and its claim to have an\nintegral place in the very idea of Catholicity is recognized not only\nby Catholics, but by the whole world.\n\nIt is cheering to begin our prayers with these signs of God's\nprovidence in our favor. He expressly encourages us to pray, for\nbefore we have begun our petition, he has begun to fulfil it. And at\nthe same time, by beginning the work of mercy without us, he seems to\nremind us of that usual course of his providence, namely, that he\nmeans to finish it with us. Let us fear to be the cause of a triumph\nbeing lost to the church, because we would not pray for it.\n\n(2.) And now, lastly, to take the other side of the alternative. Let\nus suppose that the Pope loses his temporal power, and returns to the\nconation of St. Sylvester, St. Julius, St. Innocent, and other great\nPopes of early times. Are we, therefore, to suppose that he and the\nchurch will come to naught? God forbid! To say that the church can\nfail, or the see of St. Peter can fail, is to deny the faithfulness of\nAlmighty God to his word. \"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I\nbuild my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.\"\nTo say that the church cannot live except in a particular way, is to\nmake it \"subject to elements of the earth.\" The church is not the\ncreature of times and places, of temporal politics or popular caprice.\nOur Lord maintains her by means of this world, but these means are\nnecessary to her only while he gives them; when he takes them away,\nthey are no longer necessary. He works by means, but he is not bound\nto means. He has a thousand ways of maintaining her; he can support\nher life, not by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of\nhis mouth. If he takes away one defence, he will give another instead.\nWe know nothing of the future: our duty is to direct our course\naccording to our day; not to give up of our own act the means which\nGod has given us to maintain his church withal, but not to lament over\ntheir loss, when he has taken them away. Temporal power has been the\nmeans of the church's independence for a very long period; but, as her\nbishops have lost it a long while, and are not the less bishops still,\nso would it be as regards her head, if he also lost his. The eternal\nGod is her refuge, and as he has delivered her out of so many perils\nhitherto, so will he deliver her still. The glorious chapters of her\npast history are but anticipations of other glorious chapters still to\ncome. See how it has been with her from the very beginning down to\nthis day. First, the heathen populations persecuted her children for\nthree centuries, but she did not come to an end. Then a flood of\nheresies was poured out upon her, but still she did not come to an\nend. Then the savage tribes of the north and east came down upon her\nand overran her territory, but she did not come to an end. Next,\ndarkness of mind, ignorance, torpor, stupidity, reckless corruption,\nfell upon the holy place, still she did not come to an end. Then the\ncraft and violence of her own strong and haughty children did their\nworst against her, but still she did not come to an end. Then came a\ntime when the riches of the world flowed in upon her, and the pride of\nlife, and the refinements and the luxuries of human reason; and lulled\nher rulers into an unfaithful security, till they thought their high\nposition in the world would never be lost to them, and almost fancied\nthat it was good to enjoy themselves here below; but still she did not\ncome to an end. And then came the so-called reformation, and the rise\nof Protestantism, and men said that the church had disappeared and\nthey could not find her place. Yet, now three centuries after that\neven, _has_, {592} my brethren, the Holy Church come to an end? has\nProtestantism weakened her powers, terrible enemy as it seemed to be\nwhen it arose? has Protestantism, that bitter, energetic enemy of the\nHoly See, harmed the Holy See? Why, there never has been a time, since\nthe first age of the church when there has been such a succession of\nholy Popes, as since the reformation. Protestantism had been a great\ninfliction on such as have succumbed to it; but it has even wrought\nbenefits for those whom it has failed to seduce. By the mercy of God\nit has been turned into a spiritual gain to the members of Holy\nChurch.\n\nTake again Italy, into which Protestantism has not entered, and\nEngland, of which it has gained possession. Now I know well that, when\nCatholics are good in Italy, they are very good; I would not deny that\nthey attain there to a height and a force of saintliness of which we\nseem to have no specimens here. This, however, is the case of souls\nwhom neither the presence nor the absence of religious enemies would\naffect for the better or the worse. Nor will I attempt the impossible\ntask of determining the amount of faith and obedience among Catholics\nrespectively in two countries so different from each other. But,\nlooking at Italian and English Catholics externally and in their\nlength and breadth, I may leave any Protestant to decide, in which of\nthe two there is at this moment a more demonstrative faith, a more\nimpressive religiousness, a more generous piety, a more steady\nadherence to the cause of the Holy Father. The English are multiplying\nreligious buildings, decorating churches, endowing monasteries,\neducating, preaching, and converting, and carrying off in the current\nof their enthusiasm numbers even of those who are external to the\nchurch; the Italian statesman, on the contrary, in all our bishop's\nwords, \"imprison and exile the bishops and clergy, leave the flocks\nwithout shepherds, confiscate the church's revenues, suppress the\nmonasteries and convents, incorporate ecclesiastics and religious in\nthe army, plunder the churches and monastic libraries, and exposed\nreligion herself, stripped in bleeding in every limb, the Catholic\nreligion in the person of her ministers, her sacraments, or most\ndevoted members, to be objects of profane and blasphemous ridiculed.\"\nIn so brave, intelligent, vigorous-minded a race as the Italians, and\nin the nineteenth century not the sixteenth, and in the absence of any\nformal protest of classes or places, the act of the rulers is the act\nof the people. At the end of three centuries Protestant England\ncontains more Catholics who are loyal and energetic in word and deed\nthen Catholic Italy. So harmless has been the violence of the\nreformation; it professed to eliminate from the church doctrinal\ncorruptions, and it has failed both in what it has done and in what it\nhas not done; it has bred infidels, to its confusion; and, to which\ndismay, it has succeeded in purifying and strengthening catholic\ncommunities.\n\nIt is with these thoughts then that, my brethern, with these feelings\nof solemn expectation, of joyful confidence, that we now come for our\nGod and pray him to have mercy on his chosen servant, his own vicar,\nin this hour of trial. We come to him, like the prophet Daniel, in\nhumiliation for our own sins and the sins of our kings, our princes,\nour fathers, and our people in all parts of the church; and therefore\nwe say the _Miserere_ and the Litany of the Saints, as in the time of\nfast. And we come before him in the right and glad spirit of soldiers\nwho know they are under the leading of an invincible king, and wait\nwith beating hearts to see what he is about to do; and therefore it is\nthat we adorn our sanctuary, bringing out our hangings and multiplying\nour lights, as on a day of festival. We know well we are on the\nwinning side, and that the prayers of the poor and the weak and\ndespised can do more, when offered in a true spirit, then all the\nwisdom and all the resources of the world. This seventh of October is\nthe very {593} anniversary of that day on which the prayers of St.\nPius, and the Holy Rosary said by thousands of the faithful at his\nbidding, broke forever the domination of the Turks in the great battle\nof Lepanto. God will give us what we ask, or he will give us something\nbetter. In this spirit let us proceed with the holy rites which we\nhave begun--in the presence of innumerable witnesses, of God the judge\nof all, of Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, of his mother Mary\nour immaculate protectress, of all the angels of holy church, of all\nthe blessed saints, of apostles and evangelists, martyrs and\nconfessors, holy preachers, holy recluses, holy virgins, of holy\ninnocents taken away before actual sin, and of all other holy souls\nwho have been purified by suffering, and have already reached their\nheavenly home.\n\n----------\n\nFrom Chambers's Journal.\n\n\nTHE SOURCE OF LABOR.\n\n\nScience has taught us that the processes going on around us are but\nchanges, not annihilations and creations. With the eye of knowledge we\nsee the candle slowly turning into invisible gases, nor doubt for an\ninstant that the matter of which the candle was composed is still\nexisting, ready to reappear in other forms. But this fact is true not\nonly of matter itself, but also of all the influences that work on\nmatter. We wind up the spring of a clock, and, for a whole week, the\nlabor thus stored up is slowly expended in keeping the clock going.\nOr, again, we spend five minutes of hard labor in raising the hammer\nof a pile-driver, which, in its fall, exerts all that accumulated\nlabor in a single instant. In these instances, we easily see that we\nstore up labor. Now, if we pat a dozen sovereigns in a purse, and none\nof them be lost, we can take a dozen sovereigns out again. So in\nlabor, if no labor be lost, as science asserts--for the inertia of\nmatter, its very deadness, so to speak, which renders it incapable of\nspontaneously producing work, also prevents its destroying work when\ninvolved in it--we should be able to obtain back without deduction\nall our invested labor when we please.\n\nImagine a mountain stream turning an overshot wheel. It thus falls\nfrom a higher to a lower level. A certain amount of labor would be\nrequired to raise the water from the lower level to the higher; just\nthis amount of labor the water gives out in its fall, and invests, as\nit were, in the wheel. If, however, when arrived at the lower level,\nthe water were to demand of the wheel to be pumped up again, the\nslightest trial would show that it would ask more than it could\nobtain, though not more than it had given. The wheel, if questioned as\nto the cause of its inability, must reply as others have done, that it\nhas shut up part of the labor in investments which it cannot realize.\nThe reason, as commonly stated, is, that friction has destroyed part\nof the labor. The labor is not, however, destroyed. Science has shown\nthat heat and labor are connected; labor may be turned into heat, and\nheat into labor. The labor absorbed by friction is but turned into\nheat. If, however, we try to extract labor from the heat thus diffused\nthrough the different parts of the water-wheel, and make it available,\nwe find ourselves quite at a loss. The heat gradually diffuses itself\nthrough surrounding bodies, and, so far as we {594} are concerned, the\nlabor is wasted, though it still exist, like Cleopatra's pearl\ndissolved in the cup of vinegar.\n\nIf no labor is lost, so neither is any created. The labor we exert is\nbut the expenditure of labor stored up in our frames, just as the\nlabor invested in the wound-up spring keeps the clock going. Whence,\nthen, does all this labor originally come? We see the waste--how is\ncompensation made? The answer is simple and easy to give. All the\nlabor done under the sun is really done by it. The light and heat\nwhich the sun supplies are turned into labor by the organizations\nwhich exist upon the earth. These organizations may be roughly divided\ninto two classes--the collectors and the expenders of the sun's labor.\nThe first merely collect the sun's labor, so as to make it available\nfor the other class; while, just as the steam-engine is the medium by\nwhich the steam gives motion, so this second class is the medium by\nwhich the sun's heat is turned into actual labor.\n\nStill, the sun does not work only through organized labor: his mere\nmechanical influence is very great. With the moon--the only second\npost he deigns as to fill--he produces the tides by his attraction on\nthe sea. But for the friction of the earth and the sea, the tides,\nonce set in motion, would rise and fall without any further effort;\nbut the work done in overcoming the friction is, though due to the sun\nand moon, not extracted from them, but by them from the earth. For it\nwould make a vast effort to cause the earth to cease rotating. All\nthis effort is, as it were, stored up in the revolving earth. as the\ntidal waters, then, rub along the bed of the sea, or the waters on\nwhich they rest and the adjacent coasts, this friction tends to make\nthe earth move faster or slower, according to the direction in which\nthe tidal flow is. The general effect is, however, that the friction\nof the tides makes the earth revolve more slowly; in other words, that\npart of the energy of rotation of the earth, so to speak, is consumed\nin rubbing against the title waters. All the work, therefore, that the\ntides do in undermining our cliffs and washing away our beaches, is\nextracted by the sea and moon from the work stored up in the rotation\nof the earth. The diminution of rotation, indeed, is so small as\nscarcely to be perceived by the most refined observation, but the\nreality of it is now generally recognized; and this process, too, will\napparently go on till the earth ceases to rotate on its axis, and\npresents one face constantly to the sun.\n\nThus we see that the destruction of the land by the sea, so\ninteresting in a geological point of view, is partly due to the sun's\naction. Not only is he the source of the light and the heat we enjoy,\nbut he aids in forming the vast sedimentary beds that form so large a\npart of the crust of the earth, mixing the ingredients of our fields\nand moulding our globe.\n\nBy heating the air, the sun produces winds, and some of the labor\ncosts expended is made use of by man in turning his windmills and\ncarrying his wares across the sea. But there is another expedient of\nthe sun's heat more immediately useful to man. By evaporating the sea\nand other bodies of water, he loads the air with moisture, which, then\nin contact with cold mountain-peaks or cold masses of air, loses its\nheat, and, being condensed, falls as rain or snow. Thus the rivers are\nreplenished, which for a long time supplied the greater part of the\nlabor employed in manufacturers, though the invention of the\nsteam-engine is fast reducing relatively the value of this supply of\nlabor.\n\nBut vast as the sun's power thus exerted is, and useful as it is to\nman, is surpassed in importance by his his labor exerted through\norganized beings. The above named agents have one defect; on the\nwhole, they are incapable of being stored up to any great degree; we\nmust employ them as nature gives them to us. Organized existence,\nhowever, possesses the power of storing up labor to a very high\ndegree. {595} The means it adopts are not mechanical, but chemical.\nThe formation of chemical compounds is attended with the giving out of\nheat, which, as we have said before, is equivalent to labor, and if of\nsufficient intensity, can by us be made available as labor, as in the\nsteam-engine. Now we take iron ore, consisting of iron in combination\nwith other substances. By means of great heat the iron is set free in\nthe smelting-furnace. The iron, then, in its change of form has, as it\nwere, taken in all this heat. If, now, we take this iron, and keeping\nit from the influence of the air, reduce it to a very fine powder, and\nthen suddenly expose it to the air, by the force of natural affinity\nit will absorb the oxygen of the air, and in so doing give out the\nheat before required to set it free from the oxygen; and if the iron\nbe in small enough portions, so that the process is sufficiently\nrapid, we may see the iron grow red hot with the heat thus disengaged.\n\nNow, plants and trees, by the aid of the solar light and heat, remove\nvarious substances, carbon especially, from what seem to be their more\nnatural combinations, and in other combinations store them up in their\nstructures. Take a young oak-tree with its first tender leaves; if\ndeprived of the sun's light and heat, its growth would be stayed, and\nits life die out. But with the aid of the sun's rays, it absorbs\ncarbon from the gases in the air, each particle of carbon absorbed\nbeing absorbed by the power of the sun, through the agency of the\nplant; and with each particle of carbon stored up is also, as it were,\nstored up the labor of the sun by which that particle was set free\nfrom its former fetters. The sap of the plant thus enriched returns in\nits course, and by some mysterious process is curdled into cells and\nhardened into would. But the work by which all this was accomplished\nlies hid in the wood, and not only is it there, but it is there in a\ngreatly condensed state. To form a little ring of wood round the tree,\nnot an eighth of an inch across it, took the sunshine of a long\nsummer, falling on the myriad leaves of the oak.\n\nLemuel Gulliver, at Laputa, was astonished by seeing a philosopher\naiming at extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Had he but rightly\nconsidered the thing he would have wondered at any one's troubling to\nmake a science of it. The thing has always been done. From Adam and\nEve in the garden of Eden eating sweet fruits, through the\nonion-eating builders of the pyramids, down to the flesh-eating\nmyriads of our land, this process has always been going on. The active\nlife of reasoning man, and his limitless powers of invention, need for\ntheir full development a vast supply of labor. By means of the\nvegetable kingdom, the sun's work is stored up in a number of organic\nsubstances. Man takes these into his system, and in the vessels and\nfibres of his body they resume their original combinations, and the\nlabor of the sun is given out as muscular action and animal heat. To\nallow a larger supply of labor for man's intellect to work with,\nProvidence created the herbivorous races. Some of these further\ncondense the work of the sun involved in plants, by taking these\nplants into their systems, and storing up the work in them in their\nflesh and fat, which, after some preparation, are fit to be received\ninto the frame of man, there, as the simpler vegetable substances, to\nsupply heat and labor. Others, extracting work from the vegetable\nkingdom, just as man does, and mostly from parts of the vegetable\nkingdom that are not suited to the organs of man, are valuable to man\nas sources of labor, since they have no power to invent modes of\nemploying this labor to their own advantage. Man might have been\ngifted with a vaster frame, and so with greater power of labor in\nhimself, but such a plan had been destitute of elasticity; and while\nthe savage would have basked in the sun in a more extended idleness,\nthe civilized man had still lacked means to execute his plans. {596}\nSo that good providence which formed man devised a further means for\nsupplying his wants. Instead of placing him at once on a new-formed\nplanet, it first let the sun spend its labor for countless ages upon\nour world. Age by age, much of this labor was stored up in vast\nvegetable growths. Accumulated in the abysses of the sea, or sunk to a\ngreat depth by the collapse of supporting strata, the formations of a\nlater age pressed and compacted this mass of organic matter. The beds\nthus formed were purified by water, and even by heat, and at last\nraised to within the reach of man by subterranean movements. From this\nreservoir of labor man now draws rapidly, driving away the frost of\ntoday with the sunshine of a million years ago, and thrashing this\nyear's harvest with the power that came to our earth before corn grew\nupon it.\n\nSuch are the processes by which the sun's power is collected and\nstored up by the vegetable kingdom in a form sufficiently condensed to\nbe available for working the machinery of the bodies of men and\nbeasts, and also to assist man in vaster expenditures of labor. It is\nmost interesting to trace such processes, and not only interesting,\nbut also instructive, for it shows us in what direction we are to look\nfor our sources of labor, and will at once expose many common\ndelusions. One hears, perhaps, that something will be found to\nsupplant steam. Galvanism may be named; yet galvanism is generated by\ncertain decompositions--of metal, for instance--and this metal had\nfirst to be prepared by the agency of coal, and in its decomposition\ncan give out no more labor than the coal before invested in it. It is\nas if one should buy a steam-engine to pump up water to keep his\nmill-wheel going. The source of all labor is the sun. We cannot\nimmediately make much use of his rays for the purposes of work; they\nare not intense enough; they must be condensed. The vegetable world\nalone at present seems capable of doing this; and its past results of\ncoal, peat, petroleum, etc., and present results of wood and food, are\nultimately all we have to look two.\n\nTo say that man will ever be dependent upon the vegetable world for\nall his work may be considered bold, but there is certainly great\nreason to believe it. The sun's labor being supplied in such a diluted\nform, each small quantity continually supplied must be packed in a\nvery small space. Now, man can only subject matter to influences in\nthe mass. The little particle of carbon that the plant frees each\ninstant is beyond his ken. The machinery he could make would not be\nfine enough; it would be like trying to tie an artery with the biggest\ncable on board the Great Eastern. Organized existence possesses\nmachinery fine enough to effect these small results, and to avail\nitself of these little installments of labor. At present, this\nmachinery is beyond our comprehension, and possibly will ever remain\nso. Nature prefers that her children should keep out of the kitchen,\nand not pry into her pots and pans, but eat in thankfulness the meal\nshe provides.\n\nSome interesting results follow from what has been stated above. One\nis, that we are consuming not only our present allowance of the sun's\nlabor, but also a great deal more, unless the formation of coal in our\nage equals its consumption, which is not probable. Mother earth will\ncertainly, so far as we can see, some day be bankrupt. Such a\nconsummation is pointed to, however, in other quarters. The sun's\nheat, unless miraculously replenished, must gradually be dissipated\nthrough space. There are reasons for thinking that the planets must\nultimately fall into the sun. These things, however, possess to us no\npractical physical interest. Such countless ages must elapse ere they\naffect man's material condition upon the earth that we hardly can\ngravely consider them as impending. The chief interest they excite is\nmoral. Like the man's hand that appeared to the revelling king, they\nwrite, \"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin\" (weighed, measured, limited,\ndoomed) on our material world, and dimly point to some power that\nstands, as it were, hidden from our view behind the screen of matter,\nthat shall make things new.\n\n--------------\n\n{597}\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nPOEM.\n\nBY E. HOWARD.\n\n\n\n  While wandering by the mountains\n  And musing by the streams,\n  I asked myself if ever thus\n  My life would pass in dreams.\n\n  I gathered the little pebbles\n  The waves threw on the sand:\n  The rippling waters seemed to say,\n  \"There is a better land!\"\n\n  And while thus my steps were straying,\n  Above, in azure far,\n  I saw a beacon's streaming light--\n  The glorious evening star!\n\n  My soul, enraptured, then exclaimed:\n  \"Hail, beauteous star of even!\n  Wilt thou, while speeding into dawn,\n  Bring me the will of heaven?\"\n\n  I watched it in its onward course,\n  Until its golden glow\n  Was lost behind the western clouds.\n  And left me wrapped in woe.\n\n  I struggled hard to free my soul\n  From brooding thoughts of care.\n  Till morning broke, when, with the star,\n  These words fell on the air:\n\n  \"No more let earthly passion move.\n  Nor wearied hopes bemoan,\n  A life that has a God to love,\n  A heaven to call its own!\"\n\n  The star had kindled hope\n  And raised my soul in prayer;\n  The clouds that rolled between\n  Foretold a life of care.\n\n  I bowed my head, and humbly knelt,\n  Submissive to his will.\n  Who, when the waves were troubled most,\n  Said, \"Peace!\" and all was still.\n\n--------\n\n{598}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nTHE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nA PROPOSAL:\nAND MORE THAN ONE.\n\n\nThe summons to London was on the business of cutting off the entail to\nthe estates as proposed at the beginning of the last chapter. Mr.\nGodfrey, whose love for Hester certainly approached to dotage, had\ndecided to gratify his darling's wishes; and to avoid future\nconfusion, had decided to allow her to come of age at eighteen, and to\nenter on the enjoyment of the estates he destined for her, subject to\nan annuity for himself. To give the matter a semblance of justice, he\nproposed to pension off the rest of the family in the same manner,\nthus settling their claims to the property during his life, as after\nhis death. What was wanting to this plan was Eugene's acceptance of a\npresent annuity in the stead of his inheritance at death.\n\nThe proposal made to him was by no means a liberal one, considering\nthe wealth of the family and the expectations in which he had been\nreared.\n\n\"Three thousand pounds a year for life, now, instead of fifteen\nthousand in reversion to descend to my posterity; the proposal is\npreposterous,\" said Eugene, \"especially as I was always given to\nunderstand that I might look to receive a sum equal to that on my\ncoming of age, which I shall do in three weeks' time.\"\n\n\"That promise was conditional, young man,\" said Mr. Godfrey, somewhat\nsternly; \"conditional at least by implication; could I have foreseen\nthat you would have disgraced my family, it would not have been made.\"\n\n\"Disgraced!\" ejaculated Eugene.\n\n\"Brother,\" interposed Hester, anxious to avoid any expression of\nexcited feeling, \"you have renounced the position my father ambitioned\nfor you; you cannot hold office under government; you cannot become a\nmember of Parliament; you cannot act as a magistrate;  [Footnote 173]\nor take any useful part in the work of society. Surely three thousand\npounds a year will supply all your personal wants.\"\n\n  [Footnote 173: At the time of which we write the civil disabilities\n  for all dissenters from the English Establishment, and for all\n  Catholics, were still in force in England.]\n\n\"You have assumed a great deal, my good sister; a great deal more than\nyou can prove, I think. If I understand this matter rightly, it these\nyourself who are be to benefited by this arrangement. You want to\nexperimentalize, to found a new Utopia; surely I might do that at\nleast as well as a woman.\"\n\n\"No, for you believe not in the principle. Money in your hands, just\nnow, would sink; you might build churches or convents, but forward the\nprogression of the race you would not. A bare-footed Carmelite ranks\nhigher in your estimation that a man raised by talent and industry to\na position surrounded by means of enjoyment. Now, my father objects\nconscientiously, and his immediate ancestors would also object to\nappropriate the both of his property to a phantasm. He offers you a\nmaintenance superior to the property your theory upholds. Be\nconsistent; try your own principle of renunciation, of poverty, if you\nso like to term an annuity of three thousand a year. The allotment\nwhich will be termed mine is in my eyes, and in in my father's, an\ninvestment for the good of society, of which I am but a directress.\nGive to the world that which the world claims, {599} take the portion\nyou have chosen in which the world has no share--spirituality.\nConscientiously my father has strained a point to offer you so much,\nfor he looks upon the promotion of your views as injurious to the\nhuman race.\"\n\nThere was a long pause, a long silence; then Eugene said, \"I must take\ntime to consider; my signature would not be of any avail until I am of\nage, and it wants three weeks to that time. In a month's time I will\ngive you an answer.\"\n\nEugene, after a vain attempt to see his mother, returned to the town\nin which Euphrasie resided. He was now determined to have the\ninterview he had so long vainly sought for. On that interview greatly\ndepended his future determination.\n\n\n\nHe did not call on her at her mother's abode. He waylaid her as she\nwas returning home from giving her lessons; with a few earnest words\ninduced her to permit him to lead her into a secluded grove where\noften he had mused on her perfections, and there, at length, he took\ncourage, and poured forth, as much by gesture as by words, his long\npent-up tale of love, so hidden out of reverence, a reverence which\nnow gave way to the anxiety of placing her in a more suitable position\nthan the one she at present occupied, although still falling short of\nthat which she was calculated to adorn.\n\nEuphrasie listened with profound attention; certainly not coldly. She\nfully appreciated the young man's devotion, she fully believed his\ntale. Even tears filled her eyes as he proceeded; but she was long in\nanswering.\n\n\"May I take this silence for consent, dear Euphrasie?\" said Eugene.\n\nEuphrasie shook her head. \"No, indeed, you may not, my kind friend,\"\nshe said. \"I am silent because I know not how to express my sense of\nyour worth, of your kindness, of your disinterestedness, in fitting\nterms, and accompany my words with a refusal. What you propose can\nnever be. Another vocation is mine. Yet believe me that my gratitude,\nmy friendship, my esteem, are, and ever must remain, your own. I thank\nyou earnestly for the long forbearing and silent sympathy which I have\never received from you.\"\n\n\"Your tones are solemn, Euphrasie. You are not one to act a part, and\nsay no when you mean yes. You have seen this proposal possible, you\nhave weighed it; is it indiscreet to ask in confidence your reasons?\"\n\n\"Is not all explained by the words, another vocation is mine? May I\nnot recall to your memory the explanation I once gave at Durimond\nCastle?\"\n\n\"But, Euphrasie, in this country, where Catholics are barely\ntolerated, you can scarcely be a nun.\"\n\n\"I think, indeed, that at present there seems little likelihood that I\nshall be what the world calls a nun; but I am none the less certain\nthat I am called to serve God by following the three evangelical\ncounsels.\"\n\n\"But as a married woman, Euphrasie, surely you could serve God also.\nMarriage in the Catholic Church is exalted to the dignity of a\nsacrament, and I would respect your self-imposed duties not only of\ndevotion but of charity also. I would share the cares you now bestow\non my aunt's comfort, and--\"\n\n\"I believe it, Eugene, but it cannot be. I dare not resist the voice\nwhich forbids me to bind myself by human ties. We are Catholics,\nEugene; we know that a vocation is something real; that not to respond\nto it is to endanger salvation, is to risk the abstraction of that\ngrace which is of all treasures the most valuable.\"\n\nEugene replied not. There was a long pause. Euphrasie was agitated\nbeyond her wont, and was glad to avail herself of a seat fixed beneath\nthe shade of a tree. Eugene rested his forehead against the tree.\nSuddenly he seized her hand and pressed it to his lips, but he spoke\nnot. The warm tears were pouring down his {600} cheeks. Oh! it is\nagonizing to behold a strong man weep. No woman at least can see it\nunmoved; still less Euphrasie, who beneath an impassive exterior bore\na feeling, tender heart. Scarcely less affected than himself she took\nhis hand in both of hers, and faltered out: \"Eugene, my friend, my\nbrother, the day will come when you will rejoice at this hour's\ndecision, and make it the subject of your earnest thanksgiving. No\nCatholic can have witnessed your noble struggle for truth, your\ndisinterestedness, your magnanimity, without feeling that for you,\ntoo, God has a noble mission in store. As yet you are scarcely\nconscious of what you would lose were you to fetter yourself by human\nties. Your studies as yet have occupied the intellect somewhat\nexclusively. Controversy was necessary while you were assuring\nyourself of the grounds of faith, of the reasonableness of the\ncreature's trusting to the solemn promise of the Creator, of the\nunerring infallibility of the church founded by Christ, and sustained\nby his holy spirit. Your learned research, conducted in simplicity of\nspirit, has led you to the temple of truth. You have entered, but as\nyet its most wondrous teachings are to be unfolded, to be\ncontemplated, to be realized in practice. Your soul is too noble to\ncontent itself with the things of earth; your heart needs pure,\nexalted realities to love, and those it will find only here.\" (She\ntook from her bosom a small ivory crucifix, which she placed in his\nhand as she spoke). \"Everlasting love speaks to you from this cross,\nmy beloved friend. Leave other studies for awhile to contemplate its\nlessons in all its bearings, and a divine rapture will fill your\ninmost soul; you will live in him only who is life and light and love,\nand your heart will need to pour itself out for him, through him, in\nhim. Suffering for Christ will become blissful, and your whole being\nwill shape itself to one aim, his will, whom to serve is to find the\ntruest happiness on earth, as it is also the only happiness in heaven!\nOh! dared I speak to you, Eugene, of what it is to love God, and to\nfeel his love for us within our souls, you would not need consolation\nthen. But God himself will speak to you and instruct you in his\nwondrous love, and you will be happy beyond your utmost imagination.\"\n\nEuphrasie spoke as one inspired; and it was so rarely that she made\nany speech of considerable length, that the effect was greatly\nincreased. Again there was a long pause, Eugene gazed on the crucifix,\npressed it to his lips, then hit it in his bosom. At length he said:\n\"Euphrasie, I can but submit. I will do my best to follow the\nbeautiful course you have described for me. But ere I leave you, since\nsince leave you I must, may I ask one favor?\"\n\nEuphrasie signified assent.\n\n\"It is this, then: You have called me friend brother. May I hope,\nthen, for a brother's privilege, a friends affection? I will never\nagain asked for more, if you will promise me these. But let your\nbrother be of use to you, dear sister, confide to your friend your\nplans, and give him the happiness of helping them forward. Let there\nbe no estrangement between us, Euphrasie.\"\n\n\"There shall be none, I promise you, save such as prudence demands.\nYour nobleness, your disinterestedness, claim my admiration, and I\npromise you, my brother, to inform you when i need your proferred aid.\nBut you must forgive me if, for a while at least, I converse with you\nonly through the medium of our mutual friend. Let our excited feelings\nhave time to subside into a more reasonable frame ere we meet again,\nEugene. And now may the holy Angels have you in their keeping. Adieu.\"\n\nShe was gone ere Eugene could reply. Hid among the foliage, he had not\nthe courage to follow her, and in spite of his resolves the remained\ndesolate.\n\nWhat now were to him the chances of heirship, the thoughts of\ntransmitting his name to a long posterity? {601} At the end of the\nmonth Eugene signed the deed which deprived him for all time of a fair\nestate. An additional motive for his doing this was found in the\nreflection that he had no right to be depriving his mother of her\nprivate property. He returned the deed of gift to her as soon as he\nreceived the proposed annuity. There were no bells rung, according to\nthe custom from immemorial ages, when the heir of the Godfrey family\ncame of age; there was no feasting, no rejoicing among the tenantry.\nAll was silence and gloom, it was as if the very air were hung with a\nfuneral pall. Mrs. Godfrey seemed stricken to the heart. But when the\ntransactions became known which disinherited Eugene and appropriated\nan unfair proportion of the estate to the youngest sister, all the\nfamily were roused. Vexed as they were at Eugene's religious\ndemonstrations they were not prepared to give Hester so exclusive a\npreference. Mrs. Godfrey, especially, felt the transaction as most\nbitterly unjust. She yearned for Eugene's presence, and it was not\npermitted her. Scarcely could she tolerate the sight of Hester in the\nhouse. Her melancholy increased. Alas! poor mother!\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nHester was now made rich. Her doting father settled on her not only\nthe Yorkshire farms, but also other revenues, that she might be\nprovided with capital to carry into execution her philanthropic plans.\nHester was endowed with many brilliant qualities. She was, as it were,\n\"born to reign.\" She perfectly understood her own dignity, perfectly\nrealized her own power of intellect, was well aware that both her\nfather and his man of business were her tools, and she managed\naccordingly with intuitive prudence, not permitting Mr. Godfrey to\nperceive how entirely he obeyed her bidding. Under these circumstances\nshe might fairly hope for success. Large iron factories on the one\nhand, and large cotton factories on the other, were erected on a scale\ncalculated to employ many hundred hands, and to bring into extensive\noperation the new steam-power that then absorbed scientific attention.\nMr. Godfrey was delighted, for it brought him into frequent contact\nwith the most scientific men of the day. The operations necessarily\nattracted public attention, and Mr. Godfrey as director of the\nscientific operations, with Hester as deviser of a new scheme for\nrendering the \"populations\" happy and progressive, were continually\nbesieged by a concourse of visitors, eager to understand the new\n\"idea.\"\n\nHester's arrangements were on a magnificent scale. She started on the\nprinciple of mutual co-operation united to division of labor. Instead\nof separate dwellings for her employ\u00e9s, she had large boarding-houses\nbuilt. These were provided with halls, refectories, baths,\nlecture-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, and, lastly, schools, which\nin those days were rare for the laboring population. For since the\nsuppression of the monasteries and convents, the schools in which the\ngood religious had taught the children of England to love God and\ntheir neighbor had been shut up, education had fallen to a fearfully\nlow standard in this sect-divided kingdom.\n\nHester was a severe disciplinarian, with little compassion for the\nweakness of human nature. She intended her people should become\nintellectual; and when she shortened the hours of labor, expressly to\ngive time to cultivate the mind, when she hired lecturers and bought\nbooks, she felt herself aggrieved that these were not responded to.\nHer people were well fed at a common table; they were well sheltered\nand accommodated; why should they not be intellectualized? How\ndiscouraged she felt when she found she was speaking in an unknown\ntongue to {602} the adults among her operatives. They hardly\nconsidered short hours a benefit when they were compelled to sit and\nlisten to subjects in which they took no interest. \"A glass of ale\nand, a pipe of 'backy would do a poor body far more good than all this\npreaching, and 'tain't to save our souls either.\" There were other\ndifficulties in this commonwealth; the young men and women were on\ndifferent sides of the building, and certain rules were laid down to\nsecure good conduct, but these rules were very difficult to enforce,\nand the dismissals for disorder became frequent. The operatives began\nto call the place a jail. Hester would not yield, but she turned more\nstrenuously to the children. Here she had better success, and she\nspent days and weeks in providing for the better education of these\nlittle ones. \"The elder ones are already formed,\" she argued, \"but we\nwill give these young ones better tastes, better habits, and they will\nbecome intelligent and happy.\"\n\nM. de Villeneuve was a frequent visitor at these institutions, for the\ncharacter of Hester interested him greatly, and he was constantly\nendeavoring to draw her attention to the motives that actuated her\npeople, and to the probabilities of their producing lasting results.\n\n\"Tell me,\" said he, \"how is a knowledge of the material law to produce\nhappiness? We know that a steel knife cuts flesh; will that knowledge\nreconcile one to the loss of his arm when the sturgeon has cut it off\nin the most masterly manner?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hester, \"but perhaps a knowledge of the material law might\nhave prevented the necessity of cutting off the arm at all. Much of\ndisease is caused by ignorance. To banish pain needs a wide\nacquaintance with the whole range of laws which govern our being. To\nknow and practise one law and neglect another would but result in\npain.\"\n\n\"You will require a life of scientific research. I see; and after all,\nas we all begin with ignorance and helplessness, we must suffer some\npain during our apprenticeship. For instance, you cannot teach an\ninfant to cut its teeth painlessly.\"\n\n\"But because we cannot do everything, shall we do nothing?\"\n\n\"That were a sweeping conclusion; it is not necessary to go so far as\nthat. But might it not be wise to examine the principle of actions\nwhen we attempt to regulate for others on a new system? Your exterior\narrangements our splendid; your laws rigidly moral; but will you\nensure their being kept? What motive do you propose?\"\n\n\"I have expelled those who, after suitable remonstrance, would not\nconform,\" said Hester.\n\n\"A very effective proceeding, my kind hostess, but it is just possible\nthat eventually such a practice might create a desert. The motive\npower of perseverance comes from within. The desire must be in the\nheart, the understanding must approve, the will must accept, the deed\nmust co-operate, and until you have secured this motive power, your\narrangements rest on an insecure basis. You cannot force men to choose\ngood; you cannot make them studious by providing a library, or moral\nby denouncing the penalties of immorality. You must subdue passions,\nexcite tastes. Can mere knowledge of physics do this?\"\n\n\"There is other knowledge besides mere physics--classical knowledge.\"\n\n\"And will classical knowledge do it? Will reading Virgil and Horace\ntend to evolve moral power?\"\n\n\"Why not? Knowledge is power!\"\n\n\"Then why are so many of the educated sickly, unhappy and immoral?\"\n\n\"Because they do not act upon their knowledge; they are idle and\ndissipated and worthless. The frivolities of the young men 'de bon\nton' were always disgusting to me. But then they are not really\neducated; they may have been to school, but they have learned nothing\nuseful, nothing of the material world.\"\n\n{603}\n\n\"But\" said M. de Villeneuve, \"how does the knowledge of the material\nworld affect man's existence as a moral agent? The laws which regulate\nmateriality leave and impress of invariability upon them--a want of\npower to change themselves, at any rate. They are obedient to a will\nto which they appear insentient. This is true not only of inert,\nstolid matter, not only of vegetable life, but of animals, even of\nthose wondrous developments of instinct which approach so near to\nreason that they are scarcely distinguishable from it. The highest\nmere animals are creatures of circumstance--circumstance ruled,\nindeed, by appetite and instinct, but not by recognition of a higher\nlaw, not by any consciousness of affinity to a higher state of\nexistence. Therefore, you can tame them by an appeal to their\nappetites; you can rule them by providing for their animal natures;\nyou can subdue them if you bring to bear on them a force stronger than\ntheir own. But, surely, we may assume that man is more than a mere\nanimal. He has inborn affinities to higher natures which force cannot\nsubdue, and which rise superior to animal temptations. These\naffinities may be starved out, it is true, by not providing them with\ntheir own fitting nutriment, which is not the food of the body. They\nmay be crushed or restrained in their development by overloading the\nsoul with extraneous objects; but in proportion as these powers are\nstarved out or crushed out, the man sinks, the animal rises. And the\n_animal_ man is, I assure you, a very ferocious kind of beast, and\nnonetheless so for having intelligence developed; rather is he\ndangerous in proportion.\"\n\n\"You would not, then, developed intelligence?\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I think it the highest and holiest task in which a\nhuman being can be employed. I rejoice in all the plans that tend to\nraise the race; I applaud your benevolence in forming these\nestablishments, although I feel that you are preparing for yourself a\ndisappointment.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"Because you have begun on the wrong principle. It is good that you\nhave begun at all to see the principle acknowledged that man is man,\nand not a mere machine to win riches for the few; that principle\nemanated from selfishness in the beginning, but selfishness will not\nroot out selfishness. I admire your idea principally because it proves\nyour own zeal, your own earnestness, your own capability of\nsacrificing yourself for others; even the disappointment impending\nwill be fraught with good if it do not discourage you from seeking the\ntrue principle, which I hope it will not do. Faith in man is easily\noverset, because man can fall of himself, but of himself he cannot\nrise.\"\n\n\"You believe, then, as I do, that a new era is dawning on mankind, and\nthat the laborer must be protected and enlightened?\" said Hester.\n\n\"I do!\" said M. de Villeneuve.\n\n\"Yet you do not believe that my schools and arrangements will make him\nhappier?\"\n\n\"Will you forgive me if I say I do not?\"\n\n\"You are an enigma; I cannot make you out,\" said Hester.\n\n\"How did man fall into the degraded state in which the masses are?\"\nsaid M. de Villeneuve. \"We have proof of intelligence enough in the\nfounders of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Thebes, and of Egypt.\"\n\n\"Some men must have known something, I think,\" said Hester, \"but they\nseem to have kept their knowledge very carefully to themselves, and\nmade slaves of those to whom they did not impart it. Knowledge was\nvery much an affair of class or rank. The populace was brutish, if\naccounts are true, and kept in order by sheer force.\"\n\n\"And when that force pressed too hardly, they fled and became the\nfounders of the savage life. Such is the probable course. And what\npower, think you, elevated the mass, even to the extent in which we\nsee them now? for, debased as they may be, they are {604} far above\nthe races that did the same work in ancient times; nay, the laborers\nof Europe are far above the slaves of Asia. What has caused the\ndifference?\"\n\n\"The march of intellect,\" said Hester proudly.\n\n\"Supposing that granted for the sake of the argument, what caused 'the\nmarch of intellect?' what gave the impetus to raise the 'toiler for\nbread' in the scale of humanity?\"\n\nHester could not answer. The comte continued:\n\n\"I believe it to be that very influence which 'the age' is seeking so\nearnestly to destroy. Man's selfishness oppressed his fellows,\noverpowered his faculties, laid them to sleep so effectually that the\nrich and great were acknowledged by the crowd to be of another order,\nof another scale of being, to be judged of by another standard, to be\nweighed by another measure. The gospel came: to the poor it was\npreached _par excellence_; it was a call of the Father to his\ndowntrodden children, an appeal to their hearts, their affections, a\nloving invitation to them to come, as children of the most High God,\nto claim their inheritance of lofty faculty, of high intuitions, of\nexalted aspiration. The understanding enlightened through the heart\nchanged by slow degree's the face of nations; the slave disappeared\nfrom the christianized lands, the leaven worked from the interior to\nthe exterior, life became protected, the rich and the poor, equal\nbefore God, became equal before the law also; civilization of heart\nproduced civilization of manners among the masses. The greater\ninvolved the lesser. Men's intellects were awakened, roused to action,\nand then followed the old story over again; they forget how they had\nobtained these gifts, and from whom, and they are applying them to\nselfish purposes, to animal gratification. But liberty is the gift of\nthe gospel, liberty emanating from emancipation of the understanding\nby means of the soul. If we would preserve the gift, we must observe\nthe conditions.\"\n\n\"Do you really think 'liberty' a good?\" asked Hester.\n\n\"True liberty is one of the greatest of blessings,\" said the comte;\n\"but you will find it difficult to give 'true liberty' on earthly\ngrounds alone, it would so easily degenerate into license. Now the\nrepression of license by force is a restraint to which men unwillingly\nsubmit, and easily engenders tyranny, so that, unless license is\nrestrained by the spiritual sense, liberty is in continual jeopardy;\nit is difficult to believe it can be lasting.\"\n\n\"And you think the spiritual sense necessary to liberty?\"\n\n\"I do; how else can lawlessness be restrained without force?\"\n\n\"Surely intellectual enlightenment ought to suffice. Common-sense even\ntells us that some restraint is necessary, that the moral law must be\nobserved.\"\n\n\"It may tell us so, but does it give the power to execute its\nbidding?\"\n\n\"It should do so.\"\n\n\"It should, and would, if man's being were in harmony. All laws,\nphysical, mental, and spiritual teach in different forms the same\ntruth; the material is a manifestation of the spiritual, of which the\nintellect demonstrates the beauty and the necessity; but power to\ndevelop the spiritual facility does not reside either in the intellect\nor in matter, it belongs to a higher source, and without the will is\npowerless. Therefore is it, I prophesy disappointment for you; for I\nsee no provision made to destroy selfishness, and promote a higher\nlife.\"\n\n\"There is none needed,\" interposed Mr. Godfrey somewhat abruptly; \"we\nteach what we know. As for mysticism and matters we guess at but do\nnot know, we leave the people free. If they need religion let them\nchoose one, or make one for themselves.\"\n\nThe asperity with which this was said closed the conversation for that\ntime.\n\n{605}\n\nHester continued her plans, though less firm than before in the\nconviction that the spread of intelligence would annihilate evil. She\nwatched the results with an anxiety intent on discovering the exact\ntruth. She tried more and more to enforce morality. She studied the\ninfluences by which children are won to good behavior. She thought\nlove was the governing principle of the little folks, and that her\nindulgence would excite love. Rewards were profusely given, and a\nsystem of excitement acted upon. This produced certain effects in\ncalling forth intelligence, but the children became selfish and fond\nof ease and dissipation in a manner she had not looked for.\n\nWith her young people she had scarcely better success. There was no\nreligious restraint, and their morals soon betokened that some\nrestraint was called for. Then, again, Mr. Godfrey's opinions were\npretty well known, and itinerant lecturers held forth on the\nunreasonableness of the marriage tie, on the necessity of easy\ndivorce, and other topics of like nature that placed Hester in great\nperplexity. It was not a subject in which she as a woman could\nproperly interfere, and her father shrugged his shoulders, and passed\nthem by with the remark, \"These are not matters that can be interfered\nwith, they are altogether conventional.\"\n\nWhat could Hester do? She was in great perplexity.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE TRIALS OF LADY CONWAY.\n\nMeantime we must return to Lady Conway. Time passed on and she became\nthe mother of a little girl, and after another interval of a little\nboy also. At this latter event Sir Philip's joy was great. The bells\nrang, bonfires blazed, every festive demonstration was called into\nplay to welcome the heir to the estate. All the father's affection\nseemed showered upon him. The misunderstanding between himself and his\nlady had never been thoroughly put to rights, for Alfred still\ncontinued to keep awake in Sir Philip's mind the suspicions he had\naroused. Had Annie been of a meek and gentle temper, she might very\nsoon have convinced her husband how far she was as yet removed from\nreligion of any kind, although conscious of secret influences creeping\nover her. But Annie thought herself aggrieved, and disdained\nconciliatory measures; and by degrees, under the insidious influence\nto which he was exposed, Sir Philip began to assume a high tone of\nmarital authority which gave his wife continual provocation and\nrendered her situation almost unbearable. Daily he assumed more and\nmore the reins of domestic government, until at last it could scarcely\nbe said that the ordinary jurisdiction which a woman exercises over\nher household belonged to Annie. She felt this keenly at first, but\nthe birth of her little girl came somewhat to reconcile her. She spent\nmuch time in the nursery, and recreated herself with books. She tried\nnot to notice the arbitrary manner and haughty bearing of her husband,\nfor, high-spirited as she was, she thought it undignified to live in a\nperpetual jangle. So, gradually, the married couple learned to live in\ndifferent ideal worlds, though they continued under one roof and to\nsociety appeared as usual. But this did not suit Alfred Brookbank. His\nhatred went deeper than this, and he set himself seriously about\nattempting to destroy what little was left of domestic comfort. The\nbirth of the young heir soon furnished him with grounds. None were\nmore warm than he in offering his congratulations, and in making\ncontinual inquiries after the well-being of this young scion of an\nancient race. Indeed, the interest he seemed to take in all that\naffected Sir Philip's happiness was extreme. One would have said that\nhe lived but for the pleasure of serving him. Sir Philip, on the other\nhand, became daily more wrapt up in this specious man, and daily\ncongratulated himself on having secured so invaluable a servant.\n\n{606}\n\n\"Sir Philip,\" said Alfred one day, after meeting the infant in its\nnurse's arms during a business walk over the grounds, \"that is a\nsplendid boy! I need not ask a man of your wisdom if you have made\nprovision that he should be brought up a staunch and loyal upholder of\nthe Protestant interest.\"\n\n\"Time enough yet, my worthy friend,\" responded the baronet, \"the child\nis not six months old.\"\n\n\"But before six months more, Sir Philip, he will begin to receive\nimpressions, and early impressions are of immense importance. You\nremember, doubtless, that when the treaty of marriage was on foot\nbetween the ill-fated Charles I. and Henrietta of France, the question\nwas mooted respecting the education of the children, and it was\nfinally settled that for the first seven years they should remain\nunder the mother's influence, and afterward be brought up Protestant.\nThey result was that, in the long run, the early impressions\nprevailed. Charles II. certainly received the Romish sacrament on his\ndeath-bed, and his brother James sacrificed his crown to his papistry.\nI imagine that the first impressions are almost indelible, and we\nnever know when first impressions are made.\"\n\n\"But all my people are Protestants,\" said Sir Philip.\n\n\"And has Lady Conway renounced her predilection for the papists?\"\nasked Alfred. Sir Phillip's brow lowered.\n\n\"Forgive me if I go too far,\" continued Alfred deprecatingly. \"The\ninroads made by these people who came to seek English hospitality on\nbeing driven from their own homes, are too alarming. Awhile ago it\nwould have been an insult to suspect a well-bred person of such folly;\nbut when we see such talented young men as Eugene Godfrey led away, it\nputs us on our guard against future encroachments. I for one should be\nsorry to see the heir apparent of Sir Philip Conway an upholder of\nbigotry, or in image worshiper.\"\n\n\"I would see them in his grave first,\" thundered out the baronet. \"But\nthere is no fear; at least I see no immediate cause of apprehension.\nBut the matter shall be look to. My son shall be watched over, depend\nupon it\".\n\nSir Philip's mother was still living, and with her a sister of his,\nand old maid, who was a little too much of the puritanical school to\nsuit her brother's taste. But now he thought these ladies might assist\nhis views. He paid them a visit, and in strict confidence laid his\ndifficulty before them. He was not satisfied, he said of Lady Conway's\nopinions. She went to the English Church occasionally, but he did not\nconsider her a member of it at heart. He wanted his children to be\ninterviewed from the first with strict Protestant ideas. The little\ngirl was now two years old, and though the little boy was but a few\nmonths old, there was no telling how soon impressions might be made,\nso he intended to have a nursery governess of the right sort at once.\nThis the ladies undertook to look out for, and when found to accompany\nthe treasure themselves to the household. Annie's annoyance was\nexcessive. Neither the dowager Lady Conway nor her daughter was\nintellectual or high-minded, and now that they came to take the\nmanagement of the nursery out of her hands, and place a stranger there\nwhose office was to watch herself in her intercourse with her own\nchildren, their presence became unendurable. Mrs. Bedford, the new\ngoverness, was in herself a quiet, unobtrusive person, faithful to her\nduties, and of gentle manners; but she had been selected on account of\nher unmitigated horror of popery, and it had been whispered to her\nthat Lady Conway was not a little tainted with its delusion, and this\nmade her more constrained in manner and less deferential than she\nwould otherwise have been.\n\n{607}\n\nIt was in vain that any pleaded that she was quite capable of\ndirecting her own nursery, that this new inmate was equally\nunnecessary as unwelcome to her. Sir Philip was immovable; and to\nprove how intent he was on having his own way, he dismissed the nurse,\nwho had attended both children most skillfully, merely because she had\nnot shown herself sufficiently respectful to the new-comer. The\nchildren cried after their old friend, and the little girl clung to\nher dress, to beg her not to leave her. It was useless. No one is more\nobstinate than a fool in power. That wife and children were unhappy\nwas nothing to Sir Philip now. His will was law, and to his rule of\niron all must submit.\n\nSome months after this they were sitting at table when the letters\nwere brought in. Among them came one directed to Annie. Sir Philip\nopened it (it was now his custom to open his wife's letters), read it,\nand handed it to her, with the words:\n\n\"Dear me, I am very sorry, I suppose you must go immediately.\" The\nletter was from Hester. It stated that Mrs. Godfrey (who had been for\nyears out of health) had latterly become much worse, that she was\nconstantly asking for any, and the physicians said she must be humored\nin every wish, that her reason, if not her life, depended on it. Annie\nwas therefore requested to come without delay.\n\n\"How soon can I have the carriage,\" inquired any of her liege Lord.\n\n\"As soon as you can get ready, of course,\" answered Sir Philip.\n\n\"And the children?\" faltered Annie.\n\n\"Mrs. Bedford will take care of the children, and I shall be at home;\nmake yourself easy about them.\"\n\nBut Annie would have liked to take the children with her; they would\ninterest her mother at times, and in that large mansion could not be\nin the way; but her heart seemed crushed, she dared not express her\nthought, and she departed without remonstrance.\n\nShe found her mother even more depressed then she anticipated. Mrs.\nGodfrey had ever been tenderly attached to her children. Their\nhappiness had been her fondest care, and a melancholy settled upon her\nas she found her hopes disappointed. The haughty Adelaide seemed quite\nchanged from the time when she was a joyous girl at home. Annie,\nthough still affectionate to herself, seemed pining away under some\nsecret unhappiness. But the darling of her heart--her son, whom she\nloved with the whole force of her character, in whom were united alike\njoy and pride--why was he banished from her sight? That Mrs. Godfrey\nwas sorry for her son's Catholicity there was no doubt; certainly she\nwas mortified at this unexpected result of her fine intellectual\ntraining; but the love she bore this her only son far overpowered both\nsorrow and vexation, and she bitterly felt his prolonged absence, and\nhad often endeavored to shake Mr. Godfrey's determination in this\nregard. Some little passages had even occurred between herself and her\nhusband on the subject. \"She could not understand,\" she said, \"why a\nperson should be persecuted for his religion. When Mr. Godfrey told\nhis children to think for themselves, did he mean that they were to\nthink as he did, on pain of expulsion? Was not Eugene good, dutiful,\nnoble, and generous? Why was he treated like a criminal? Had he been a\n_rou\u00e9_, like so many young men of his standing, it would have been\ncalled 'sowing his wild oats,' and every allowance would have been\nmade for him. Why could they not treat this vagary as intellectual\nwild oats, and give him time to recover?\" Mr. Godfrey tried to pacify\nher, but in vain; illness succeeded. \"She must see her son,\" she said.\n\nMr. Godfrey was a little too resolute. He did not even give her\ntidings of him when he summoned him to the lawyers. It was by sheer\naccident that she discovered they had met; and when she discovered the\nresult of that meeting her indignation was terrible. She could not\nbear to {608} have Hester in her sight. She would not accompany her\nand Mr. Godfrey to Yorkshire. She stayed at home alone whole months.\nYears past; Eugene went abroad, and in the disturbed state of the\ncontinent his letters miscarried. It was long since she heard from\nhim. A paroxym ensued. Her mind became affected. Mr. Godfrey was sent\nfor. A gentleman experienced in diseases of the brain was invited to\nreside in the house. But in vain. The malady increased, and her calls\nfor Eugene and for Annie became so frequent and so terrific that all\nhope of keeping the matter a secret seemed at an end, and the doctor\ninsisted that the persons she called for should be sent for. Annie\ncame forthwith as we have seen, but Eugene's address was not known.\n\nOn entering the room where her mother set in company with two strange\nnurses, Annie was struck with the wildness of her manner: her hair was\ndisordered and hung loose over her shoulders; it was far whiter than\nwhen Annie had seen it last, and her eyes were restlessly looking\nround the room. She sprang up at her daughter's entrance, threw\nherself on her neck, and burst into tears, \"O Annie, Annie! are you\ncome at last? I have a strange illness upon me; I do not know how to\nbear myself; but yon will not let them hurt me, you will take care of\nme.\"\n\nAnnie was not prepared for this greeting. She could only clasp her\nmother's hands, caress her, make her sit down, and try to keep down\nthe swelling in her own throat. Suddenly Mrs. Godfrey broke from her,\nand standing up laid her hand on Annie's shoulder, saying: \"Where is\nEugene?\"\n\n\"I do not know, my dear mother.\"\n\n\"Not know! Are you all leagued against me? What share in his\ninheritance had you?\"\n\nAnnie looked as she felt, surprised. She had heard of the transaction\nonly when it was over, but she answered soothingly, not wishing to\nbring forward exciting ideas. But Mrs. Godfrey was not to be Sue; all\nnight she raved of Eugene; when Hester approached, she sprang from the\nbed and attempted to strike her; Mr. Godfrey dared not trust himself\nwithin her hearing. \"Thief, traitor, knave, rascal, villain\", and\nother opprobrious epithets were bestowed on him and his fondling. The\ndoctor was not to be shaken in his opinion that the only hope lay in\nfinding Eugene and bringing him to her bedside. But where? They had no\nclue; his lawyer only knew he was gone abroad and would probably not\nreturn for months. In the hope that some one might be more successful,\nthey at length resolve, to Mr. Godfrey's intense vexation, to have\ninserted in the London and local papers a notice to the effect that\n\"We are sorry to announce the serious and dangerous illness of the\nHon. Mrs. Godfrey, at Estcourt Hall. Should this meet the eye of her\neldest son, now on his travels, his family request him to return\nwithout delay.\"\n\nThis advertisement luckily was pointed out to M. Bertolot very soon\nafter it appeared at Cambridge, and he hastened to forward it by a\ncourier to Eugene, who, traveling by post (those were not days of\nrailways), arrived at Estcourt Hall within three weeks after Annie had\ntaken up her residence there. The old butler who answered the ring at\nthe gate bowed a solemn but speechless welcome, and with a significant\ngesture conducted him, not through the usual entrance-hall, but by a\nside door, up-stairs, till he came to Annie's apartment, which\ncommunicated with the sick-chamber. Here he wrapped, and on Annie's\nappearance left the two together without a word.\n\nEugene entered and sat down. \"What is the matter?\" He said. But Annie\nanswered not; her looks were those of one too wretched to weep.\n\nEugene repeated his inquiry, and then she softly whispered: \"O!\nEugene, she has gone out of her mind!\" Eugene covered his face with\nhis hands. {609} It was a long time ere either could speak again. At\nlength Annie rose on tiptoe and opened the door communicating with the\ninvalid's apartments. His mother was lying quietly on the sofa,\nmuttering at intervals. Eugene approached and listened. He thought he\ncaught the sound of his own name. He went nearer and knelt beside her.\nThe sick woman knew it not, but her arm laid itself restlessly around\nhis neck, and as his hot tears fell on her cheek she kept repeating in\nher sleep the words, \"Eugene, my dear Eugene!\" Singularly enough, when\nshe waked she evinced no surprise at finding him there. It was as\nthough she knew it intuitively, or had expected it. Perhaps it was the\nprolongation of her dream. She did not greet him as a stranger, or\nspeak as if long months had passed since she saw him, for question him\nas to his occupation or place of abode. She waked, but was as if still\ndreaming of him. She found him there, where she had so long wished him\nto be, quietly asked him to hand her a glass of water, took it from\nhim contentedly, returned the glass, kissed him as he bent over her,\nand sank into along, tranquil sleep, from which she tranquilly and\napparently refreshed, but still taking Eugene's appearance as a matter\nof course which called for no expression of surprise.\n\nThe physician now insisted on this state of contentment being left\nundisturbed. He had long wished Mr. Godfrey and Hester out of the\nhouse on account of the excitement they produced in his patient; he\nnow insisted that they should not be seen, heard, board named in the\nsick-room; \"in fact,\" he said to them, \"if it were convenient, it\nwould be better you should retire from the house until Mrs. Godfrey\ncan herself be moved. A paroxysm now might kill her. Spare her that,\nand I hope she will recover. This illness appears to have been\noccasioned by mental anguish and evidently her son only has the power\nto soothe her.\" Hester was deeply moved; Mr. Godfrey was angry, but he\nhid his vexation. \"He would wait a day or two,\" he said; \"if Mrs.\nGodfrey continued to improve, he would take Hester to Yorkshire, where\ntheir presence was greatly needed.\"\n\nHe was, however, so much irritated that he would not see Eugene, in\nspite of his entreaties conveyed by Annie. Meals were served up to him\nand Hester in a separate room, and he now appeared only anxious to get\naway. Hester was, however, almost heart-broken. She had not been\nallowed to speak to Eugene; but the night before their departure,\nafter Mr. Godfrey had retired for the night, she sent a note to him\ncontaining these words only:\n\n\"Come to my room, I am very unhappy.\nLet me see you ere I go.\n  \"Your own sister,\n     \"HESTER.\"\n\n\"I thought you would not deny me, Eugene,\" she said, as the latter\nentered her apartment; \"you were ever kind and forgiving. Tell me,\nfirst, have you any hopes of mother?\"\n\n\"Indeed I have, dear sister, the greatest hopes.\"\n\n\"Do you call me 'dear sister'? You are not angry with me, then,\nEugene?\"\n\n\"Not much more angry than I was the day you took my horse away when I\nwanted to go hunting; do you remember it, Hester?\"\n\n\"I do, but you would not speak to me then till mother reconciled us.\nDear mother! our childish quarrels always worried her. She was never\neasy till she had set them right. Would we were children again,\nEugene, and our quarrels as easily adjusted.\" Hester was weeping as\nshe spoke.\n\n\"We may be, Hester, as soon as we so will it. Why should we lose the\nsimplicity, love, and truth that make childhood sweet?\"\n\n\"Do you love me still, Eugene?\"\n\n\"I do; nay, I admire you too, though I think you are mistaken.\"\n\n\"You are very good to say so. Now then, dear Eugene, I may tell you to\nset our dear mother's mind at rest as soon at she can understand\nreason. {610} You will tell her that, at least as for as I am\nconcerned, there shall be no injustice committed eventually. My father\ngives me the control of his property now, which he has a right to do\nif he so pleases; you have your allowance such as he promised you,\nthat is all right too; but tell my dear mother that, as far as it\ndepends on me, matters shall be made right at my father's death. It\nwould serve nothing, as you know, to moot the matter now, but I will\nnever rob you or any one. Tell my mother this, Eugene, and tell her to\nrestore to me her love.\"\n\n\"I will, my darling Hester. Now make yourself easy. Be sure my mother\nloves you still, that I love you, that we all love you. Be easy, my\nsister, my sweet sister.\" But Hester was weeping bitterly; the thought\nof not being allowed to see her mother, to help nurse her, was almost\nmore than she could bear, and she very sorrowfully acquiesced in the\narrangement.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nPROGRESS AGAIN.\n\nThe estates in Yorkshire were indeed in need of the master's eye. One\nof the clerks had absconded with a considerable sum of money; and this\ntouched Mr. Godfrey nearly: while Hester was more affected by the\ndiscovery that the insidious doctrines of 'free love' were making\nterrible inroads on the morality of the young people. She was the more\naffected as she felt a natural repugnance to approach the subject. She\nfound the people legislating for themselves, and systematizing divorce\nin what they deemed a manner consonant to nature. She was not prepared\nfor this development, and drew back in disgust. \"Is there, then, no\nremedy for this?\" she asked of her father. \"None but to legalize it, I\nbelieve,\" he replied. \"You know nothing of these things, child, and\nhad better not meddle with them. Legalizing divorce must take place\nsooner or later, from causes you do not understand; nay, I do not\nthink the matter will stop there. As people become enlightened, and\nlive more according to the laws of nature, polygamy must be legalized\ntoo;    [Footnote 174] it is the only way to prevent disorder. In\nfact, but for the prejudice created by religion, it would have been\ndone long since in theory as it has ever been done in practice!\"\n\n  [Footnote 174: This plea is now used by intelligent men,\n  non-Mormonites, to justify the existence of legalized polygamy in an\n  American State. It is gravely asserted that only in Mormondom can\n  the moral laws be enforced; that the practice in other states is the\n  same without the sanction of the law, and that the absence of that\n  sanction creates the disorders and night brawls of our streets.\n  Order reigns in Utah!]\n\n\"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"Perfectly so!\"\n\n\"Then there must be something wrong, absolutely wrong. I can never be\nbrought to believe polygamy necessary; that must enslave a woman, and\nI must protest against it.\"\n\n\"Protest as you will you will find nature too strong for your theory.\nYou have been so peculiarly brought up, Hester, by your poor mother,\nthat you know nothing, absolutely nothing, of the world's necessities,\nand I begin to wish I had never let your eyes become unsealed. You are\na privileged one, and belonging to a privileged class; the majority of\nthe world are not so protected. But this is not a subject for you;\nshut your eyes to these matters, and attended to the spread of\nintelligence.\"\n\nBut it is not easy to shut one's eyes when once they have been opened.\nHester was stupefied. This came as a climax to the sorrow already\narising from her mother's illness, from her remorse in having partly\noccasioned it. The woman's heart within her was beginning to make\nitself felt. The occupations of the Yorkshire estate grew trite and\ndull, until she had found a remedy for this grievance, a principal to\npropose, a power with which to act. Mr. Godfrey was also gloomy from\nhis pecuniary loss through the embezzlement of the clerk, and matters\nwere assuming a very unpleasant appearance.\n\n{611}\n\nM. de Villeneuve called to pay them a parting visit, the illness of\nhis father called him to America.\n\n\"Shall you return to Europe?\" said Mr. Godfrey.\n\n\"Yes; as soon as I can get away, I must return to take care of my\nward; and if I can possibly find a location for her order, take her to\nAmerica with me.\"\n\n\"Your ward? Her order?\"\n\n\"Did you not know that Euphrasie de Meglior is my ward, that her\nfather increased her to my care the night before he died? That which\nhas kept me in Europe so long as been the hope of assisting her to\nregain her estates and to establish yourself. Fortunately for my peace\nof mind, I have been able partially to succeed in both. A part, though\nbut a small part, of the estate has been rescued; and Madame de\nMeglior is already returned to France. Euphrasie thinks herself still\nmore fortunate. Four of the ladies of the continent where she was\neducated have found shelter in England. They have met, and by the age\nof friends have wherewith to establish themselves. They have taken a\nhouse at------, about ten miles from this, and have already commenced\ncommunity life, two Euphrasie's great content.\"\n\n\"And Euphrasie did not return with her mother to France?\"\n\n\"No. She resigned her right to the estate during madame's life.\"\n\n\"And what will she live on?\"\n\n\"The poor Clares support themselves by their work.\"\n\nHester looked surprised, almost shocked. M. de Villeneuve continued:\n\n\"During my absence I have deputed warm friends to look after them,\nand, as I said, my object is finally to transplant them to America.\nBut I must not forget to inquire after Mrs. Godfrey, of whose health I\nhear such sad accounts. I do not wonder to perceive you are dejected,\nevery one must sympathize in your anxiety. But tell me, how was it\nthat Mrs. Godfrey, so lofty-minded, so motherly a woman, so full of\nmagnetism, if I may be allowed the expression, could bring herself to\npatronize this materialistic scheme of education? Her loving heart\nmust have felt intuitively that systems, exterior expressions which\nlack the vital principle, cannot regenerate the earth.\"\n\n\"I do not know that my mother ever did patronize my plans. She has\nnever been well enough to come to Yorkshire since they were started.\"\n\n\"No! Then you missed the benefit of her fine intuitive reasonings, and\nof the results of her experience. Believe me, Miss Hester, applauding\nas I do, perforce, the zeal which animates you, I am constrained to\ntell you, you must necessarily fail. You appeal but to the selfish\npassions; you will be startled one day at the demoralization that will\nbe manifested.\"\n\n\"I am beginning to feel this already,\" said Hester. \"I want some power\nthat as yet I do not find.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey rose impatiently and went to the window, scarcely out of\nearshot, but far enough away to decline any share in the conversation.\nHe was always displeased when his \"best policy\" principle was called\nin question, though just now his pocket was suffering from that cause.\n\n\"You will find out soon the sanction you require,\" said M. de\nVilleneuve. \"Every real unperverted natural law is the material symbol\nof a higher supernatural law, to which it is essentially related. It\nis the disunion of these two laws in your mind that now perplexes you;\nbut you are too sincere in your search for truth not to perceive their\nrelative bearings at last.\"\n\n\"Truth! what is truth?\" said Hester.\n\n\"Truth is the harmony of all things as they exist in God; as love is\ntheir manifestation,\" said M. de Villeneuve. \"The simplicity of ideas,\ntheir order, beauty, harmony, find expression in the created world;\nbut the ideas themselves {612} are immaterial or spiritual, and have a\nrelative spiritual expression in the soul. You have taken one and left\nthe other, hence the failure. Missing the idea itself, you necessarily\nfail in power, for spiritual power is needed to develop truly even the\nmaterial type. And, moreover, you cannot understand the type until you\npossess the idea.\"\n\n\"Something is wanted, that is certain,\" said Hester; \"but if all\nvirtue is typified in some material existence, tell me where is the\ntype of purity?\"\n\n\"Where but in the virgin-mother,\" responded the comte. \"In the mother\nof him who died to obtain for man that power over sin which had\nescaped him. The world lies the victim of its own self-will: it needs\na high ideal of purity and of sanctifying love, and this it finds in\nMary; it needs the power to work out this ideal, and this it finds in\nJesus. The progression of man is dearer to Mary than ever it can be to\nyou, for she is our mother, and the mother of our Redeemer; but\nprogression consists in sanctifying the individual, in destroying that\noverweening empire of sense which overlies the spiritual faculty, and\nwhich is fatal to woman in every sense, even in this world. Did you\nnever observe how the progression of ancient times ever riveted\nwoman's chains? From Egypt to Greece, from Greece to Rome, as luxury\nincreased the degradation of the majority of women followed. The\ntemples of the gods were filled with thousands of women enacting\nscenes of horror under the name of worship. This affords a key to the\ndisorders that always accompanied ancient civilization, for woman is\nthe mother of the race, the peculiar impersonation of the affections,\nand in her maternity the representative of that self-sacrificing\nprinciple which forgets self in care for the welfare of her children.\nWhere woman is not cognizant of her true office, where her spiritual\naffinities remain undeveloped, the race can get no further than\nmaterialism, and that sensuous gratification which contains already\nwithin itself the germ of decay, No For it is of earth, earthy. But\nthe divine instinct of religion, when proclaiming the 'grace to rise'\none for us by the cross on which the God-man died, raised Mary on the\naltars of his church, for the special protection of all that is holy\nand aspirative to in womanhood. And since that blessed time Christian\nwomen have been respected as virgins and as mothers; as beings formed\nto foster virtue and watch over the spiritual education of the of the\nmembers of Christ's body. Mary acts wonderfully through her daughters.\nChristian queens converted their husbands, and with them their\nsubjects throughout Europe; Christian matrons have given that tone to\nsociety which now, even in this age of heresy, respect security in\ntheory, though it throws it off in practice. All that is pure, all\nthat is lovely, all that is harmonious and holy invests the shrine of\nMary, and from her influence proceeds the charm that represses vice,\nconverts the heart to goodness as its chief happiness, and gives power\nto the individual to do those works of penance, of violence to self,\nwhich win the kingdom of heaven; a kingdom which commences here, in\nour own hearts, when we once enter into the harmonies of the religious\nteachings of nature and of revelation.\"\n\nHester started to her feet. \"Is this the office of Mary?\" she\nexclaimed.\n\nM. de Villeneuve assented by a gesture.\n\n\"True or not true,\" said Hester, \"this explanation does not in the\nleast savor of ignorance and superstition it is beautiful poetry!\"\n\n\"And is not poetry the highest truth?\" said the comte.\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Godfrey, coming forward with a frown on his\ncountenance. \"No! I wonder you religious people can never keep within\nyour proper bounds. I, who have traveled in France, in Belgium, and in\nItaly, and seen the painted dolls and gaudy dressed-up images, protest\nagainst your giving a poetic or philosophic dress to this idolatry or\nmariolatry. When I {613} take Hester abroad, she will see with me that\nthis worship is nothing but the rankest superstition.\"\n\n\"But I thought you said there was always a meaning under every myth.\nPop, may not this be the meeting of 'Mary'\"?\n\n\"Mary is no myth,\" said the Comte de Villeneuve, \"she is a real, holy,\npure, and loving woman, to be loved with a personal affection!\"\n\n\"Beware!\" said Mr. Godfrey, \"our family has suffered enough already\nfrom these fantastic dreams. Eugene's Catholicity has driven his\nmother crazy. If my Hester were to succumb, it would be even worse\nwith me. Let us make a truce with religion, I see it will produce no\nother fruits than to set people buy the ears.\"\n\n\"As you will. I am leaving for America, can I bear a greeting from you\nto my father?\"\n\n\"Tell him to inspire his son with a little of his common sense. In a\ntwenty years' intercourse he never mentioned the word religion in my\nfamily.\"\n\n\"You must forgive me, Mr. Godfrey,\" said the comte rising. \"I thought\nto console your daughter; she is much changed since I saw her last.\"\n\nHester was much changed, but never so much as now. She longed to thank\nthe comte, to unsay her father's rude words, but she dared not. She\ndared not anger Mr. Godfrey. Nor was it necessary: her eyes had\nkindled, her countenance had glowed, and the comte felt that his words\nhad not been thrown away, that Hester had received a revelation, and\nhe departed consoled.\n\nIt was a new study that Hester now entered upon. Woman as she was in\nthe olden time: in Greece and Rome; in Egypt and Abyssinia; in Persia\nand India. Woman as she is everywhere where Christianity is not known,\nwhere the mothership of Mary is ignored. The facts presented to her\nwere appalling, and none the less so that Mr. Godfrey was so peevish\nwhen addressed on this subject. He felt intuitively that the more\nHester knew of this, the more she would shrink from materialism; and\nif she abandoned him, if she adopted Catholicity, he would have lost\nhis last hope. He began to tire of \"perfectibility\" and \"progress,\"\nthe more that they seemed to detach his only joy from his side.\n\nYet with an old man's obstinacy he would not yield. Hester continued\nher system, but now it was to watch more closely its results, to\npenetrate the secret workings of the heart. She wanted to speak of\nhigher motive than self, but she knew not how. She only knew, and\ndaily she knew it more, that some high controlling power was wanting\nwhich could speak to the heart and regulate the inward spirit: \"Was\nthat power God?\" \"And Mary, was she a real manifestation of the power\nof God residing in a woman's frame?\"\n\nHester now wished this might be true.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nTHE CONSOLATIONS OF RELIGION.\n\nAfter a few weeks spent in the company of Eugene and Annie, Mrs.\nGodfrey rallied somewhat, and the physicians prescribed change of air.\nHer insanity had somewhat subsided, but she was now dull and stupid,\nutterly unlike her former self, and her illness had affected her limbs\nalso so that she was obliged to be wheeled in a chaise-longue from one\nplace to another.\n\nThe place chosen for their new abode was a lone house within half a\nmile of the sea-coast, the road to which lay in a beautiful valley\nbetween two hills of considerable elevation. On the highest of these\nwas a light-house, which gave warning of the perilous nature of the\ncoast, while the neat little white dwellings of the coast-guardsmen,\nat the foot of the hill, betokened that this was a locality famed for\nsmuggling excursions. Mrs. Godfrey was often laid on a couch placed on\nwheels, and drawn by hand to the beach on the sea-shore. The murmur\n{614} of the waves seemed to soothe her; and though she spoke very\nlittle, she seemed by slow degrees to be recovering her faculties, and\nnow and then listened to the subjects discussed by her children,\nEugene and Annie, who were seldom away from her, and who took work or\nstudy to the seaside, that they might while away the long hours of\nattendance. After a little time they observed that when the weather\nwas pleasant an old blind woman was often led from one of the cottages\nto a pleasant seat beneath the cliff, and that the two or three\nchildren who played near her seemed to regard her with equal reverence\nand affection.\n\nThe old woman knitted in the sunshine, now and then interrupting her\nwork to tell her beads or relate short stories to the young ones. In\nthe evening a tidy young woman, of most pleasing appearance, would\ncome to lead the blind woman home. This happened so often that the\nfaces became familiar, and Mrs. Godfrey began to watch for them as for\ninteresting objects, and at length she also began to wish to form\ntheir acquaintance. One afternoon she had her chaise-longue wheeled up\nto the side of the blind woman, and kindly inquired after her health.\n\n\"I am well, madam. Thanks for your inquiry,\" was the reply.\n\n\"And is this your daughter?\" asked Annie, pointing to the young woman\nwho was just come to lead her home.\n\n\"She is my son's wife, thanks be to God, and sure no daughter of my\nown could be better to me, who am but a burden to them all.\"\n\n\"Don't talk of burden, mother dear,\" said the young woman. \"Sure, what\nshould we do without you? Don't you teach the children their prayers\nand their catechism, and without you shouldn't we be almost like the\nheathens in this land of--\" She paused and colored.\n\n\"Heresy,\" suggested Eugene, as if concluding the sentence for her.\n\n\"No offence, sir, I hope,\" courtesied the woman.\n\nEugene took up the old woman's beads which had fallen to the ground,\nreverently touched the cross with his lips, and restored them to her.\n\"No offence at all,\" said he. \"This is a land of heresy and of\ninfidelity, and it cheers us to find out now and then one who\ncontinues faithful to the truth. Where do you live?\"\n\n\"In the white cottage yonder, sir.\"\n\n\"And your husband belongs to the coast-guard?\"\n\n\"He does, sir.\"\n\n\"And is he a Catholic also?\"\n\n\"Glory be to God, he is!\" said the old woman.\n\n\"But how do you manage? Can you ever go to mass?\"\n\n\"Not often, sir.\"\n\n\"Is there any priest near here?\"\n\n\"None that I know of nearer than Arundel Castle. The Duke of Norfolk\nhas a private chaplain, they say.\" This was all that could be drawn\nfrom the parties on that subject. They evidently feared to compromise\nsome one by speaking more plainly.\n\nAfter this day Mrs. Godfrey seemed attracted to the poor blind old\nwoman. She had always been benevolent, though she seldom took a strong\npersonal interest in the object of her bounty, and beyond relieving\nphysical want had little idea of doing good. Now a new idea had taken\npossession of her, she appeared to feel reverence for the cheerful\nsufferer, and treated her with a proportionate respect and sympathy.\n\n\"Is your husband long dead,\" she asked.\n\n\"May God rest his soul! He has been dead these ten years.\"\n\n\"And how long have you been blind?\"\n\n\"Nearly as long, praise be to God! I took the fever immediately after,\nand the disease fell into my eyes, and when I recovered I was blind.\"\n\n\"Do you praise God, my good woman, for making you blind?\"\n\n{615}\n\n\"And why not, my lady? Sure 'tis he that knows best what is good for\nus, and what is most for his own his honor and glory.\"\n\n\"But how can his honor and glory be promoted by your being blind?\"\nasked Mrs. Godfrey, as a dim recollection of Euphrasie crossed her\nmind.\n\n\"Faith, then, and its little we know of such matters, and less that we\ncan tell. But we are sure that God created us himself, and wishes for\nour love and service; and often when things go well with us we forget\nhim, and love ourselves and our friends so much that we neglect to\nserve him; then he sends sorrow to recall us to himself, and for this\nwe should bless him.\"\n\n\"But has not God commanded us to love our neighbor?\"\n\n\"Yes, my lady; but it must be with a holy love that we love our\nneighbor, because he is the creature of God, the child of the same\nFather. Many our kind from a dislike to feel pain or to witness pain,\nbut this is not the true worship required by God, who says we must\nlove him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength.\nThis real love submits in all things to his holy will, because it\ngives 'self' into his keeping.\"\n\n\"But if you could see you might read of God, and learn to love him\nbetter?\"\n\n\"I never could read, my lady,\" was the reply.\n\n\"Then where did you get your knowledge?\" asked Annie.\n\n\"The priest taught me my catechism, my lady and every Sunday and\nholiday he explained it, and for many a long year I never missed the\nlesson. Then we often had instructions at Mass, and he taught us the\nrosary and the way of the cross. Ah! it is not the good father's fault\nif the children of his congregation do not know their religion.\"\n\n\"And you never went to school?\"\n\n\"To none other than the school of poverty which our Lord founded and\nblessed,\" said the old woman. \"Oftentimes we had scarcely potatoes\nenough to eat, though we little ones tried to work as well as the big\nones; but labor was worth very little at that time, and afterward my\nfather took sick and lay for a long time helpless. We had hard times\nof it in my young days.\"\n\n\"And did your mother take it very much to heart?\"\n\n\"No, not very much. She grieved when my father died, though she hoped\nand believed he was happy, and would smile through her tears while she\ntold us so. But for the rest, we all knew that it was not fine clothes\nor dainty food that would make us happy: we knew that we should have\nas much of both as it was God's will to send us, and we tried not to\nwish for more. When we were cold and hungry mother would gather us\nround her, and talk of that solemn midnight at Bethlehem when, under\nthe clear frosty sky, the angels came to the shepherds, singing songs\nof glory, because the Lord of heaven and earth lay poor and helpless\nin the stable at Bethlehem. Then she would tell us of the long, dreary\nflight into Egypt, when Mary and Joseph begged hospitality by the way,\nbecause they loved poverty, for it made them more immediately\ndependent upon God. Then she showed us the poverty of Nazareth, and of\nthe time of his ministry, who had not where to lay his head; and we\nbecame not only reconciled to poverty, we tried to love it for his\nsake, who became poor for our sakes. So you see, my lady, we could not\nbe unhappy even when sorrow was upon us.\"\n\n\"Twas a sublime philosophy,\" said Annie.\n\n\"Rather say a glorious religion, Annie!\" said Eugene. \"Well might the\nboast of the gospel be that it was preached unto the poor.\"\n\nConversations like these brought a new train of ideas to the minds of\nboth mother and daughter. Patience, meekness, and humility were\nembodied before them, bringing with them such childlike confidence in\nthe providence of God that they could but feel such religion to be\nindeed reality.\n\n{616}\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nCONTROVERSY ON IMPORTANT POINTS.\n\n\"Brother,\" said Annie, \"I begin to perceive that it is of necessity\nthat philosophy divides itself into two branches, the exoteric and\nesoteric. The human mind evidently needs considerable preparation to\nbe able t comprehend the higher ideas that lie hidden under first\nteachings. It is not so much the teachings that are separate as that\nthe mind must pass through a given process to arrive at the meaning.\nEvery form of matter seems a metaphor, involving a spiritual idea, and\nmany minds seem powerless to penetrate to this; they necessarily\nremain content with the material explanation.\"\n\n\"And yet you blame religion for presenting defined dogmas, practical\nmethods, and real precepts to her children, forgetting that this is\nthe necessary preparation to higher truth, and that every mind must\nbegin at the beginning?\"\n\n\"I blame only trivial and childish practices; I reject only untenable\ndoctrines.\"\n\n\"As for example?\"\n\n\"The idea that a good God will plunge us into hell!\"\n\n\"Have you ever reflected on what God is, Annie?\"\n\n\"No! how should we know aught of such a being?\"\n\n\"Chiefly by revelation, but also somewhat by observation.\"\n\n\"Give me your idea on the subject, Eugene.\"\n\n\"God is light, power, and love. He created intelligent beings, that he\nmight impart to them a degree of these attributes, and in their degree\ncall upon them to participate in the joys they impart. The unvarying\nlaw impressed on material agencies, whether endowed with vitality or\nnot, did not (in all reverence be it spoken) content the love of God;\nthe enforced obedience of the material world to the attractions acting\nupon it, and the instincts animating the various races of the verified\nmatter, though beautiful, though glorious evidence of power, wisdom,\nand benevolence, did not call forth a consciousness of creatureship,\ncould not render to the creator a free-will offering of warm,\noutpouring, grateful love. This the Creator desired. It is his\npleasure to desire to be loved; and he created the human soul for the\nsatisfying of this desire; he rendered it free, and endowed it with\nthe faculty of loving, that it may freely offer the purest love to\nhimself.\"\n\n\"Go on; how do you reconcile this with hell?\"\n\n\"God is pure, holy, incapable of defilement, change, or division. His\nessential being penetrates all space, comes in contact, literally,\nwith all material and spiritual existence. Now, God created the human\nsoul like unto himself, with affinities to himself, and in proportion\nas that likeness continues or is restored, light, love, and power\nexist in that soul. The absence of these constitutes disease, which\nwill result in spiritual death. They are absent in the wicked, and the\ndivine rays entering that soul cause pain, even as the rays of the sun\ncause pain when they enter the eye of the body after it has become\ndiseased.\"\n\n\"But eternally?\"\n\n\"The soul preserves its identity and consciousness eternally, though\nit undergoes spiritual death. If by an act of volition it has lost\nlight, love, and power, it has not lost immortality, and the divine\nrays, penetrating this wreck of life, necessarily fill it with terror\nand dismay when all affinity for purity and holiness are destroyed.\nThe spirit of love, culturing the spirit of hate, must produce pain,\ndiscord, rage; and as the strife is now unequal and hate is impotent,\nit creates despair also. We see this on a minor scale on earth. The\nFrench revolution {617} brought prominently before us men whose\nspiritual faculties seemed already dead--men given up to a reprobate\nsense, who appeared utterly beyond conversion, and who were styled by\nthe vulgar incarnate demons; yet these are immortal beings who will\ncarry their dispositions beyond the grave. Should you like hereafter\nto come in contact with such?\"\n\nAnnie shuddered. She thought of Alfred Brookbank, whose mere entrance\ninto the room had often caused her blood to curdle.\n\nEugene continued: \"Remember, sister, that evil means cutting ourselves\noff voluntarily from God, and thereby subjecting ourselves to become\nthe prey of our own passions, of our own selfishness, which when once\nloosed may lead to every kind of excess. Good, on the contrary, is\nliving in God, adoring his will, admiring his perfections, loving his\nlaw. While on earth the choice of good and evil is before us; and what\nrepugnances to perfect action or to perfect dispositions we find\ndifficult to overcome in this our fallen state will be overcome for us\nif we pray in a sincere, in a co-operative spirit, or rather we shall\nreceive power to overcome all evil and to accomplish all good if only\nin simplicity of heart we turn to him who is faithful to fulfil all\npromises; for he has said, 'Ask and you shell receive' all graces\nnecessary to form in you the true spiritual life. If we choose to\nneglect this means appointed by God, we have no right to complain of\nthe result.\"\n\n\"I will pray,\" whispered Annie.\n\n\"I, too,\" said Mrs. Godfrey, who was for the most part a silent\nlistener in these discussions. \"Strange it is, Eugene, that you should\nbe teaching the principles which I ought to have instilled into you\nfrom youth upward.\"\n\n\"Why, you were not a Catholic, mother!\" said Eugene.\n\n\"No! but I had many opportunities of becoming instructed, had I been\nwilling; but I was worldly; I cared for none of these things; I did\nnot think the time would come when I should consider sorrow and\nsickness a blessing: without that fearful malady and these paralyzed\nlimbs I might have died in ignorance of all that it most concerns me\nto know. I have lived without God; dare I hope, Eugene, he will accept\nmy tardy return to him now?\"\n\n\"The grace that is working in your heart to make you wish that return\nis an evidence of his love for yon, dear mother; only continue to\nrespond to it, and all will be well.\"\n\n. . . . .\n\n\"Brother,\" said Annie, on another occasion, \"the accounts that we have\nof the ancients soon after the deluge seem to denote that they were a\nrace of wondrous power. The mere history we have of the building of\nthe city of Babylon, its wondrous walls, its bricks so well cemented\nby bitumen that they seemed imperishable; its six hundred and\nseventy-six squares, so planned that they preserved the ventilation of\nthe city in perfect order; its provision for water; its hanging\ngardens and palaces--to read of such cities as this and Nineveh and\nmany others, one imagines a fairy tale in hand instead of realities.\nThen, I presume, the raising of those immense blocks of stone which go\nto form the Pyramids would puzzle our modern engineers, as would many\nthings in that land of wonders, Egypt. Conceive a modern traveller\nlosing his way among the ruins of ancient temples that strew the site\nwhere Thebes once stood, passing the night in the rude hut of a\nBedouin or Copt erected amid these ruins, and in the morning seated\nupon a fallen pillar, making his meditation on 'Progression.' All\nancient, very ancient history, is instinct with power. What does this\nmean?\"\n\n\"That probably the knowledge that Adam imparted to his descendants was\ngreater than that which we now possess, or the intellectual faculties\nmay have been stronger before passion and egotism again corrupted the\nrace.\"\n\n{618}\n\n\"You think the earlier men really possessed higher intellectual\nfacilities than we have now?\"\n\n\"I think their works would warrant the assumption. Beside, it is\nreasonable to suppose that Adam was created perfect according to his\nnature, that it was endowed with the highest spiritual and\nintellectual faculties, capable not only of understanding the material\ncreation in its laws of attraction, in the relationships of matter to\nmatter, but also of comprehending the type enfolded in each material\nmanifestation; the spiritual co-relationship existing between such\nmanifestation and the idea it represents. This spiritual faculty was\noverborne by sin, impurity deluged the world, and a material deluge\ndestroyed the race. But to Noah, doubtless, the mental organization as\nwell as the spiritual power descended; hence immediately after the\ndeluge we see mighty works which betoken that high creative intellect\nwhich inspire modern imitators with mute wonder.\"\n\n\"Then you think sin was absolutely a destroying power?\"\n\n\"I do, even from the first. The intellectual faculties, when used as\nthe mere servant of the selfish passions, shrink and cannot receive\ntheir full expansion, cannot perceive spiritual relationships, cannot\nperceive man's moral relationships, each one to his fellow. Indulgence\nof the passions, inordinately pursued, of itself cripples the\nintellect and takes away the desire of intellectual culture;\nselfishness, on the other hand, shuts up the fountains of knowledge,\nin order to retain the material power that knowledge gives for selfish\npurposes. Both these causes were in operation to cause that inequality\nof fortune which finally wrought the 'castes' among mankind. The\nknowing ones kept the knowledge transmitted from Noah downward in\ntheir own exclusive possession, which the majority submitted to at\nfirst in order more freely to indulge their passions, and afterward\nbecause they could not help themselves, having (under the influence of\npassion) fallen out of the intellectual sphere. Laws compelling by\nforce certain restraints became necessary, and soon labor was\nperformed by force also, and most of the laborers became slaves. These\nlaws, in their action, usually touched only the governed, that is,\nthose who had let the intellectual power slip from them. The governors\nhad, almost universally, power to trample on the common law when\napplied to themselves; it was only when they came in contact with each\nother, and intruded on each other's privileges, that they were called\nto account. I speak not of the theory, but of the practice; there was\none law for the rich, another for the poor, throughout all ages. What\nwas called civilization, before the coming of Christ, did not touch\nthe poor, the enslaved; the down-trodden slaves had little chance of\njustice or of mercy. What was meant by liberty applied only to the\nfreemen; the want of remembering this leads many two mistakes in\ncomparing the civilization of ancient and modern times. The gospel\npreached to the poor taught them to repress the empire of the\npassions, thus slowly but surely causing that rise of intellect in the\nmasses which has swept slavery from Europe, and from all countries\nwhere the laborer has followed even imperfectly this first requisite,\nthe doing which has enabled him to cultivate his intellect\nsufficiently to compete with those in possession of power. A people\nenslaved my passion easily succumb to external force, as a virtuous\npeople, however poor, have an innate power of preserving external\nfreedom. The external depends on the internal. One is a manifestation\nof the other; almost a consequence.\"\n\n\"Then,\" said Annie, \"if I have understood you aright, man was\noriginally in direct communication with his Creator. Sin not only\ndestroyed this communication, which was the source of all knowledge\nand happiness, it impaired the faculties through which that\ncommunication is held.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Eugene.\n\n{619}\n\n\"And as temporal happiness is but the reflex of spiritual happiness,\nthe necessary result of order in the spiritual relationship, it\nfollows that the spiritual order must be restored before the natural\norder can yield the happiness it is calculated to produce. This, then,\nis the redemption, penance, violence to flesh, and to self will,\nbefore the restoration can take place; these being the necessary\nmedicine to heal the soul's diseases. Those who refuse the medicine\nperish.\"\n\n\"You surprise me, sister,\" said Eugene; \"you are apt at\nunderstanding.\"\n\n\"You forget that long since the enigma was propounded to us. I am but\njust getting my ideas into form. You will tell me if I have drawn\ncorrect inferences. Man, by the fall, lost not only actual knowledge\nand actual means of knowledge, but he lost empire over the animal\nworld, and, worse than all, over himself; he became a slave to his own\nappetites and passions, and to his own self-will. From this state no\neffort of his own could rescue him. The Redeemer came to offer him\nmeans of rescue, to enable him to re-establish spiritual\ncommunication, to bring man again into such actual relationship with\nGod that he shall look up to him, practically as well as\ntheoretically, as the highest metaphysical teacher; as the source of\nreal power and light to the understanding; the restorer of all things\nto their pristine harmony. Is this so?\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"And naturally this restoration must begin by the healing of the\ndisorders of the soul. The first impulses of grace create desire for\ngoodness, purity, and truth; but the old man is still within, and can\nonly be subdued by violence done to ourselves. 'The kingdom of heaven\nsuffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.' This is why the\nsaints welcome mortification and suffering, looking on them as tools\nwith which to subdue themselves, with which they may be enabled to\noffer themselves a living sacrifice to God. This is why what men call\n'progress' is repugnant to sanctity--progress meaning increased\nfacilities for indulging the passions; facilities which, as we advance\nin sanctity, we learn to dispense with more and more. This is what\nEuphrasie meant when she puzzled us at her first coming.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sister, I believe it is.\"\n\n\"And her non-appreciation of human learning must have arisen from the\nintense pleasure she felt in personal, absolute dependence upon God.\nShe did not want to know the material intermediate sequences; of all\nthings, she preferred feeling they came to her directly from her\nFather's hand.\"\n\n\"I presume this was the case.\"\n\n\"Then, too, if I understood her aright, the soul, purified by prayer,\nmortification, and good works, becomes by the grace of God detached\nfrom the things of this world; it seeks its rest only in God, and then\nit begins to regain some of the sublime spiritual privileges it had\nlost. Even on earth it may hold communication with the glorified\nspirits in heaven, while these glorified spirits themselves, blessed\nwith the beatific vision, drink in sensations of beauty, harmony, and\ndelight, such as exist only in God, and of which we cannot form the\nslightest conception.\"\n\nEugene could only press his sister's hand in silence. She continued:\n\n\"It is this union of spiritual natures with our struggling existence,\nthis interest taken by the saints in glory in the members of the\nchurch militant on earth, that you term the 'communion of saints,' is\nit not, Eugene?\"\n\n\"Yes, Annie.\"\n\n\"And men have dared to call the recognition of this divine union, of\nthis sacred bond of love, idolatry! It is the true conquest over\ndeath! the earnest of our own loving immortality! How absurd to call\nso beautiful a demonstration of the effect of divine charity\n'idolatry'!\"\n\n\"As absurd,\" said Eugene, \"as to believe that God, in providing means\nto redeem men from the death of sin, should not watch over those\nmeans, and preserve them intact from man's defilement.\"\n\n{620}\n\n\"Yes,\" interposed Mrs. Godfrey, \"it is wonderful that men who believe\nin revelation should not see, _prim\u00e2 facie_, that the same miraculous\ninterposition which produced the revelation would, as if of necessity,\nwatch over and protect that revelation.\" Then suddenly becoming very\nearnest, she said: \"Eugene, I am drawing near my end, I feel it every\nday more. You must bring me a priest, if, indeed, one so worthless as\nI can become a member of the church of Christ. O my God! it scarcely\nseems possible that a life of worldliness should be followed by an\neternity of bliss! But I will hope against my feelings of justice! The\nblood of Jesus is powerful to save. O my God! accept it; it was shed\nfor me in pity and in mercy.\"\n\n\"And for me, too,\" said Annie. \"I must be a Catholic also.\"\n\n\"But have you considered the cost, Annie? Your husband! your\nchildren!\"\n\n\"I have weighed everything, and am resolved.\"\n\n\"I think feet, O my God!\" said the sick woman. \"O eternal justice! I\noffer thee my children's faith, my children's courage, in union with\nthe precious blood of thy Son, to atone for my own shortcomings. Oh!\nbless these my children--give them grace to persevere!\"\n\nThere was a solemn pause. Than she added: \"Annie, there is suffering\nin store for you, but you will accept it. Eugene will be to a friend,\na protector, a guide. I made my will before this malady came on. I\ndare not change it now, lest it should be disputed. I left to Eugene\nall that I have to leave, but he will provide for you, if provision is\nneeded; and you, Annie, will confide in him when you need a friend.\"\n\n\"I will, dear mother,\" faltered Annie. \"Surely, we have always loved\neach other.\"\n\nEugene threw his arm around his sister's waist, and kneeling by his\nmother's side, solemnly pledged himself self to watch over his sister\nand care for her.\n\n\n\nTO BE CONTINUED.\n\n----------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nPARDON.\n\n\n\"Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much.\"\n\n\n  Love may, then, hope to quite refund\n    What sin hath ta'en away?\n  Poor heart! thou hast a debt beyond\n    Thy straitened means to pay.\n\n  My sins in number far excel\n    The sands beside the sea.\n  Lord! if thou wilt, I pay thee well.\n    Then lend thy heart to me.\n\n----------\n\n{621}\n\n\n\nFrom Chamber's Journal.\n\n\nSEA-SIDE FLOWERS.\n\n\nVisitors to the sea-shore love to wander along the beach in search of\nthe beauteous shells of scallop or cowry, left by the retiring tide,\nand delight to trace their exquisite design and structure; or,\nscrambling over the shiny rocks, covered with treacherous algae, will\nappear into the little pools, fringed with crimson and purple weed,\ninhabited by various anemones, gray shrimps, and darting fish, in\nhopes of discovering some new treasure to capture, and carry off in\ntriumph for the aquarium at home; but how few care to examine the\nmodest beauty of the many sea-side flowers blooming on regarded at\ntheir very feet; nay, their very existence often unknown, or looked\nupon as common weeds, devoid of all beauty or interest. Many a lover\nof wildflowers and country beauty will pause in the fields and lanes,\nand even dusty roads that skirt the shore--especially if they be on\nthe southern coasts of England--where the brier and hawthorn hedges\nare tangled with luscious honeysuckle, and the primroses cluster in\nmasses; where the wild hyacinth peeps from amidst the nettles, and the\nspeedwell opens its \"angel's eyes\" of loveliest azure; but as they\napproached the sea-beach, the proverb of its sterility,\n\n  \"Barren as the sand on the sea-sure,\"\n\nis felt, and not is expected or looked four but the rich harvest of\nthe ocean's wondrous things cast on the shingle, or left in the pools\nbeyond. The immediate banks and links of the sea-side are usually\ntreeless, and, to non-observant eyes, dreary wastes; but not a spot on\nthis wide world is without its interest and beauty, and delightful it\nis, when rambling along the sandy beach, listening to the music of the\nwaves on the pebbly shore, to find how many lovely blossoms are\nscattered even here, ornamenting the rugged sides of the chalky cliff\nor rock, weaving a flowery tapestry over the sloping links, and\nbinding together with interlaced roots the loose substance of many a\nsand-bank.\n\nUnlike the country meadows, where the loveliest blossoms appear with\nthe earliest sunshine of the year, the fairest sea-side flowers are to\nbe gathered during the summer and autumn months; though even in\nspring, the turf which enamels the links, down often to the water's\nedge, will be found decked with an occasional early blossom,\n\n  \"As if the rainbows of the first fresh spring\n  Had blossomed where they fell.\"\n\nWhile, at all seasons of the year, here as elsewhere,\n\n  \"Daisies with their pinky lashes\"\n\nraise their glad faces to the sun:\n\n  \"On waste and woodland, rock and plain.\n    Its bumble buds unheeded rise;\n  The rose has but a summer reign--\n    The daisy never dies.\"\n\nThe first gleam of spring sunshine is, however, reflected not only by\nthe silver daisy, but by that \"sunflower of the spring,\" the golden\ndandelion, which glitters as early as April on the sandy, grassy\nslope, familiar to all, and common everywhere. The leaves of the\ndandelion grow from the root; they are deeply cut and notched, and\nfrom this have gained their name, which we English have corrupted from\nthe French _dent-de-lion_. The Scotch call the dandelion the hawkweed\ngowan. The leaves are much eaten on the continent for salad, and a\nmedicine is extracted from the root. Every one is familiar {622} with\nthe downy ball that succeeds the flower:\n\n  \"The dandelion with globe of down,\n  The school-boy's clock in every town.\n  Which the truant puff's amain,\n  To conjure lost hours back again.\"\n\nWhen Linnaeus proposed the use of what he termed a floral clock, which\nwas to consist of plants which opened and closed their blossoms at\nparticular hours of the day, the dandelion was one of the flowers\nselected, because its petals open at six; the hawkweed was another--it\nopens at seven; the succory at eight, the celandine and marigold at\nnine, and so on, the closing of the blossoms marking the corresponding\nhours in the afternoon. Nor is this the effect of light on the plants,\nbecause, when placed in a dark room, the flowers are found to open and\nclose their petals at the same times.\n\nIn the month of May many sea-side blossoms appear; but in June they\nburst forth in such wild profusion that we are at a loss to know which\nto gather first:\n\n  \"For who would sing the flowers of Jane,\n  Though from gray morn to blazing noon.\n  From blazing noon to dewy eve.\n  The chaplet of his song he weave,\n  Would find his summer daylight fail,\n  And leave half told the pleasing tale.\"\n\nWe must only attempt to pluck such as are most common, and most likely\nto attract attention.\n\nMany a sea-side cliff is adorned with the handsome pale-yellow\nclusters of the sea-cabbage, which flowers from May until the late\nautumnal months, and is very ornamental, hanging in tufts from the\ncrevices of the chalky heights. It grows from one to two feet high,\nhas woody stems, and leaves a deep green, tinged with purple and\nyellow. It is very common on the Dover cliffs, where it is gathered,\nand sold to be boiled and eaten. From it spring our numerous varieties\nof cabbage; and this reminds me how very greatly we are indebted to\nour sea-side plants for many of our most valuable vegetables: the\nfresh crisp celery, the dainty asparagus, the beet, and sea-kale, in\naddition to the cabbage, are all derived from our salt-marshes, and,\nunder careful cultivation, have become what they are.\n\nThe rest-harrow, which we gather in the cornfield, may also be found\nadorning many a green patch on on the chalky cliff-side or sandy bank\nnear the sea. Its woody thorns are more abundant and stronger than\nwhen when flourishing in richer soil. Its leaves are numerous and\nsmall, its butterfly-shaped blossoms usually a purple-rose color, but\nsometimes almost white. Near the sea-side, I have often found the\nlittle see-pearl-wort, which requires close observation to detect it.\nIt grows upright, has tiny, delicate leaves, and flower-cups tinged\nwith a reddish-purple color.\n\nVery common in the sand is the sea-rocket, a smooth, glaucous plant,\nwith pretty lilac-pink flowers, which often mixes its blossoms with\nthe white petals of the scurvy-grass.\n\nBut June flowers press upon us: here we have plentiful at Dover and\nmany other sea-side places the viper's bugloss, certainly one of the\nhandsomest wild-flowers, either of the neglected field or beach that\nwe have. It is a magnificent plant, sometimes attaining the height of\nthree feet, its rich purple blossoms, with their long bright-red\nstamens, often extending half-way down the stems. It is peculiar for\nthe variety of tints it exhibits in its flowers, the buds being a rosy\nred, but expanded blossom a rich purple, which gradually assumes a\ndeep blue. Sometimes it is found white. The stems and leaves are\ncovered with bristles and brownish warts, or tubercles. Its name is\ntaken from the resemblance the seeds bear to a viper's head, and its\nspotted stem to the snake's skin; and in olden times the plant was\nsupposed to heal the bite of a viper. It flourishes best on a chalky\nbill or sandy waste ground:\n\n  \"Here the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil,\"\n\nand rears its rich spike of closely sent flowers with a stately air.\nThough its foliage is coarse, its blossom is very beautiful; not easy,\nhowever, together, for bees are ever hovering around it; {623}\n\n  \"Flying solicitous from flower to flower,\n    Tasting each sweet that dwells\n    Within its scented valves\";\n\nand oft tearing their delicate wings among the thick, hairy prickles.\nThe common kidney-vetch flourishes luxuriantly by the sea-shore,\ndecking the heights with its handsome yellow flowers from May to\nSeptember. It crowds its blossoms into flower-cups, thickly covered\nwith down; and two such tufts or beads usually grow at the top of each\nstem. It is as common a flower on the continent as with us, though it\nvaries in color--owing, Linnaeus tells us, to the nature of the soil.\nThe French call it _barbe de Jupiter_, Jupiter's beard. We also give\nit the names of lady's-fingers and lambtoe. Clare tells us:\n\n  \"The yellow lambtoe I have often got,\n  Sweet creeping o'er the banks in sunny time.\"\n\nDaring June, the common pellitory of the wall spreads over many a\nrocky spot, sometimes trailing its stems over the surface, and at\nothers rising erect, a foot high. Its leaves grow up the hairy stalk,\nand are mixed with the small purple-red flowers that lie closely\nagainst the stem. The white ox-eye, though loving best to bow in\nbeauty midst the waving grass of the meadow, may yet be found straying\nnear the coast; and very beautiful are its large solitary\nflower-heads, with their rich golden centre and pure white ray.\n\nSeveral thistles are to be found flourishing by the sea-coast,\nblooming from June to September. Perhaps the most familiar is the\ncommon sow-thistle, growing on almost every waste place, and greatly\nrelished by rabbits, on account of the milky juices it contains. Its\nleagues are deeply notched, the lobes turned backward, its flowers\nyellow. The milk-thistle is easily recognized by its large leaves\nveined with white, and deep purple flowers. It is a prickly plant,\noften growing as high as four or five feet. Though common in England,\nit is rare in Scotland, and, I have red, is only to be found on the\nrocky cliffs near Dumbarton Castle, where tradition tells it was\nplanted by Mary, Queen of Scots. The star-thistle may occasionally be\nfound among the wild blossoms of the sea-side, growing on cliff-tops,\nor green patches of the beach. It has hard woody spines, standing out\nfrom the flower-cup only, and in this differs from the other thistles;\nwhich are usually covered with sharp bristles, and seem defiantly to\nannounce:\n\n  \"I am sir Thistle, the surly,\n    The rough and the rude and the burly;\n      I doubt if you'll find\n      My touch quite to your mind,\n  Whether late be your visit or early.\"\n\nJuly comes laden with a host of fair blossoms of her own, as numerous\nas those of June:\n\n  \"Bright gems of earth, In which perchance we see\n  What Eden was, what Paradise may be.\"\n\nPerhaps one of the most attractive, as well as one of the first in\nbeauty, and blooming down almost to the water's edge, is the\nyellow-horned poppy, scattering its crumpled golden blossoms with\nevery passing breeze on the surrounding sea-weed. Its stems and leaves\nare a delicate blue-green, wearing the bloom that is called glaucous,\nfrom which its botanical name is taken. It is hairy, and its peculiar,\ncurved, horn-like pods are often half a foot long. It is a showy,\nhandsome plant, but smells badly, and is said to be poisonous. Quite\nas pretty, and far less harmful, is the sea-convolvulus, trailing its\nrose-colored bells with yellow rays, and dark-green succulent leaves,\nin clusters on the sandy links, where it presents a succession of\ndelicate, short-lived flowers; and equally common but less showy, are\nthe green blossoms and thick wavy leaves of the sea-beet (_Beta\nmaritima_), which, when cultivated, we often recognize as a useful\nvegetable. I have often gathered near the sea the hound's-tongue,\neasily recognized by its dark purple-red blossoms, and strong smell of\nmice. Its soft downy leaves are supposed to resemble in form the\ntongue of a dog, and from this it derives its Greek and common name.\nIt is a tall plant, often growing two feet hi. Its foliage is a dull\ngreen, its flowers a rich claret color.\n\n{624}\n\nOn the sandy downs and in the rock-crevices down even to the shore,\n\n  \"Flourishing so gay and wildly free,\n  Upon the salt-marsh by the roaring sea,\"\n\nare the pink and white heads of the sea-pink, or well-known thrift, so\noften used as a bordering in our flower-gardens, but here hanging in\nlittle tufts from the rocks, thriving where little nourishment can be\nafforded, and thus well meriting its name. Its leaves grow from the\nroot, and mostly resemble coarse grass. Its flowers form round heads\nof lilac-pink blossoms, and crown downy stalks, some four inches high.\nThere, too, is\n\n  \"The sea-lavender, which lacks perfume,\"\n\nand is a species of everlasting, retaining its color and form long\nafter being gathered. Its spike of blue-lilac flowers is very\nhandsome. There are several species of sea-lavender; and in August we\nhave the delicate, lilac-blue blossoms and bluish-green foliage of the\nupright-spiked sea-lavender, so often gathered to deck the winter\nvase. It is smaller both in leaf and flower than the former species.\n\nGrowing down, even amid the sand, we may now gather the compact head\nof the tall eryngo, or sea-holly, which has blue blossoms, in shape\nresembling the thistle's; and firm prickly leaves, beautifully veined,\nand adorned with that pale sea-green bloom so common in our sea-side\nplants. It grows about a foot high, and is stiff and rigid.\n\nOne of the purest-tinted blue flowers that we have may be found\nflourishing by the sea. It is the narrow-leaved pale flax, a sweet,\ndelicate, fragile blossom, that drops its petals as we gather it. It\nis a tall plant, with a solitary flower on each stem, and small\nalternate leaves, adorning each to the root. Its stem is tough and\nfibrous, like all its species. The flax cultivated for commerce is a\npretty pale-blue bell, erect and fragile, dancing and trembling with\nthe faintest whisper of the passing breeze. Mrs. Howitt well describes\nit:\n\n  \"Oh! the goodly flax-flower!\n    It groweth on the hill;\n  And be the breeze awake or asleep\n    It never standeth still!\n  It seemeth all astir with life,\n    As if it loved to thrive,\n  As if it had a merry heart\n    Within its stem alive.\"\n\nHow pretty are the little sendworts now in blossom, especially the\nsea-pimpernel, or sea-side sandwort, which blooms in shining, glossy\npatches only a few inches high. Its clustering white flowers are\nalmost hidden by the sick, crowding, succulent leaves. There are ten\nspecies of sandwort. Perhaps the commonest of all is the sea-spurry\nsandwort, which hangs its little blossoms in trailing tufts from the\ncliff-sides.\n\nIn this month also we may gather the white-rayed flowers of the\nsea-side feverfew, which often grows far down on the beach. Its\nblossoms are the size of a daisy, its stems tick, its leaves stalky,\nits growth low. And now also, decking the size of the banks, is the\nperfoliate yellowwort with its bright yellow flowers, and pale\nsea-green leaves, which grow in couplets, joining at the base, the\nstalk passing through them. The plant grows about a foot high, is not\nuncommon, and to be found in flourishing abundance on the Kentish\ncoast.\n\nFringing the summit of the tall sea-cliffs, and clothing with its\nclusters of yellowish-white flowers and fleshy sea-green leaves the\nmany crevices on the steep sides of the rocks, we may see the\nsamphire, so plentiful on the southern shores, and especially at\nDover, where it is gathered during May 4 pickle. That there is danger\nto the gatherer we may infer from Shakespeare's mention in King Lear,\nwhence the scene is laid near Dover:\n\n        \"Half-way down\n Hangs one that gathers samphire: dreadful trade!\"\n\n{625}\n\nSeveral kinds of sea southern wood are now showing their green\nflowers; the saltwort and funny-looking, jointed-branched, leafless\nglasswort are to be gathered now, both so useful for the soda they\ncontain.\n\nThere is a species of nightshade often to be found flourishing on our\nsee beaches, with blossoms shaped like the potato-flower, but white,\nand followed by black berries, highly poisonous.\n\nThese are also the dwarf-centaury and dwarf-tufted centaury, neither\ngrowing beyond a few inches in height, both possessing light-green\nstems and clusters of rose-colored blossoms.\n\nThe buck's-horn plantain is common on the sea-shore. It derives its\nname from the peculiar cutting of its leaves.\n\nVery common on the rocky bank is the wild mignonette. Though lacking\nthe sweet fragrance of the garden species, its pale greenish-yellow\nspikes are very ornamental. The sea-side pea grows on the links and\nbanks of our beaches, but is uncommon. Its butterfly shaped blossoms\nremind one of the sweet-pea of the garden:\n\n  \"Where swelling peas on leafy stalks are seen,\n  Mixed flowers of red and azure shine between.\"\n\nDuring the great famine of 1555, it is said that thousands of families\nsubsisted on the seeds contained in the pods of the sea-side pea.\n\nNear the beach, I have often gathered the knot-grass, so named from\nthe knottiness of its stem, and to be found flourishing everywhere:\n\n      \"By the lone quiet grave,\n  In the wild hedgerow, the knot-grass is seen,\n      Down in the rural lane,\n      Or on the verdant plain,\n  Everywhere humble, and everywhere green.\"\n\nShakespeare has called it \"the hindering knot-grass,\" on account of\nthe obstacles its trailing, tangled stems offer to the husbandman.\nMilton speaks of it as\n\n \"The knot grass, dew besprent.\"\n\nIt is familiar to almost every eye, forming little green patches even\nbetween stones of our streets, its tiny pale-pink blossoms growing so\nclosely to the stem as to be half hidden among the leaves. Its seeds\nand young buds afford a store of food for birds; and it is said that\nswine and sheep love to feed upon it. Milton tells us,\n\n      \"The chewing flocks\n  Had ta'en their supper of that savory herb,\n  The knot-grass.\"\n\nIt bears little resemblance to a grass but this reminds me that among\nour sea-side plants the grasses are perhaps the most interesting, as\nwell as useful and important, and are often of great service by their\nspreading mass of tough underground stems offering a strong resistance\nto the inroads of the sea. Several of the shores of England are so\nprotected; and the greater part of the coast of Holland, being\ncomposed of dikes, owes its security to the powerful obstacles the\npeculiar growth of these grasses affords. Thus we see\n\n  \"The commonest things may ofttimes be\n  Those of the greatest utility.\n  How many uses hath grass which groweth,\n  Wheresoever the wild wind bloweth.\"\n\nUseful as the sea-side grasses are, however, we have not space in this\nshort paper to take more than a passing glance at them, remarking that\nthe two most deserving of notice for their value in sea-resistance are\nthe sea-wheat grass and the sea-reed.\n\nI have often seen flourishing near the sea-coast the rich clusters of\nthe ragwort (_Senecio Jacoboea_), bright as the golden sunbeam, waving\nits tall blossoms in the breeze, and emitting a strong smell of honey.\nIt opens its flowers first in July, but often,\n\n  \"Coming like an after-thought,\n  When other flowers are vainly sought,\"\n\nlingers on until Christmas; and when cold winds and wintry snows have\nwithered every other flower, this remains,\n\n  \"A token to the wintry earth that beauty liveth still\".\n\nVery pretty is the yellow carpet spread on the dry bank by the yellow\nbed-straw, with its mass of tiny blossoms and slender thready leaves\nof brilliant green. Its flowers, like those of the ragwort just\nmentioned, also smell sweetly of honey. In the Hebrides, a\nreddish-brown dye is extracted from its roots.\n\n{626}\n\nIn September, we see the tall, handsome golden-rod, not only in our\nwoods and hedgeways, but also on the sea-side cliff, somewhat stunted\nin growth, but still beautiful with its crowded clusters of golden\nblossoms, over which butterflies, moths, and bees hover incessantly,\nin spite of its\n\n  \"Florets wrapped in silky down,\n    To guard it from the bee.\"\n\nIn the days of Queen Elizabeth it was sold in the London markets by\nherb-dealers. It was supposed to cure wounds.\n\nThen also the Michaelmas daisy, or sea-starwort, opens its pale lilac\npetals, and continues to blossom until other flowers have nearly all\nfaded away:\n\n  \"And the solo Lawson which can glad the eye\n  Is yon pale starwort nodding to the wind.\"\n\nIt often grows as high as three feet; its leaves are smooth, a sickly\ngreen in color, and very succulent. At this time we shall also find\nthe marsh-mallow. It is a medicinal plant, containing a quantity of\nstarchy mucilage, which is formed into a paste, and taken as a cure\nfor coughs. Its flowers are a pretty rose-tint; its leaves soft,\ndowny, and very thick. It grows about two feet high, and is altogether\nan attractive, handsome plant, the more more valued,\n\n  \"Because a fair flower that illumines the scene\n      When the tempest of winter is near;\n  'Mid the frowns of adversity, cheerful of mien,\n  And gay, when all is dark and serene\".\n\nSuch are a few of the sea-side blossoms to be gathered on our coasts.\nLet my reader, next summer, take a ramble along the beach, and hunt\nfor themselves, when they may discover a host of fresh beauties rising\non all sides, creeping over the loose sand, topping the rocky heights,\nor decking the grassy slopes--\n\n  \"As though some gentle angel,\n    Commissioned love to bear,\n  Had wandered o'er the greensward,\n    And left her footprints there.\"\n\nLet not the humblest, most neglected flower be discarded, for each\nbears its own little mine of beauty, front with instruction, and the\npromptings of pure and holy thoughts, that lead the mind from \"nature\nup to nature's God.\"\n\n      \"Nature never did betray\n  The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege\n  Through all the years of this our life to lead\n  From joy to joy; for she can so inform\n  The mind that is within us, so impress\n  With quietness and beauty, and so feed\n  With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,\n  Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,\n  Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all\n  The dreary intercourse of daily life,\n  Shall e're prevail against us, or disturb\n  Our cheerful face, that all that we behold\n  Is full of blessings.\"\n\n----------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nON THE REQUEST OF THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.\n\n\n  \"I will that forthwith thou give me\n  in a dish the head of John the Baptist.\"\n\n\n  Fie, silly child! Thou askest more\n  Than Herod doth engage to grant--\n    As time hath truly shown.\n  That head, enshrouded in its gore,\n  Would be a price exorbitant\n    For all of Herod's throne.\n\n------\n\n{627}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nTHE CHURCH AND MONARCHY.\n\n\nMr. Bancroft, the learned and philosophical historian of the United\nstates, in one of his volumes devoted to the history of the American\nRevolution, makes the remark that \"Catholics are in general inclined\nto monarchy, and Protestants to republicanism.\" This is a very common\nopinion with non-Catholic American writers, and a large portion of the\nAmerican people honestly fear that the rapid spread of catholicity in\nthis country is pregnant with danger to our republican institutions.\nDr. England, late bishop of Charleston, one of the most illustrious\nCatholic prelates the country has ever had, maintained, on the\ncontrary, with great earnestness and force, that the church does not\nfavor monarchy, but does favor republicanism. What is the fact in the\ncase? The question is not doctrinal, but historical, and relates to\nCatholics and Protestants, rather than and Protestantism.\n\nIt should be observed before entering into any investigation of the\nhistorical facts in the case, that in the Catholic mind theology is\nsuperior to politics; and no intelligent Catholic ever consents or can\nconsent to have his religion tried by a political standard. The\nchurch, the Catholic holds, represents what is supreme, eternal,\nuniversal, and immutable in human affairs, and that political\nprinciple or system which conflicts with her, is by that fact alone\ncondemned as false; for it conflicts with the eternal, universal, and\nimmutable principles of the divine government, or the truth and\nconstitution of things. Religion is for every one who believes in any\nat all the supreme law, and in case of conflict between religion and\npolitics, politics, not religion, must give way.\n\nWell grounded in his faith, sure of his church, the Catholic has never\nany dread of historical facts, and can always, so far as his religion\nis concerned, enter upon historical investigations with perfect\nfreedom and impartiality of mind. He has no fear of consequences. Let\nthe historical fact turn out as it may, it can never warrant any\nconclusions unfavorable to his religion. If the fact should place his\npolitics in conflict with his religion, he knows they are so far\nuntenable, and that he must modify or change them. The historian of\nthe United States is deeply penetrated with a sense of the\nindependence and supremacy of moral or spiritual truth, and with a\njustice rare in non-Catholic writers, attributes much of the\ncorruption of French society in the last century to the subjection of\nthe church to the state. Most non-Catholic writers, however, consider\nwhat is called Gallicanism as far more favorable to society than what\nthey call Ultramontanism; and in doing so, prove that they really,\nconsciously or unconsciously, assume the supremacy of the political\norder, not of the religious. But in this they grossly err, and make\nthe greater yield to the less; for not only is religion in the nature\nof things superior to politics, but one is always more certain of the\ntruth of his religion than he is or can be of the wisdom and soundness\nof his politics.\n\nThe church teaches the divine system of the universe, asserts and\nmaintains the great catholic principles from which proceeds all life,\nwhether religious or political, and without which there can be neither\nchurch nor state; but it is well known that she prescribes no\nparticular constitution of the state or form of civil government, for\nno {628} particular constitution or form is or can be catholic, or\nadapted alike to the wants and interests of all nations. Whatever is\ncatholic in politics, that is, universally true and obligatory, is\nincluded in theology; what is particular, special, temporary, or\nvariable, the church leaves to each political community to determine\nand manage for itself according to its own wisdom and prudence.\n\nEvery statesman worthy at all of the name knows that the same form of\ngovernment is not fitted alike to the wants and interests of all\nnations, nor even of the same nation through all possible stages of\nits existence; and hence there is and can be no catholic form of\ngovernment, and therefore the church, as catholic, can enjoin no\nparticular form as universally obligatory upon Catholics. Were she to\ndo so she would attempt to make the particular universal, and thus war\nagainst the truth and the real constitution of things, and belie her\nown catholicity. The principles of government, of all government, are\ncatholic, and lie in the moral or spiritual order, as do all real\nprinciples. These the church teaches and insists on always and\neverywhere with all her divine authority and energy; but their\npractical application, saving the principles themselves, she leaves to\nthe wisdom and prudence of each political community. The principles\nbeing universal, eternal, and unalterable, are within the province of\nthe Catholic theologian; the practical application of the principles,\nwhich varies, and must vary, according to time and place, according to\nthe special wants and interests of each political community, are\nwithin the province of the statesman.\n\nSuch being the law in the case, it is evident that the church does and\ncan prescribe no particular form of civil government, and Catholics\nare free to be monarchists, aristocrats, or democrats, according to\ntheir own judgment as statesmen. They are as free to differ among\nthemselves as to forms of government as other men are, and do differ\nmore or less among themselves, without thereby ceasing to be sound\nCatholics. Mr. Bancroft, however, does not even pretend that the\nchurch requires her children to be monarchists, and he more then once\ninsinuates that her principles, as Bishop England maintains, tend to\nrepublicanism, the contrary of what is done by most non-Catholic\nwriters.\n\nTo determine what is the fact we must define our terms. _Monarchy_ and\n_republic_ are terms often vaguely and loosely used. All governments\nthat have at their head a king or Emperor are usually called, by even\nrespectable writers, monarchies, and those that have not are usually\ncalled republics, whether democratic like ancient Athens, aristocratic\nlike Venice prior to her suppression by General Bonaparte, or\nrepresentative like the United States. But this distinction is not\nphilosophical or exact. All governments, properly speaking, in which\nthe sovereignty is held to rest in the people or political community,\nand the king or emperor holds from the community and represents the\nthe majority of the state, are Republican, as was Imperial Rome or is\nImperial France; all governments, on the other in which the\nsovereignty vests not in the political community, but in the\nindividual and is held as a personal right, or as a private estate,\nare in principal monarchical. This is, in reality, the radical\ndistinction between republicanism and monarchy, and between\ncivilization and barbarism, and it is so the terms should be\nunderstood.\n\nThe key to modern history is the struggle between these two political\nsystems, or between Roman civilization and German barbarism, and\nsubsequently to Charlemagne, were especially between feudalism and\nRoman imperialism. In this struggle the sympathies and influences of\nchurch have been on the side against barbarism and feudalism, and in\nfavor of the Roman system, and therefore on the side of republicanism,\nRome, theoretically and in name, {629} remained a republic under the\nemperor from Augustus to Augustulus. However arbitrary or despotic\nsome of the Caesars may have been and certainly were in practice, in\nprinciple they were elective, and held their power from the political\ncommunity. The army had always the faculty of bestowing the military\ntitle of Imperator or emperor, and all the powers aggregated to it, as\nthe tribunitial, the pontifical, the consular, etc., were expressly\nconferred on Augustus by the senate and people of Rome. The\nsovereignty vested in the political community never in the person of\nthe emperor. The emperor represented the state, but never was himself\nthe state. In principle Roman imperialism was republican, not in the\nstrict or absolute sense monarchical at all.\n\nThe barbarian system brought from the forests of Germany was in its\nprinciple wholly different. Under it power was a personal right, and\nnot, as under Roman imperialism, a trust from the community. With the\nbarbarians there were tribes, nations, confederations, but no\ncommonwealth, no republic, no civil community, no political people, no\nstate. Republic, _res publica_, Scipio says, in the _Republica_ of\nCicero, cited by St. Augustine in his _De Civitate Dei_, means _res\npopuli_; and he adds, that by people is to be understood not every\nassociation of the multitude, but a legal association for the common\nweal. \"Non esse omnem coetum multitudinis, sed coetum juris condensu\net utilitatis communione sociatum.\"  [Footnote 175] In this sense\nthere was no people, no _res populi,_ or affairs of the people, under\nthe barbarian system, nor even under the feudal system to which, with\nsome Roman ideas it gave birth after Charlemagne. Absolute monarchy,\nwhich alone is properly monarchy, according to Bishop England, did not\nexist among the barbarians in its full development; but it existed in\ngerm, for its germ is in the barbarian chieftainship, in the fact that\nwith the barbarians power is personal, not political, a right or\nprivilege, not a trust, and every feudal noble developed is an\nabsolute monarch.\n\n  [Footnote 175: Apud St. Augustine, tom. vii. 75. B.]\n\nThese two systems after the conquest occupied the same soil. What\nremained of the old Roman population continued, except in politics, to\nbe governed by the Roman law, _lex Romanorum_, and the barbarians by\nthe _lex barbarorum_, or their own laws and usages. But as much as\nthey despised the conquered race, the barbarians borrowed and\nassimilated many Roman ideas. The ministers of the barbarian kings or\nchiefs were for a long time either Romans or men trained in the Roman\nschools, for the barbarians had no schools of their own, and the old\nschools of the empire were at no time wholly broken up, and continued\ntheir old course of studies with greater or less success till\nsuperseded by modern universities. The story told us of finding a copy\nof the Civil or Roman Law at Amalfi, in the eleventh century, a fable\nin the sense commonly received, indicates that the distinction between\nbarbarian and Roman in that century was beginning to be effaced, and\nthat the Roman Law, as digested or codified by the lawyers of\nJustinian, was beginning to become the common law in the West as it\nlong had been in the East, and still is in all the western nations\nformed within the limits of the old Roman empire, unless England be an\nexception. There was commenced, even before the downfall of Rome, a\nprocess of assimilation of Roman ideas and manners by the barbarians,\nwhich went on with greater force and rapidity in proportion as the\nbarbarians were brought into the communion of the church. This process\nis still going on, and has gone furthest in France and our own\ncountry.\n\nThe barbarian chiefs sought to unite in themselves all the powers that\nhad been aggregated to the Roman emperor, and to hold them not from\nthe political community, but in their own personal right, which, had\nthey {630} succeeded, would have made them monarchs in the fall and\nabsolute sense of the term. Charlemagne tried to revive and\nre-establish Roman imperialism, but his attempt was premature; the\npopulations of the empire were in his time not sufficiently Romanized\nto enable him to succeed. He failed, and his failure resulted in the\nestablishment of feudalism--the chief elements of which were brought\nfrom Germany. The Roman element, through the influence of the church\nand the old population of the empire, had from the close of the fifth\ncentury to the opening of the ninth acquired great strength, but not\nenough to become predominant. The Germanic or barbarian elements,\nre-enforced as they were by the barbarians outside of both the church\nand the empire, were too strong for it, and the empire of Charlemagne\nwas hardly formed before it fell to pieces. But barbarism did not\nremain alone in feudalism, and Roman principles, to some extent, were\nincorporated into feudal Europe, and the Roman law was applied,\nwherever it could be, to the tenure of power, its rights and\nobligations; to the regulation, forfeiture, and transmission of fiefs,\nand to the administration of justice between man and man, as we apply\nthe Common Law in our own country. But the constitution of the feudal\nsociety was essentially anti-Roman and at war with the principles of\nthe Civil or Roman Law. Hence commenced a struggle between the feudal\nlaw and the civil--feudalism seeking to retain its social\norganization based on distinctions of class, privileges, and\ncorporations; and the civil law, based on the principle of the\nequality of all men by the natural law, seeking to eliminate the\nfeudal elements from society, and to restore the Roman constitution,\nwhich makes power a trust derived from the community, instead of a\npersonal right or privilege held independently of the community.\n\nIn this struggle the church has always sympathized with the Romanizing\ntendencies. It was under the patronage of the Pope that Charlemagne\nsought to revive Imperial Rome, and to re-establish in substance the\nRoman constitution of society; but his generous efforts ended only in\nthe systematization and confirmation of feudalism. The Franconian and\nespecially the Swabian in emperors attempted to renew the work of\nCharlemagne, but were opposed and defeated by the church, not because\nshe had any sympathy with feudalism, but because these emperors\nundertook to unite with the civil and military powers held by the\nRoman emperors the pontifical power, which before the conversion of\nthe empire they also held. This she could not tolerate, for by the\nChristian law the Imperial power and the pontifical are separated, and\nthe temporal authority, as such, has no competency in spirituals. The\nPopes, in their long and severe struggles with the German emperors, or\nemperors of the holy Roman empire, as they styled themselves, did not\nstruggle to preserve feudalism, but the independence of the church,\nthreatened by the Imperial assumption of the pontifical authority held\nby the emperors of pagan Rome. This is the real meaning of those\nstruggles which have been so strangely misapprehended, and so grossly\nmisrepresented by the majority of historians, as Voigt and Leo, both\nProtestants, have conclusively shown. St. Gregory VII., who is the\nbest representative of the church in that long war, did not struggle\nto establish a theocracy as so many foolishly repeat, nor to obtain\nfor the church or clergy a single particle of civil power, but to\nmaintain the spiritual independence of the church, or her independent\nand supreme authority over all her children in things spiritual,\nagainst the Emperor, who claimed, indirectly at least, supreme\nauthority in spirituals as well as in temporal's. For the same reason\nGregory IX. And Innocent IV. Opposed Frederic II., the last and\ngreatest of the Hohenstaufen, the Ward in his childhood of Innocent\nIII. {631} Frederic undertook to revise Roman imperialism against\nmediaeval feudalism, but unhappily he remembered that the pagan\nEmperor was Pontifex Maximus, as well as Imperator. Had he simply\nlabored to substitute the Roman constitution of society for the feudal\nwithout seeking to subject the church to the empire, he might have\nbeen opposed by all those Catholics, whether lay or cleric, whose\ninterests were identified with feudalism, but not by the church\nherself; at least nothing indicates that she would have opposed him,\nfor her sympathies were not and have never been with the feudal\nconstitution of society.\n\nIn the subsequent struggles between the two systems, the church, as\nfar as I have discovered, has uniformly sympathized with kings and\nkaisers only so far as they simply asserted the republican principles\nof the Roman constitution against feudalism, and has uniformly opposed\nthem, whenever they claimed or attempted to exercise pontifical\nauthority, or to make the temporal supreme over the spiritual, that is\nto say, to subject conscience to the state. But in this she has been\non the side of liberty in its largest and truest sense. Liberty, as\ncommonly understood, or as it enters into the life, the thought, and\nconscience of modern Christian nations, is certainly of Greek and\nRoman, not barbarian origin, enlarged and purified by Christianity.\nThe pagan republic united in the sovereign people both the pontifical\nand imperial powers as they were in the pagan emperors, and hence\nsubjected the individual, both exteriorly and interiorly, to the\nstate, and left him no rights which he could assert before the\nrepublic. The Christian republic adds to the liberty of the state, the\nliberty of the individual, and so far restricts the power of the state\nover individuals. This personal or individual freedom, unknown in the\nGraeco-Roman republic, Guizot and many others tell us was introduced\nby the German invaders of the Roman empire. They assign it a barbarian\norigin; but I am unable to agree with them, because I cannot find that\nthe German barbarians ever had it. The barbarian, as the feudal,\nindividual freedom was the freedom of the chief or noble, not the\nfreedom of all men, or of all individuals irrespective of class or\ncaste. This universal individual freedom, asserted and in a measure\nsecured by the Christian republic, could not be a development of a\nbarbarian idea, or come by way of logical deduction from the barbarian\nindividual freedom, for it rests on a different basis, and is\ndifferent in kind. The only ancient people with whom I can find any\ndistinct traces of it are the Hebrew people. It is plainly asserted in\nthe laws of Moses for the Jewish people. Christianity asserts it for\nall, both Jews and Gentiles, in that noble maxim. We must obey God\nrather than men. Every martyr to the Christian faith asserted it, in\nchoosing rather to be put to death in the most frightful and\nexcruciating forms than to yield up the freedom of conscience at the\ncommand of the civil authority, and the church shows that she approves\nit by preserving the relics of martyrs, and proposing them to the\nperpetual veneration of the faithful. The martyr witnesses alike to\nfaith and the freedom of conscience.\n\nTo this individual freedom, as the right of manhood, the real enemy is\nthe feudal society, which is founded on privilege; and where then\nshould the church be found but on the side of those who asserted\nGraeco-Roman civilization as enlarged, purified, and invigorated by\nChristianity against the barbarian elements retained by the feudal\nsociety? It was her place as the friend of liberty and civilization.\nThere can be no question that since the beginning of the fifteenth\ncentury the interests of humanity, liberty, religion, have been with\nthe kings and people, as against the feudal nobility. It is owing to\nthis fact, not to any partiality for monarchy, even in its\nrepresentative sense, that the church has supported the monarchs in\ntheir struggle against feudal privileges and corporations.\n\n{632}\n\nBut it is said that she has favored Roman imperialism not only against\nfeudalism, but also against democracy. This is partially true, but she\nhas done so for the very reason that in the twelfth and thirteenth\ncenturies she opposed the German emperors, because everywhere, except\nin the United States, it seeks to unite in the republic or state,\nafter the manner of the pagan republic, both the imperial and the\npontifical powers. In the United States this has not been done; our\nrepublic recognizes its own incompetency in spirituals, protects all\nreligions not _contra bonos mores_, and establishes none; and here the\nchurch has never opposed republicanism or democracy. In Europe she has\ndone so, not always, but generally since the French revolution assumed\nto itself pontifical authority. In the beginning of the French\nrevolution, while it was confined to the correction of abuses, the\nredress of grievances, and the extension and confirmation of civil\nliberty, the Pope, Pius VI., the cardinals, prelates, and people of\nRome, encouraged it; and the Pope censured it only when it transcended\nthe civil order, made a new distribution of dioceses, enacted a civil\nconstitution for the clergy, and sought to separate the Gallican\nChurch from the Catholic Church, precisely as the Popes had previously\ncensured Henry IV., Frederic Barbarossa, Frederic II., Louis of\nBavaria, and others. She opposes to-day European democrats, not\nbecause they are democrats, but because they claim for the people the\npontifical power, and seek to put them in the place of the church,\nnay, in the place of God The more advanced among them utter the words,\npeople-pontiff and people-God, as well as people-king, and your German\ndemocrats assert almost to a man humanity as the supreme God. She\nopposes them not because they make deadly war on monarchy and\naristocracy, and assert the sovereignty, under God, of the people, but\nbecause the war against catholic truth, the great eternal, universal,\nand immutable principles of the divine government, which lie at the\nbasis of all  government and indeed of society itself, and of which\nshe is the divinely appointed guardian in human affairs. If she\nsupports the European governments against them, it is not because\nthose governments are monarchical or aristocratic in their\nconstitution, but because they represent, however imperfectly, the\ninterests of humanity, social order, civilization, without which there\nis and can be no real progress. She cannot oppose them because they\nseek to establish democratic government unless they seek to do so by\nunlawful or unjust means, because she prescribes for the faithful no\nparticular form of civil government, and cannot do it, because no\nparticular form is or can be Catholic. She offers no opposition to\nAmerican democracy.\n\nThe church opposes, by her principles, however, what is called\nAbsolutism, or what is commonly understood by Oriental despotism, that\nis, monarchy as understood by Bishop England, under which the monarch\nis held to be the absolute owner of the soil and the people of the\nnation, and may dispose of either at his pleasure. This is evident\nfrom the fact that when she speaks officially of the state generally,\nwithout referring to any particular state, she calls it _republica_,\nthe republic; especially is this the case when she speaks of the civil\nsociety in distinction from the ecclesiastical society. Our present\nHoly Father, in his much miss apprehended and grossly misrepresented\nEncyclical of December 8, 1864, calls the civil community _republica_,\nor commonwealth. St. Augustine denies that God has given to man the\nlordship of man. He gave man the lordship or dominion over irrational\ncreations, but not of the rational made in his own image, \"Rationalem\nfactum ad maginem suam noluit nisi irrationabilibus, dominari: non\nhominem homini, sed hominem {633} pecori. Inde primi justi pastores\npecorum magis quam reges hominum constituti sunt.\"  [Footnote 176]\nHence he denies that the master has the lordship of his servants or\nslaves, and admits slavery only as a punishment, as does the civil law\nitself. For the same reason we may conclude against despotism. If the\nmaster has not the absolute lordship of his servants, far less can a\nking have the absolute lordship of a whole nation. St. Gregory the\ngreat cites St. Augustine with approbation, so also, if my memory\nserves me, does St. Gregory VII., the famous Hildebrand, who tells the\nprinces of his time that they hold their power from violence, wrong,\nSatan.\n\n  [Footnote 176: De Civit. Dei. Opera, tom. vii. 900.]\n\nCatholic writers of the highest authority St. Augustine, St. Thomas,\nBellarmin, and Suarez, whom to cite is to cite nearly the whole body\nof Catholic theologians, follow in the main the political philosophy\nof Greece and Rome as set forth by Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero; and\nthere is no doubt that, while vesting sovereignty in the community, or\nthe people politically associated, they generally incline to monarchy,\ntempered by a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, as does Aristotle\nhimself. But the monarchy they favor is always the representative\nmonarchy, the Roman, not the feudal or the oriental. The prince or\nking, according to them, holds his power from the people or community,\n_jure humano_, not _jure divino_, and holds it as a trust, not as a\npersonal and indefeasible right. It is amissible; the king may forfeit\nit, and be deprived of it. St. Augustine asserts, and Suarez after\nhim, the inherent right of the people or political society to change\ntheir magistrates and even their form of government; and the Popes, on\nmore occasions than one in the middle ages, not only excommunicated\nprinces, but declared them by a sovereign judgment deprived of their\ncrowns, which proves, if nothing else, that kings and kaisers are held\nby the church to be responsible to the nation for the manner in which\nthey use their trusts, for the Popes never declared a forfeiture\nexcept on the ground that it was incurred by a violation of the civil\nconstitution.\n\nThere were numerous republics in Europe before the reformation, as\nVenice, Genoa, Florence, the Swiss Cantons, and many others, not to\nspeak of the Lombard municipalities, the Hanse towns, and the Flemish\nor Belgian communes, all of which sprang up during Catholic times, and\nwere founded and sustained by a Catholic population. Nearly all of\nthem have now disappeared, and some of them almost within our own\nmemory; but I am not aware that there is a single republic in Europe\nfounded and sustained by Protestants, unless the United Dutch\nProvinces, now a monarchical state, be a partial exception. The fact\nthat Catholics as a body are wedded to monarchy is therefore not\nsusceptible of very satisfactory proof, not even if we take monarchy\nonly as representing the majesty of the people, in which sense it is\nrepublican in principle.\n\nProtestantism is in itself negative, and neither favors nor disfavors\nany form of government; but the reformation resulted, wherever it\nprevailed in Europe, in uniting what the church from the first had\nstruggled to keep separate, the pontifical and the imperial or royal\npowers, and also in maintaining the feudal monarchy instead of the\nRoman or representative monarchy. In every nation that accepted the\nreformation the feudal monarchy was retained, and still subsists. The\ncrown in them all is an estate, as in England, and in some of them is,\nin fact, the only estate recognized by the constitution. The elector\nof Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, the margrave of Brandenburg, the\nkings of Sweden, of Denmark, and of England and Scotland, became each\nin his own dominions supreme pontiff, and united in his own person the\nsupreme civil and ecclesiastical powers. The same in principle {634}\nbecame the fact in the Protestant Netherlands and the Protestant\ncantons of Switzerland; and though some Protestant European states\ntolerate dissent from the state religion, there is not one that\nrecognizes the freedom of religion, or that does not subject religion\nto the civil power. The political sense of the reformation was the\nunion of the imperial and pontifical powers in the political\nsovereign, and the maintenance of the feudal monarchy and nobility, or\nthe constitution of society on feudal principles. Nothing, then, is or\ncan be further from the fact than that Protestants generally incline\nto republicanism, except the pretense that Protestantism emancipates\nthe mind and establishes religious liberty.\n\nNo doubt, the feudal monarchy and nobility struggled in all Europe to\nmaintain themselves against the Greco-Roman system represented by the\nCivil Law and favored by the theologians of the church and her supreme\npontiffs. So far as the struggle was against the feudal nobility, or,\nas I may term it, the system of privilege, the church, the kings, and\nthe people have in their general action been on the same side; and\nhence in France, where the struggle was the best defined, the great\nnobles were the first to embrace the reformation; they came very near\ndetaching the kingdom itself from the church, during the wars of the\nLigue, and were prevented only by the conversion, interested or\nsincere, of Henri Quatre. Henry saw clearly enough that monarchy could\nnot struggled successfully in France against the feudal nobility\nwithout the support of the church and the people. Richelieu and\nMazarin saw the same, and destroyed what remained of the feudal\nnobility as a political power. They, no doubt, did it in the interest\nand for the time to the advantage of monarchy. Louis XIV. concentrated\nin himself all the powers of the state, and could say \"_L'\u00e9tat, c'est\nmoi_--I am the state,\" and tried hard to grasp the pontifical power,\nand to be able to say, \"_L'\u00e9glise, c'est moi_--I am the church;\" but\nfailed. Always did and do kings and emperors, whether Catholic or\nnon-Catholic, seek to enlarge their power and to gain to themselves\nthe supreme control not only of civil but also of ecclesiastical\naffairs, and courtiers, whether lay or cleric, are always but too\nready to sustain absolute monarchy. Warring against the system of\nprivilege, for national unity against the disintegrating tendencies of\nfeudalism, monarchy threatens in the seventeen and eighteenth\ncenturies to become absolute in all Europe, but it met with permanent\nsuccess in no state that did not adopt the reformation, and ceased to\nbe Catholic.\n\nI hold that Roman constitution, as modified and amended by\nChristianity, is far better for society and more in accordance with\nreligion and liberty, then the feudal constitution, which is\nessentially barbaric. If we look at Europe as it really was during the\nlong struggle hardly yet ended, we shall see that it was impossible to\nbreak up the feudal constitution of society without for the moment\ngiving to the kings and undue power, which in its turn would need to\nbe resisted. But in all countries that remained Catholic, monarchy was\nalways treated as representative by the theologians, and the\nrepublican doctrines that subsequent to the reformation found\nadvocates in Protestant states were borrowed either from the agents or\nfrom Catholic writers--for the most part, probably, from the mediaeval\nmonks, of whom modern liberals know so little and against whom they\nsay so much. It was only in those countries where the reformation was\nfollowed and religion subjected to the state that the feudal monarchy\ndeveloped into the oriental. England under Henry VIII., Edward VI.,\nElizabeth Tudor, and James and Charles Stuart, had lost nearly all its\nold liberties, and nearly all power was centred in the crown. The\nresistance offered to Charles I. was {635} not to gain new but to\nrecover old liberties, with some new and stronger guaranties. The\nProtestant princes of northern Germany governed as absolutely as any\noriental despot. The movement toward republicanism started in the\nsouth, not in the north, in Catholic not in Protestant states. The\nfact is patent and undeniable, explain it as you will.\n\nI admit that Catholic princes, as well as Protestant, sought to grasp\nthe pontifical power, and to subject the church in their respective\ndominions to their own authority, but they never fully succeeded. The\ncivil power claimed in France more than belonged to it; but while it\nimpeded the free movements of the Gallican Church, it never succeeded\nin absolutely enslaving it. Louis XIV., or even Napoleon the First,\nnever succeeded in making himself the head of the Gallican Church; and\nthe Constitutional church created by the Revolution, and which, like\nthe Church of England, was absolutely dependent on the civil power,\nhas long since disappeared and left no trace behind. In Spain,\nPortugal, Naples, Tuscany, Austria, attempts to subject religion to\nthe state have not been wanting, but, though doing great harm to both\nthe ecclesiastical and the civil society, they have never been\ncompletely successful. It is only in Protestant states that they have\nfully succeeded, or rather, I should say, in non-Catholic states, for\nthe church is as much a slave in Russia as in Great Britain.\n\nBossuet, courtier and high-toned monarchist as he was, and as much as\nhe consented to yield to the king, never admitted the competency of\nthe king in scriptuals strictly so called; and if he yielded to the\nking on the question of the regalia, it was only on the ground of an\noriginal concession from the head of the church to the kings of\nFrance, or the immemorial custom of the kingdom, not as an inherent\nright of the civil power. He went too far in the Four Articles of 1682\nto meet the approbation of Innocent XI., but he did not fall into\nheresy or schism. And it may be alleged in his defence, that if he had\nnot gone thus far the court would most likely have gone further, and\nhave actually separated the Gallican Church from the Holy See.\n\nBossuet was unquestionably a monarchist and something of a courtier,\nthough he appears to have had always the best interests of religion at\nheart; and we can hardly say that he did not take the best means\npossible in his time of promoting them. As one of the preceptors of\nthe Dauphin, father of the Duke of Burgundy, of whom F\u00e9nelon was the\nprincipal preceptor, he taught the political system acceptable to the\nking; but he impressed on his pupil as much as possible under that\nsystem a sense of his responsibility, his duty to regard his power as\na high trust from God to be exercised without fear or favor for the\ngood of the people committed to his charge. F\u00e9nelon went further, and\nhinted that the nation had not abdicated its original rights, and\nstill retained the right to be consulted in the management of its\naffairs; and he was dismissed from his preceptorship, forbidden to\nappear at court, and exiled to his diocese, while every possible\neffort, in which it is to be regretted that Bossuet took a prominent\npart, to degrade him as a man and a theologian, and to procure his\ncondemnation as a heretic, was made by the French court. But heretic\nhe was not; he simply erred in the use of language which, though it\nhad been used by canonized saints, was susceptible of an heretical\nsense. The Congregation condemned the language, not the man, nor his\nreal doctrine. He retracted the language, not the doctrine, and\nedified the world by his submission.\n\nThere is hardly any doctrine further removed from every form of\nrepublicanism than that of the divine right of kings, defended by\nJames I. of England in his Remonstrance for the Divine Right of Kings\nand the Independency of their Crowns, written in reply to a speech of\nthe {636} celebrated Cardinal Duperron in the States-General of France\nin 1614--the last time the States-General were convoked till convoked\nby the unhappy Louis XVI. at Versailles, in May, 1789. In that work, a\ncopy of the original edition of which, as well as of \"his majestie's\nspeech in the Star-chamber,\" now lies before me, their kingship\nimmediately from God, and are accountable to him alone for the use\nthey made of their power. He denies their accountability alike to the\nPope and the people. This was and really is the doctrine, if not of\nall Protestants, at least of the Anglican Church and of all Protestant\ncourts; but it is not and never was a Catholic doctrine. The utmost\nlength in the same direction that any Catholic writer of note, except\nBossuet, ever went, so far as I can find, is that the king, supposing\nhim to be elected by the people, does, when so elected, reign _de jure\ndivino_ or by divine right; but Suarez   [Footnote 177] refutes them,\nand maintains that the royal power emanates from the community, and is\nexercised, _formaliter_, by human right, _de jure humano_, and thus\nasserts the real republican principle. Balmes, in his great work on\nthe Influence of Catholicity and Protestantism on European\nCivilization compared, cites an instance of a Spanish monk who in the\ntime of Philip II. ventured one day to preach the irresponsibility of\nthe king, but was compelled by the Inquisition to retract his doctrine\npublicly, in the very pulpit from which he had preached it.\n\n  [Footnote 177: De Legibus, lib. iii., cap. 3 and 4, i.]\n\nHe who has studied somewhat profoundly the internal political history\nof the so-called Latin nations of Europe, will find that they have\nhad, from very early times, a strong tendency to republicanism, and\neven to democracy, and that the tendency has been checked never by the\nchurch, but by the kings and feudal nobility. The doctrines of 1789\nwere no novelty in France even in the thirteenth century, and they\nwere preached very distinctly and very boldly in the Ligue when the\nnation was threatened with a non-Catholic or Huguenot king, even by\nJesuits. The great Dominican and Franciscan orders have never shown\nany strong attachment to monarchy in any form, and have rarely been\nthe courtiers or flatterers of power. That the sad effects of the old\nFrench revolution produced a reaction in many Catholic minds, as well\nas in many Protestant minds, in favor of monarchy, is very true; and\nperhaps the most influential portion of European Catholics, living as\nthey do in the midst of a revolution that makes war on the church, on\ncivil order, on society, on civilization itself, cling to the royal\nauthority as the lesser evil and as their only security, under God,\nfor the future of religion.  And it is not strange that they should.\nBut this, whether wise or otherwise, is only accidental, and no people\nwill be more loyal republicans than Catholics, when the republic gives\nthem security for life and property, and more than all, for the free\nand full exercise of their religion as Catholics, as is the case in\nthe United States.\n\nThe republic of the United States, we are told, was founded by\nProtestants, and it is only the United States that can give the\nslightest coloring to the pretense that Protestants are inclined to\nrepublicanism. But, closely examined, the fact gives less coloring\nthan is commonly supposed. The republic of the United States can\nhardly be said to be founded either by Catholics or Protestants: it\nwas founded by Providence, not by men. The Puritans, the most disposed\nto republicanism of any of the original colonists, were dissenters\nfrom the Church of England, and the principles on which they dissented\nwere in the main those which they had borrowed or inherited from\nCatholic tradition. They objected to the Church of England that she\nallowed the king to be both king and pontiff, and subjected religion\nto the civil power. In this they only followed the example of the\nPopes. They {637} with the Popes denied the competency of the civil\npower in spirituals. This was the principle of their dissent, as it\nhas recently been the principle of the separation of the Free Kirk in\nScotland from the national church. As the king was the head of the\nChurch of England, making it a royal church, they were naturally led\nto defend their dissent on republican principles. M. Guizot seems to\nregard the English revolution, which made Cromwell Lord Protector of\nthe realm, as primarily political; but with all due respect to so\ngreat an authority, I venture to say that it was primarily religious,\nthat its first movement was a protest against the authority of the\nking or parliament to ordain anything in religion not prescribed by\nthe word of God. I state the principle universally, without taking\nnotice of the matters accidentally associated with it, and so stated\nit is a Catholic principle, always asserted and insisted on by the\nPopes. It was primarily to carry out this principle, and to regain the\ncivil liberties lost by the nation through the reformation, but not\nforgotten, that they resisted the king, and made a republican\nrevolution, which very few foresaw or desired. The Puritans who\nsettled in the wilds of America brought with them the ideas and\nprinciples they had adopted before leaving England, and if they had\nrepublican tendencies, they were hardly republicans.\n\nMr. Bancroft, in Volume IX. of his History of the United States, just\npublished, shows very clearly that at the beginning of their disputes\nwith the mother country the colonists were not generally republican in\nthe ordinary sense of the word, but attached to monarchy after the\nEnglish fashion, and also that the struggle in the minds of the\ncolonists was long and severe before they reluctantly abandoned\nmonarchy and accepted republicanism. The American revolution did not\noriginate in any desire to suppress monarchy as it existed in Great\nBritain and establish republicanism, but to resist the encroachments\nof the mother country on their rights as British colonists, or rather,\nas British subjects. The rights of man they asserted had been derived\nfrom the civil law, for the most part through medium of the common\nlaw, and the writings, if not of Catholic theologians, at least of\nCatholic lawyers. They held as republicans not from Protestantism, but\nchiefly from Greece and Rome. Moreover, a monarchical government was\nimpracticable, and there really was no alternative for the American\npeople but republican government or colonial dependence. In the main\nour institutions were the growth of the country, and were very little\ninfluenced by the political theories of the colonists or the political\nwisdom and sagacity of American statesmen. Hence they are more\nstrictly the work of Providence than of human foresight or human\nintelligence and will. It is therefore that their permanence and\ngrowth are to be counted on. They have their root in the soil, and are\nadapted to both the soil and the climate. They are of American origin\nand growth.\n\nReligious liberty is not, as I have shown, of Protestant origin. Most\nof the colonists held the Catholic principle of the incompetency of\nthe civil power in spirituals, but the greater part of them held that\nthe civil power is bound to recognize and to provide for the support\nby appropriate legislation of the true religion, and that only. Yet as\nthey were not agreed among themselves as to which is the true\nreligion, or what is the true sense of the revealed word, and having\nno authoritative interpreter recognized as such by all, and no one\nsect being strong enough to establish itself and to suppress the\nothers, there was no course practicable but to protect all religions\nnot _contra banos mores_, and leave each individual free before the\nlaw to choose his own religion and to worship God according to the\ndictates of his own conscience. This was of absolute necessity in our\ncase if we were to form a political community and carry on civil\ngovernment at all.\n\n{638}\n\nI do not claim that Catholics founded civil and religious liberty in\nthe United States, nor do I deny that so far as men had a hand in\nfounding them, they were founded by Protestants, but I do contend that\nour Protestant ancestors acted in regard to them on Catholic rather\nthan on Protestant principles. We have so often heard civil and\nreligious liberty spoken of as the result of the reformation that many\npeople really believe it, and many good honest American citizens are\nreally afraid that the rapid increase of Catholicity in the country\nthreatens ruin to our free institutions. But the only liberty\nProtestantism, as such, has ever yet favored, is the liberty of the\ncivil power to control the ecclesiastical. There is no danger to any\nother liberty from the spread of Catholicity. There is a great\ndifference between accepting and sustaining a democratic government\nwhere it already legally exists, and laboring to introduce it in\nopposition to the established and to the habits, customs, and usages\nof the people where it does not exist. And even if Catholics in other\ncountries had a preference for the monarchical form, they would not\ndream of introducing it here, and would be led by their own\nconservative principles, if here, to oppose it, since nothing in their\nreligion requires them, as a Catholic duty, to support one particular\nform of government rather than another.\n\nProtestantism affords in its principles no basis for either civil or\nreligious liberty. Its great doctrine, that which it opposes as a\nreligion to the church, is the absolute moral and spiritual inability\nof man, or the total moral and spiritual depravity of human nature, by\nthe fall. This is the central principle of the reformation, from which\nall its distinctive doctrines radiate. This doctrine denies all\nnatural liberty and all natural virtue, and hence the reformation\nmaintains justification without works, by faith alone, in which man is\npassive, not active, and that all the works of unbelievers or the\nunregenerate are sins. Man is impotent for good, and does not and\ncannot even by grace concur with grace. All his thoughts and deeds our\nonly evil, and that continually, and even the regenerate continue to\nsin after regeneration as before, only God does not impute there seems\nto them, but for his dear Son's seek turns away his eyes from them,\nand imputes to them the righteousness of Christ, and with it covers\ntheir iniquities. There is no ground on which to assert the natural\nrights of man, for the fall has deprived man of all his natural\nrights; and for republican equality the Reformation phones at best the\naristocracy of grace, of the elect, as was taught by Wickliffe, and\nattempted to be realized by Calvin in Geneva, and by the Puritans in\nNew England, who confined the elective franchise and eligibility to\nthe saints, which is repugnant to both civil and religious liberty for\nall men.\n\nIt is time that our historians and popular writers should reflect a\nlittle on what they are saying, when they assert that the reformation\nemancipated the mind and prepared the way for civil and religious\nfreedom. This has become a sort of cant, and Catholics here it\nrepeated so often that some of them almost think that it cannot be\nwithout some foundation, and therefore that there must be something\nuncatholic in civil and religious liberty. It is all a mistake, and\nillusion, or a delusion. The principles of the reformation, as far as\nprinciples it had, were and are in direct conflict with them, and\nwhatever progress either has made has been not buy it, but in spite of\nit, by means and influences it began its career by repudiating. The\nman reared in the bosom of the reformation has no conception of real\nreligious, civil, or mental liberty till he is converted to the\nCatholic faith, and enters as a freeman into the Catholic Church.\n\nI have dwelt at length on this subject for the sake of historical\ntruth, and also to quiet the fears of my non-Catholic countrymen that\nthe spread {639} of the church in our country will endanger our\nrepublican or democratic system of government. That system of\ngovernment is quite as acceptable to Catholics as it is to\nProtestants, and accords far better with Catholic principles then with\nthe principles of the reformation. The church does not make our system\nof government obligatory on all nations; she directly enjoins it\nnowhere, because no one system is adapted alike to all nations; and\neach nation, under God, is free to adapt its political institutions to\nits own wants, taste, and genius; but she is satisfied with it here,\nand requires her children to be loyal to it. It is here the law, and\nas such I supported it. I might not support a similar system for Great\nBritain, France, or Russia; because, though it fits us, it might not\nfit equally well the British, the French, or the Russians, or as well\nas the systems they already have fit them. My coat may not fit my\nneighbor, and my neighbor's coat may not fit me. I am neither as a\nCatholic nor as a statesman a political propagandist. But I love my\nown country with an affection I was unconscious of as a Protestant,\nand Americans bred up Catholics will always be found to be among our\nmost ardent patriots, and our most stanch defenders of both civil and\nreligious freedom.\n\nThe mistake is that people are too ready to make a religion of their\npolitics, and to seek to make the system of government they happen to\nbe enamored  of for themselves a universal system, and to look upon\nall nations that do not accept it, or not blessed with it, as deprived\nof the advantages of civil society. They make their system the\nstandard by which all institutions, all men and nations, are to be\ntried. They become political bigots, and will tolerate no political\ntheories but their own. Hence, the American people are apt to suppose\nthere is no political freedom where our system of government does not\nprevail; and to conclude because the church recognizes the legitimacy\nin other forms of governments in other countries, and does not preach\na crusade against them, that she is the enemy of free institutions and\nsocial progress. All this is wrong. Religion is one and catholic, and\nobligatory upon all alike; political systems, save in the great\nethical principles which underlie them, are particular, national, and\nare obligatory only on the nation that adopts them. There are catholic\nprinciples of government, but no catholic or universal form of\ngovernment. Our government is best for us, but that does not prove\nthat in political matters we are wiser or better than other civilized\nnations, or that we have the right to set ourselves up as the model\nnation of the world. Other nations may not be wholly forsaken by\nProvidence. Non-Catholic Americans cry out against the church that she\nis anti-republican; but if we were monarchists we should cry out as\ndid the monarchical party in the sixteenth century, that she is\nanti-monarchical and hostile to the independence of kings. Let us\nlearn that she may in one age or country support one form of civil\nconstitution, and without inconsistency support a different system in\nanother.\n\n--------\n\n{640}\n\n\nFrom All the Year Round.\n\n\n\"DEO OPT. MAX\"\n\n  Art thou drowsy, dull, indifferent,\n    Folder of the hands,\n  Dreaming o'er the silent falling\n    Of life's measured sands?\n\n  Living without aim or motion,\n    Save thyself to please,\n  Careless as the beasts that perish,\n    Sitting at thine ease?\n\n  Not for thee the mighty message\n    Rings in startling tone;\n  Vainly would its peeling accents\n  Strike through hearts of stone.\n\n  Sounding o'er the clash and clatter\n    Of this earth's vain din,\n  Unto you, that live in earnest,\n    And that work to win,\n\n  Thus it speaks: \"Aspirants, toilers\n    For some lofty gain,\n  See ye spend not strength and spirits,\n    Hope and faith, in vain!\n\n  \"All that soars past self is noble--\n    Every upward aim--\n  Make it nobler yet--the noblest!\n    And immortal fame!\n\n  \"Let not good or great content ye--\n    Higher and still higher,\n  Only for the best, the greatest,\n    Labor and aspire!\n\n  \"Spurning all that's partial, doubtful,\n    All your vigor bend\n  (Worthiest aim and worthiest effort)\n    To a perfect end!\n\n  \"Thus have all true saints before ye,\n    All true heroes striven,\n  Reaching for the best, the highest,\n    Beyond earth to heaven.\"\n\n------\n\n{641}\n\nTranslated from the French.\n\n\n\nROBERT; OR, THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIRST.\n\n\n  \"Although young on the earth,\n  I am already alone.\n   . . . . .\n  And when I ask myself\n    Where are those I love?\n  I look at the green turf.\"\n                 LAMARTINE.\n\n\nTHE ORPHAN.\n\nThe traveler who passes through the village of the baths of Mount\nDore, situated at the base of the mountain of Angle, will find that\nbetween the mountains the little streams of Dore and Dogne unites, and\ntake the name of the river Dordogne. In looking at the course of this\nnew-born River, he will see to the left of the mountain of Ecorchade,\nthus named for its ruggedness and its deep ravines. This mountain\ncrumbles away each day under the powerful hand of time, and its\nvolcanic wrecks move the valley with strange sounds, which the echo\ntakes up and wafts to the most distant spots. On the other side of the\nvalley, to the right of the mountain, and in front of Ecorchade, is\nanother mountain, the round top of which is covered with verdure and\nwith wood. Its base is formed of basaltic columns of black, white, and\ngray rocks of different shapes and sizes, which stand there like a\ntroop of phantoms. Near the base, and in one of the fissures of this\nmass of rocks, piled up by some giant hand, there was, about\ntwenty-five years ago, a little house, constructed, one might imagine,\nby the spirit of the mountain, to serve as a refuge for travellers\nwhen the furious children of the tempest were unchained. Hidden by the\nabrupt flanks of the mountain, and masked in the spring and summer by\nthe dense foliage of trees centuries old, this retreat suddenly became\nvisible to mortal eye. But the chief interest attached to it is, that\nfor twelve years it was inhabited by a high-bred lady, who chose this\nsecluded spot, and placed herself, one might say, on the first step of\nthis gigantic ladder, which seemed by degrees to draw her nearer to\nheaven, and away from the vain pursuits of earth. She came unattended,\ncarrying in her arms an infant several months old. This child, her\nson, was the object of her most tender care, and was the only thing\nthat was to endear her to this savage solitude. From whence came this\nperson, who was she, and what were her resources for living? No one\nknew. Her real name even was to remain a mystery for all, even for\nthose eager and pitiless people who are always ready to unravel the\ncauses of secret sorrow, and who rejoice when they can see tears and\nsuffering. Such people are like a species of wasp that only approach\nto sting you most cruelly. The people of the valley had on many\noccasions tried to stop this young woman and capture her confidence by\ntestimonials of friendship and feigned sensibility, but they had seen\ntheir insidious advances repulsed with such coldness that, deceived\nand disappointed, they were obliged to put an end to their efforts.\nFinally, when all curiosity had subsided and given place to the most\ncomplete indifference, they learned in some way that she called\nherself Madame Dormeuil, and her little boy Robert. There was one\nperson, however, who had received the intimate confidence of Madame\nDormeuil, and that was the cur\u00e9 of the village, and from time to time\nhe was seen directing his steps toward the solitary abode, where more\nthan one indiscreet eye had wished to penetrate. At the time this\nstory opens it is {642} night, one of those glorious nights of the\nmonth of May, nights full of sweet mysteries and soft perfumes, nights\nthe nightingale resounds in harmonious cadences. It is the hour of\nsilence and repose for humanity; but still a dim light shone through\none of the windows of this isolated house. As the hours of the night\nadvanced, when all nature slept, even the smallest insect under the\nhumid leaves of the rose, hard necessity constrained even the inmates\nof this house to sleep, but alas! It proved a funeral awakening. The\ntender mother, who, during the infancy of her child, had tasted in\nthis modest asylum moments of happiness, pure and chaste, such as our\nonly given to maternal love, closed her eyes, and breathed out her\nlast sigh, with no one here but her little son. In vain he calls his\ndear mother, her voice can reply to him no more. Poor child! what will\nbecome of him? for he has no one in the wide world to love and protect\nhim; and in the bitterness of his grief he sobs and cries, \"Dead!\ndead! I have no mother now!\" and takes her hand, but it is cold and\nstiff, and no longer sensible to the soft pressure of his. The\nunaccustomed silence of those lips, that never parted but to speak\ntenderly to him, is more than he can bear, but suddenly his face\nrecovers its habitual serenity, and a smile lights up his pallid\ncheeks. What means this sudden change, this almost instantaneous\nforgetfulness of sorrow, which drives in an instant the tears of love?\nBut do not blame him; it is not forgetfulness, but remembrance--the\nremembrance of his mother's last words--her last adieu, her last\nsublime expression of a love which cannot be extinguished, even by the\ncold shadow of death, for it re-lives in heaven. \"My child,\" said his\nmother to him on that day, \"I have loved you much, but I must leave\nyou. I am going to live with the angels, but I will watch over you. Be\nwise, honest, laborious; love God with all your heart, and others as\nyourself, and he will bless you. Do not grieve for my loss, for I will\nstill be useful to you in heaven. I will pray there for you. Take\ncourage, and always remember, when you are in trouble, to raise your\nthoughts to the eternal throne, and consolation will not be denied\nyou.\" These were the words which Robert remember, and which stopped so\nsuddenly the violence of his grief. This was why he almost thought his\nmother was not dead; this was why he felt no fear, though alone; with\nthese sweet thoughts forever present, he fancied her eyes would reopen\nand smile upon him. He knelt in prayed with fervor, seeming to solicit\nsome special manifestation, and his attitude told that he mentally\ninvoked of his mother and the Protector of children what he knew to be\ngood for them; and his prayer, no doubt, was favorably received, for\nit his imagination he saw the home of the saints. \"My mother!\" cried\nthe child, transported with joy, \"is it thee? Oh! speak, I pray thee,\nspeak to thy Robert!\" But the celestial vision faded, and he saw\nnothing but the thousands of little globes of light, the sparkling\nfire of which dazzled his eyes. Thus maternal influence, even from the\ntomb, comes as a gentle authority to this pious orphan. We will see\nhim in each important event, and in each critical phase of his life\ninvoking this mysterious and beneficent power that presides over him\nfrom heaven, in the presence of his mother. It is already under the\ngenerous impulse of this belief that he is consoled and strengthens,\nand returns to the funeral chamber, and calls again upon prayer and\nreflection.\n\nRobert had never played with children. Always with his mother, whom he\npassionately loved, and who conversed with him as she would have done\nwith an older person, he had acquired a seriousness of conversation\nand a precocity of judgment which made him, though still a child in\nyears, almost a man in his intelligence and good sense. Child of\nsolitude, wild flower of the mountain, he was {643} entirely ignorant\nof the habits of cities and of society, but he possessed an instinct\nwhich took the place of large experience in human nature. He was what\nGod had made him, good and generous, loving the beautiful with the\nfervent adoration which characterizes great souls, and feeling a deep\nrepugnance for even the appearance of evil. These inestimable gifts\nGod in his wisdom has seen fit to endow to certain souls.\n\nRobert was not more than twelve years of age, but he could read and\nwrite well. Possessed of a good memory, he had retained the many\nrecitations made him by his mother in geography and sacred and profane\nhistory. His course of reading had not been extensive, for his mother\nhad but few books; but she had been to him the living book from which\nhe had gained all he knew, and which developed the qualities of the\nheart and Christian virtues which, later in life, shone so brilliantly\nin him. Robert was often absorbed in thinking over his past life, so\nrich in delicious memories. He remembered that his mother had spoken\nto him of Paris with an emotion which betrayed itself in her trembling\nvoice. She was born there, she had told him, and had passed a part of\nher youth there. He remembered perfectly that, each time his mother\nreferred to the subject, she exercised upon him a charm which entirely\ncaptivated his attention. If by her glowing descriptions of Madame\nDormeuil had any intention of exciting in her son the wish to go to\nthat city, she completely succeeded, for, notwithstanding his tender\nyears, the words of his mother had filled him with an ardent desire to\nsee the place predestined to be the most beautiful and most wonderful\ncity ever built by the hands of man. This desire taking hold of him,\nhe naturally thinks of the means of satisfying it, if the unfortunate\ncircumstances in which he finds himself will forget. Moved by the\nstrong wish, which was not weekend when obstacles presented\nthemselves, Robert tried to get things ready to start. Opening a\ncloset where he had often seen his mother put things she intended for\nhim, the first object that met his eyes was a package, tied, and\nbearing this inscription, \"For my son when he is twenty-one years of\nage.\" Under this was another paper, folded double, but not tied. He\nopened this, looking at the words which were written at the top: \"My\nlast requests.\" \"When I shall be no more, my son,\" said Madame\nDormeuil (and unfortunately the hour of death approaches very near)\n\"quit this mountain where thou hast been a happy child, and go to\nParis, where thou wast born. God and my love will conduct thee there,\nbut constantly place thyself under his protection. Work; make thyself\nbeloved, by thy sweetness and perseverance and good conduct. A voice\nwithin said to me one day, that happiness crowned all virtuous\nefforts, and this prediction of my heart will be realized, and thy\nmother will rejoice in heaven when she sees it descend on thee. Thou\nwilt find in a purse some crown pieces; it is all that I possess.\nStart soon, walk the short roads, have courage. Avoid bad children,\nseek the old and the wise. Pray to God fervently, and he will never\nabandon the good who walk in his presence and keep in their hearts the\ncounsels of a mother. Adieu, my child, my dear and much loved Robert I\nwill meet you in a better world than that in which I leave you, my\npoor little one, and then we will never part again.\"\n\nRobert covered with kisses and with tears the words traced by the\nfailing hand of his mother; then, when he was a little calmed, it made\nhim happy to know that she had conceived a plan which was precisely\nthe same he had thought of, and that she was solicitous for him to go.\nThe rest of the night passed slowly enough to the young orphan. At\ndaybreak he came down from the mountain and knocked at the door of the\nrectory. The virtuous and worthy cur\u00e9, who preached to the inhabitants\nof the village of Bains, received him with the utmost kindness, for he\nhad known him long and well, and had already initiated him into the\n{644} mysteries of our divine religion, and from his pure and touching\nmorals he had been led to give him his first communion. When he saw\nthe poor child in such distress he could scarcely utter a word, so\nmuch did he feel for his bleeding heart, either could he ask him the\nquestions he knew he ought relative to his leaving the isolated place\nin which he had lived, nor could Robert have answered them so full was\nhe of emotion; but he said to him in a paternal tone and full of\ninterest: \"Let us see, my child, what is to be done with your effects.\nDon't you think that you should leave the place, now that you are\nalone? What do you intend to do? Have you formed any project? If you\nhave confidence in me, tell me your ideas, speak to me openly, and all\nthat I can possibly do for you I will with pleasure I have no\noccupation but to do good to others, to console them in their sorrows,\nand take them by the hand with a need assistance.\" \"Thank you, good\ncur\u00e9,\" replied Robert, with sweetness and respect. \"I desire to obey\nthe wishes of my mother, who tells me to go to Paris. See what she\nsays to me--this dear, good mother--before she dies,\" holding to him\nwith the trembling hand the precious paper containing the\ninterpretation of his mothers wishes. He then said: \"Is it not a\nsacred duty I owe my mother, that of accomplishing her last request?\"\n\"Yes, my dear child, but you are very young to make so long a journey\non foot to Paris. Do you know any one there?\" \"No, sir; but my mother\nsaid I must go, and no matter how I get there I must do it.\" \"Your\nresolution is praiseworthy my child, yet it seems to me that you\nshould reflect a little, before undertaking what seems so much for\nyou. But if you really must attempt it, I will give you a letter to a\nfriend of mine, who is now cur\u00e9 of the Church of Saint-Germain\nl'Auxerrois. This recommendation, I hope, will be of great assistance\nto you, for my friend is a man of rare virtues and inexhaustible\ncharity Place your cell under his protection, and I do not doubt but\nyou will soon be out of embarrassment. I think you should sell your\nfurniture, the proceeds would in large your funds very much. But, my\nchild, your extreme youth frightens me. I am afraid you will never get\nto Paris.\" \"Oh! be tranquil, good father. I trust so much to God as my\nguide that I know I shall arrived without accident, and with but\nlittle fatigue.\" \"Go, my child, I have no longer any objection; and\nsince you desire it so much, I will do all I can to facilitate your\nproject. While I am gone refresh yourself; take something to eat, it\nwill strengthen your body, which cannot but be feeble under the\nsufferings of your soul.  Do you hear, my child? I want you to take\nsome nourishment, if it is only a little you will feel better after\nit. I will return directly,\" and, looking kindly at him, the venerable\ncur\u00e9 went out, to see which of his parishioners would purchase the\nfurniture belonging to the orphan.\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n  \"Still  an hour of suffering,\n    Still a sad farewell\".\n\n. . . . .\n\nTHE FAREWELL.\n\n\nThe cur\u00e9 was a all time absent, and when he return had no good news\nfor Robert; his errand had been ineffectual. \"My child,\" said he, \"my\nwishes for disposing of your furniture have been in vain, but do not\nbe discouraged. Let us go and pay the last mark of respect to your\nmother, and then we will speak of other things.\" Robert followed him,\nand on the way told him of the package of papers he had found in the\ncloset, the contents of which he was not to know until he had attained\nhis majority.\n\n\"I advise you, my child, to leave me the package to take care of. If\nyou should lose it, it would be an irreplaceable loss, and might be\nattended with {645} serious results. You need fear no accident on my\npart, for, if God should call me to him, before we meet again, I will\nput it in safe hands; for instance, if it please you, to the Notary of\nBesse, a small town about two leagues from here. It might be a long\ntime before you would return, but the grave of your mother will draw\nyou here, and I know you are too good a son to forget it. I am sure,\nthen, of seeing you sometimes if God wills it, for it is the Supreme\nArbiter who decides the length of our days.\" They had come by this\ntime to the house, the door of which was opened by a woman who had\nbeen sent there by the cur\u00e9 to \"lay\" out the mother of the poor\norphan. Her body was then enclosed in the coffin, and the _cort\u00e9ge_\ntook the way which led to the churchyard, where rest at last the king\nand his subjects, the rich and the poor. Oh! what courage it requires\nto bear up under the sorrows of this last sad walk, above all when the\nearth receives the remains of a cherished mother. How each sound that\nfell on the coffin bruised this poor child's heart! And were it not\nfor the consoling hope, the firm belief, that his mother was in\nheaven, his life would be one of despair; but he believed what she\ntold him before she died, that she would rest on the bosom of God, and\nthat she would watch over him with the same love and the same\nsolicitude of which she had given him so many proofs during her life.\nHe was the last to leave this new grave, which hid from his sight\nforever the only being he ever loved, and which was watered with\nfilial tears. \"Oh!\" he exclaimed, \"if I can only put a stone over my\ngood mother, it will be a consolation to know, when I visit the spot\nwhere I leave my heart, that it is marked by the love of a son.\" Full\nof this idea he revealed it afterward to the good cur\u00e9, who took an\ninterest in it, and listened, with tears in his eyes, while the child\ncultures the cost of a simple so. \"But, my child,\" he said sadly, \"all\nsimple as it may be, it will still be too dear for your feeble\nresources. Wait for executing this pious wish until you have more to\nspare. I cannot promise you that it will be a new one, but I will\nplace a wooden cross on your mother's grave.\" Robert, although\nsaddened at the non-success of his project, felt the wisdom of the\nadvice which was given him. He resigned it for the present, hoping\nthat a more prosperous time would come, when miserable pecuniary\nconsiderations need not stop him in the accomplishment of what he felt\nwas a filial duty. Then after having thanked the pastor, and told him\nhow grateful he was to him for his paternal care and loving advice, he\nasked his permission to pass another night in the house where he first\nremembered the light of day. \"Go, my child,\" said the cur\u00e9, moved by\nhis touching resolution, \"go if you feel strong enough: solitude\nraises the soul and purifies its approach to the Creator. Sometimes\nremember the consoling words of our divine Saviour, 'Blessed are they\nwho mourn, for they shall be comforted.' It is time for you to go. May\nGod in the silence of your solitary night visit your desolate soul,\nand with his paternal hand wipe away your tears. To-morrow morning I\nwill see you, and we will arrange about your affairs.\"\n\nThe courageous child, for he was courageous to put himself face to\nface with so many dear remembrances, wished to visit once more the\nhaunts of his infant joys, where his mother had guided his tottering\nsteps, and, later, where she had explained to him the wonders of\nnature in the presence of these wonders. Yes, he wished to see them\nall again, and engrave them in an ineffaceable manner upon his memory.\nThey were all dear to his heart, all filled with thoughts of his\nmother, and the most tender caresses had been exchanged there between\nthem. He recalled the dreams of those days when his head rested on his\nmother's bosom, and he felt himself {646} bathed in love and\nhappiness; he recalled the charm of that intercourse, when two hearts\nare bound in sweetest sympathy; and it was for this purpose that he\nwandered over the mountain, stopping at each loved spot, until he\nreached the highest plateau. There he sat down, but not before looking\naround him, for, for the first time in his life, he felt a little\ntimid and frightened. The magic beauty of his surroundings was not\nnew, he had seen it all often before, had contemplated it a thousand\ntimes, but a sort of unquiet terror seizes him, and betrays itself in\ntears. It seems but a day since he bounded and frolicked gayly in the\nsame places, under the eye of his mother, and now what a strange and\nsorrowful change! He is alone; his strength and courage all gone. He\nseems so small and insignificant by the side of these masses of rocks,\nso gigantic and imposing, which look at him as though they would crush\nhim. Little by little he becomes reassured; he thinks he hears above\nhim chords of infinite sweetness; these ravishing sounds seem to come\nfrom the sky; it is a choir of angels, who chant the notes of some\nsweet melody. The child is transported with delight: he listens; his\nsoul is strengthened, he is not deceived. From among those harmonious\nvoices he discovers one well known to him, the sound of which makes\nhim happy. He knows it is his mother's, and she calls tenderly to him:\n\"Robert, what do you believe? am I not always with you? Look, my\nchild, and admire this grand picture, radiant with waves of gold and\npurple from the declining sun. Look in wonder at what God has done for\nyou.\" These words transformed Robert. He is transported with a new\nemotion, and, prostrating himself on his knees, cries, \"O God! O God!\nhow wonderful art thou, how grand are thy works!\" After he had\nsatisfied his soul with the enchanting scene, he went to all the spots\nwhere he had sat with his mother, and gave them each a long and\nsorrowful look, and then bade farewell to them. \"Farewell, dear\nmountain, farewell beautiful valley. I gaze at you perhaps for the\nlast time. And, shady wood, where I have so often slept, watched by my\ntender mother, you who have protected me from the two great heat of\nthe sun, farewell also. I must leave you now, and I know not if I\nshall ever gaze upon your glories again. I would I could pass my life\nin your deep shades, and hear you whisper unceasingly the cherished\nname of my mother. But it cannot be; and now farewell. And thou,\nbeautiful and fertile Limagne, that I see shining in the distance, I\nsalute thee, and will soon traverse light green fields. Be hospitable\nto the poor little orphan, and made by smiling aspect and fresh\nverdure be a happy presage for me.\" He stood some moments silent and\nimmovable, lost in regrets, and then returned to the house. During the\nnight involuntary fear filled his mind. When the rays of the moon\npenetrated his chamber and the stars shed their soft light, he felt\nrevived, and waited for the vision of the preceding night, but it came\nnot, and his lips quivered, and at last sleep came to close his\neyelids and repair the strength of his body and mind. The next day the\ncur\u00e9 found him somewhat consoled, at least more calm than before he\nslept. Together they made an inventory of his modest furniture, which\nwas worth about fifty pounds. In one of the drawers they found a small\nmedallion containing the portrait of a gentleman. The face was\nhandsome and expressive, though a little hard. It was easy to see that\nit was a person of high rank; and if the good cur\u00e9 had been less\npreoccupied and had examined closely the face, he would, perhaps, have\nbeen struck by the resemblance which existed between the features of\nthe child and those of the miniature. He would have concluded beyond\ndoubt that it was his father. But he simply handed it to Robert,\nsaying almost mechanically, \"It is necessary to preserve this with\ncare.\" The {647} examination being concluded, he said to him: \"My\nchild, I have not found any purchasers for this furniture, and may not\nfor some time. I will give you, however, what I suppose to be its\nvalue, and if I should get more for it shall be glad to remit it to\nyou; by thus doing I will have time to look about, and can, perhaps,\ndispose of it two more advantage.\" The poor child knew not how to\nreply to this kindness, but he said, \"All that you have done is right,\nmy dear father, you are too good to take so much trouble for me, and I\nthank you with all my heart.\" Again the cur\u00e9 closed the door and took\nRobert's hand. He burst into sobs at the idea of being separated from\nall which reminded him of his mother, but he baked him to have\ncourage. \"Courage, my child. I know you suffer in leaving a spot\nsacred to your mother's memory; it is but a natural feeling but you\ncannot stay. Leave all to my care, accomplish the wish of your mother,\ngo to Paris, and if the blessing of an old man, a blessing which calls\ndown that of God, can inspire you with resolution and confidence in\nthe future, I give you mine, and made it make you happy.\" In saying\nthese words he had laid his hands on the head of the child, who was\nkneeling before him.\n\nRobert past several days with the kind father, where he gained\nstrength and courage; and one morning at sunrise, with a small bundle\nof his shoulder and a stick in his hand, set out, accompanied by the\ngood cur\u00e9, who had wished to render less painful by his presence the\nfirst steps of this sad journey. He had sent a letter to his friend\nthe cur\u00e9 in Paris, in which he enclosed the fifty pounds, not thinking\nit prudent that Robert should carry it with him. A half league from\nthe village, on the route to Claremont, the excellent man embraced the\nchild, pointed to heaven, and bade him farewell!\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n  \"We may know by a child's actions\n  If his motives are pure and right.\"\n                   Proverbs.\n\nAs long as it was possible, Robert followed, with burning eyes, the\ncharitable man who had comforted him in his severe affliction. Several\ntimes he turned to see if the mountain had yet disappeared, on which\nhe had passed so many happy days. At last the charm was broken, it was\nno longer visible, and tears chased each other down his checks, but he\nwalked on quickly, saying, \"My mother wishes it.\" His mind was so\noccupied that he walked on without looking at the road which ran ahead\nof his thoughts and his regrets, until, involuntarily raising his eyes\nto the scene before him, he stops in the extremity of his surprise;\nhis eyes refuse to believe their evidence; they wander from object to\nobject without knowing why, without being able to explain the mystery\nwhich plunges him into a sort of stupor, and he believes himself under\nthe dominion of a feverish and fantastic dream. He raises his hand to\nsee if he is asleep, but he is wide awake, and laughs at his\nsimplicity. It is easy for us to understand this. He recognizes no\nlonger men, things, or even nature. All that he left behind him was\ndifferent from what was before and around him. He was in a new world,\non strange ground, and everything which was presented to his sight\ncaused him an undefinable sensation. Was there not enough to surprise\nhim? These large fields, these plains of vendure, these yellow\nharvests, were to him a new spectacle, strange, singular, sometimes\neven monotonous to the eye of a little mountaineer, habituated to the\nfantastic forms of the rock and the sombre and imposing verdure of the\nwoods which covered the sides of his native mountain. Where are the\ngreat heaps of volcanic rocks among which he had been reared and which\nwere so familiar to his eyes? All had {648} disappeared, and it seemed\nto him that, without transition he had passed from severe and grand\nnature to simple and gay, rich with flowers and fruits and corn white\nand golden. It was the contrast which frightened him, and made him\nthink he had been transported by some invisible hand a thousand\nleagues from his home. Like a bird slightly wounded which flies to the\nparent nest and seeks shelter under the warm wings of its mother, so\nRobert, restless and inquiet, longs for the maternal arms in which he\ncan hide his fears. He feels his loneliness; the road seems longer at\nevery step, and he cannot see the end of it. He invokes through his\nmother the blessing of God, and his fears are dissipated, and strength\nand hope are given him to hasten on. With the versatility which is the\nhappy accompaniment of childhood, he put a sweet security in place of\nthe most foolish fears. And now he was brave again. This transition of\nsentiment, this quick changing of the most lively sorrow into a kind\nof gayety, is natural to youth. They have extremes of joy and sorrow,\nand, without being prepared for either, we see them pass suddenly from\none to the other. Happy, happy childhood! Robert was now full of a new\nsentiment, and the birds fluttered round him and sang their merriest\nsongs; the long, low murmur of the insects was delightful to his ears.\nWhy should he be sad when all nature was so joyous? A universal hymn\nof gratitude and love is being sung by all that exist, by everything\nthat breathes, in honor of our divine Creator; and, no matter how many\nthe sorrows and desolations of man, calmness comes to his heart, in\nthe sweet perfume of joy, the suave harmony and gracious gayety that\nfill all nature under the life-giving influence of a beautiful summer\nmorning. As we are all, sooner or later, initiated into the sufferings\nof life, we must feel for others and pour what balm we can into every\nwounded heart. Robert walked on until he came to an inn where he asked\nto pass the night. His fresh, open face, his gentleness, and the title\nof Orphan, gained for him the heart and good graces of his hostess.\nShe asked him whither he was going and if he wished to go. He told\nher, and that it was his mother's wish, and, of course, if hers, his,\nthat he should go to Paris. The next morning he started off,\noverwhelmed with the caresses of this woman, for she was a mother, and\nfelt a tear moisten her cheek, as she saw this little boy take up his\nbundle and resolutely pursue his way, and she prayed God to take care\nof him. Robert felt his mother's loss hourly when fatigue weakened his\nlimbs and hunger made him cry, but he saw her with the eyes of faith\nin heaven. Yes; believe me, dear little children who have lost your\nmothers! turn to heaven, and there you will see them looking at you\nwith eyes of love, and saying to you: \"Be good, my darlings, and when\nyou are asleep I will visit you, and kiss your pure and innocent\nforeheads.\" Yes; look to heaven, and I promise you you will see your\nmothers there, if you are good. It was this which recalled to Robert's\nheart each day the remembrance of his mother and filled his eyes with\ntears. It carried also to his heart a secret encouragement and gave\nhim strength.\n\nAs he walked on he left behind him Clermont, Rion, Aigueperse, and\nGrannot. Some leagues before this he had bid good-by to the beautiful\ndistrict of Limagne, which had charmed him by its sea of verdure, it's\ndeep golden foliage, and its rich and fertile plains. This was the\nfirst canton of France which was considered worthy of a particular\ndescription, and it was of this part of l'Auvergne that Apollo Lidoine\nsaid: \"It is so beautiful that strangers who go there cannot leave it,\nand there have even then instances of persons forgetting their own\ncountry when there.\" It was of this country, so favored by heaven,\nthat King Childebert said, \"that before dying he desired but one {649}\nthing, and that was to see beautiful Limagne d'Auvergne, which is the\nmasterpiece of nature, and a scene of enchantment.\" We cannot say that\nRobert shared in their opinion, but it is certain that he passed it\nwith regret, although he was drawn by so strange of feeling toward\nParis, the object of his hope and his ambition. He walked to St.\nPour\u00e7ain, Moulins, and all the small places, and rested a day when\noverfatigued. Great was his delight when he reached Fontainebleau,\nwhich royal residence had witnessed the first abdication of the\nemperor. All was still in motion at this place, and more than one old\nsoldier twisted his mustache, and with a fierce and martial air walked\non the edge of this great forest, weeping for the liberty of his\nemperor, his god, his idol. It was with delight that our young hero,\nthe child of the woods and solitude, sought the fresh shades, which\nrecalled to him, by a striking similarity, his cherished mountain\nhome; and the immense piles of irregular rocks attested that this\nplace, too, had been the theatre of some great convulsion of nature.\nAt mid-day, when the sun sheds his fiercest rays, when the tired\nflowers lean on their stems, when the birds hide under the leaves,\nwhen all nature seeks repose, the better to enjoy the freshness of the\nevening, Robert, too, followed the example, and lay down and slept at\nthe foot of a huge chestnut-tree many centuries old; the vast shade of\nwhich form and impenetrable cover from the heat of the sun. He awoke\nrefreshed, rose, and ventured into one of the long alleys or walks to\nwhich a sign conducted him. For several hours he wandered about lost\nin this tangled maze and looking in vain for an opening. But he was a\npatient child, and obstacles did not stop him, neither was he\ndiscouraged by his unfruitful efforts; on the contrary, he redoubled\nhis ardor, and finally reached a clear space, in the center of which\nwas a fountain ordered by rose-beds. Four paths diverged from it, and\nof such great length were they that it fatigued the eye to look at\nthem. In exploring in turn each of these paths, Robert found in one of\nthem a sign pointing out to strangers the various labyrinths of the\nforest. He had nothing else for a guide, but thought if he could only\nfind his way to the palace again, there must be some one there who\ncould tell him how to go; so he followed the path which he thought\nmight be right, and it was, and led him into the avenue which wound\nround by the palace. When he got right in front of the principal and\nonly truly royal edifice of France, or rather of Napoleon, he stopped\nand wondered at the vast aspect of this assemblage of buildings,\nproducing an effect at once imposing and majestic. Nothing like this\nhad ever entered his imagination, and the most lively astonishment\nshone on his face, and his eyes burned with the fire of intelligence\nand pleasure. A few steps from him was an old soldier who was entirely\nabsorbed in contemplating the building, and who looked worn and sad.\nHe, too, was in a sort of ecstasy, but he gazed in silence and seemed\nlost to all around him. His expression was of one in anguish, and his\neyes rested with a strange fixedness upon the steps of honor. He waits\nand watches as if hoping to see some one whom he ardently loves\nappear; but his hope is deceived, and two tears trickle slowly down\nhis dark cheeks, scarred and burned by the fires of a hundred battles.\nAt this moment when marks of supreme sorrow told so eloquently of his\nsufferings, Robert turned, and seeing his tears he was deeply moved at\nthis testimony of profound sorrow, and, eagerly approaching the\nsoldier, said to him in a touching voice: \"Why do you cry, sir? Have\nyon also lost your mother? I fear you have.\" Robert had never wept but\nfor one sorrow, and that we all know, and in happy ignorance of the\nother misfortunes of life he thought all wept {650} for the same\nthing; and in his great loss he looked to older persons to console\nhim, which proved how tender, delicate, and generous are the\nsentiments that live in the hearts of children. Their young souls are\nmirrors have to which we should only give pure, chaste, and pious\nimages to reflect and show them good examples, that without effort\nvice might be crushed out, and the world left an Eden of purity.\n\nHearing so touchingly compassionate a voice, the old soldier turned\nand looked at the child, while tears glistened in his eyes. \"No,\" said\nhe in a coarse tone, \"it is not for my mother that I weep, it is for\nmy emperor.\" \"And who is it that is your emperor?\" \"Alas! I have no\nfather, and have just lost my mother,\" he said sighing. \"Was your\nemperor good, and did you love him so much that you weep or him? I\nshall never forget my mother, she was so sweet and good to her little\nson. But tell me, sir, tell me of your emperor. My mother said I\nshould always love those who were good, and I want to love him too.\"\nThe old fellow twisted his mustache, and growled some words between\nhis teeth, looking alternately at the palace and the child, who smiled\nat him with an expression so gentle that it moved the soldier's heart.\nYou could see he was the victim of an emotion he vainly sought to\nconceal. \"Wonderful!\" cried he, vanquished by the magical eyes of\nRobert. \"You are a good child, and speak to my heart when you tell me\nthat you love my emperor. But who does not love him, except those\ncowards! those scoundrels! those traitors! But stop, I have said\nenough.\" He saw that Robert was a little frightened, for his ears had\nonly been accustomed to the caressing voice of his mother. \"Do you see\nthat staircase? My emperor descended by it to embrace the eagles of\nhis flag, the victorious eagles which have made him immortal, and\nwhich led his way to glory. Yes, the embraced them, and wept because\nhe could not embrace all his old soldiers had not betrayed him and\nwould have followed him to the end of the world. And some of his old\nguard still live. Oh! if they had only sent me with him into the loan\nisland of his misfortunes, if I could be with him there, I should be\ncontent. But since I cannot, I must go to Paris and see what is doing\nthere. See, my child, you are going there too, and I believe you said\nyou had neither father nor mother. Have you any relatives?\" \"No,\" said\nRobert. \"Why, then, are you going to Paris if you have no friends\nthere?\" \"My mother said I must go, and I'm going.\" \"I don't wish to be\ntoo curious, but tell me from whence you come?\" \"From the village of\nMount Dore, eight leagues from Clermont.\" \"Pretty walk for such little\nlegs, I think; but as we are both going to Paris, and you have no\nfather or mother to protect you, and I and a poor old soldier, I will\ntake care of you, for you have moved my heart by your gentle words,\nand we will travel together, so that the walk will be shorter for\nboth.\" \"Oh! how delightful,\" said Robert; \"and then you can tell me\nabout your emperor. I know I can walk fast enough in hearing you talk\nabout one whom you love so much.\" \"Yes, my boy,\" he replied, \"I could\nspeak forever of my emperor; but it must be when we are alone, for his\nglorious name, which once made kings and conscripts alike tremble, is\nnow called usurper, and is forbidden to be pronounced. A thousand\nthunders! the thought enrages me; and if I had his traitorous subjects\nI would strangle them, or my name is not Cyprien Hardy.\" This\nconversation was held with furious gestures on the one side and great\nastonishment on the other, until they came to the modest inn where\nRobert had left his bundle. The child in his new friend, the old\nsoldier, who justified the name, made a frugal repast, and continue\n{651} their journey. On the way Robert related the history of the\ntwelve years he had passed on his cherished mountain with his beloved\nmother, which simple recital gained him the lasting friendship of his\ncompanion, whom Robert looked upon as a friend provided for him by\nthat kind Providence who watches over orphans. He bore the fatigue of\nthe journey well, and was in perfect health when they reached that\nmagnificent chaos called Paris. The old soldier is, then, the second\nfriend that God has given our little hero. And how strange it was that\nthese two were isolated beings should meet in such a place, before the\ngrand palace of kings--the one a man of resolute energy, who carried\non his bold forehead great scars of glory, but who shed tears of\ndespair at the fall of his well-beloved chief, in whom he had found\nparents, country, family; the other a charming youth, representing\nbrilliant promises for the future, young, beautiful, and full of\nambition. Cyprien Hardy was one of those true French hearts to whom\nthe name of patriot was not a vain word. He was moved like many others\nwhen dangers threatened the republic and the when powerful allies\naudaciously invaded its territory. He was one of the first to take up\narms, having entered the army as a volunteer at twenty-one. Some years\nlater he served in the first regiment of the soldiers of the guard,\nafter having made the memorable campaigns of Italy, Egypt, and\nGermany, always following the \"Little Corporal,\" always the first in\nbattle, and always respected. Dangers made him smile; his courage was\ninexhaustible. One thing alone could move him, and that was the voice\nof his chief. This electrified him, and made him forget all but noble\nactions. He had always loved Napoleon, and this affection increased\nwith the fortunes of the great man whose word or look transformed\nsoldiers into heroes. It was in the forts of Moscow that his emperor\nhad given him the \"Cross of Honor,\" for a wound which he received from\na cannon ball while waving his flag. In this disastrous retreat the\nbrave soldier, dying with cold, fatigue, and hunger, preserved his\nheroic exaltation and his confidence in and love for his emperor; and\nif he ever grumbled, it was only because he could not kill every\nCossack that he laid his eyes upon. His courage and energy never\ndiminished, and he believed so implicitly in his emperor that he\nthought good fortune must return. But it had gone forever. His heart\nrevolted at the thought; and he swore that the author of this infamous\ntreason should repent, and this was why he was going to Paris to see\nif he could find any of his old companions.\n\n\n\nTO BE CONTINUED.\n\n----------\n\n\nONE MOMENT.\n\n  A trooping forth of buried griefs like ghosts,--\n  Temptations gathering swift in serried hosts,--\n  Of angel guardians a glittering band,--\n  God watching all--shall we desert or stand?\n\n--------\n\n{652}\n\n\n\n\nPROBLEMS OF THE AGE.  [Footnote 178]\n\n  [Footnote 178: erratum: In the last number, p. 524, 2d col. 12th\n  line, for \"created in sanctity and justice,\" read \"constituted.\"]\n\n(CONCLUDED)\n\n\nXII.\n\nTHE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION.\n\nThe next article of the creed, in order, is that which expresses the\nMystery of Redemption: \"Crucifixus etiam pro nobis, sub Pontio Pilato,\npassus, et sepultus est.\" \"Who was also crucified for us under Pontius\nPilate, who suffered, and was buried.\" The redemption implies the\nincarnation, and is based on it. The incarnation having been already\ntreated of, in immediate connection with the Trinity, we have only to\nproceed with the exposition of the doctrine of satisfaction for sin\nand restoration to grace through the sufferings and death of the\nDivine Redeemer.\n\nIt is no part of the Catholic doctrine that it was necessary for the\nsecond person of the Trinity to take upon himself human nature and\nsuffer an infinite penalty, in order that God might be able to pardon\nsin without violating his justice. All Catholic theologians, from St.\nAugustine down, teach that God is free to show mercy and to pardon,\naccording to his own good pleasure. The reason and end of the\nincarnation has been shown already to be something far above this\norder of ideas. The incarnation does not of itself, however, imply\nsuffering or death. We have to inquire, then, why it was that in point\nof fact the incarnate Word was manifested as a suffering Redeemer; and\nwhy his death on the cross was constituted the meritorious cause of\nthe remission of sin and restoration of grace.\n\nThe church has never made any formal definition of her doctrine on\nthis point, and it is well known various have been the theories\nregarding it maintained at different times. We shall endeavor to\npresent a view which appears to us adequate and intelligible; without,\nhowever, claiming for it any certainty beyond that of the reasons on\nwhich it is based.\n\nThe original gift of grace not having been due to Adam, or to any one\nof his ordinary descendents, injustice, the restoration of that gift,\nwhen lost, was not due. Aside from the incarnation, there was no\nimperative reason why Adam and his race should not have been left in\nthe state to which they were reduced by the original transgression.\nGod, having determined to accomplish the incarnation in the human\nrace, owed it to himself to complete this determination, in spite of\nall the sins which he foresaw would be committed by men. The foreseen\nmerits of Christ furnished an adequate motive for conferring any\ndegree of grace upon any or all men, he might seek to be fitting and\nnecessary for the fulfillment of his eternal purposes. It was not\nnecessary, however, that the Son of God should suffer or die in order\nto merit grace for mankind. By the define decree, indeed, the shedding\nof his blood and his death was made the special meritorious act in\nview of which remission of sins and grace are conferred. But all the\nacts of his life had the same intrinsic worth and excellence, which\nwas simply infinite on account of the divine principle of imputability\nto which they must be referred. There must have been some reasons,\ntherefore, of fitness, on account of which it was determined that\nJesus Christ should suffer death for the human race.\n\n{653}\n\nWe may find one of these reasons in the law of suffering and death\nwhich God had imposed, out of a motive of pure love, on the whole\nhuman race. This law was, indeed, promulgated under the form of a\npenalty, but in its substance it was a real blessing. The way to\nheaven through the path of penance and by the gate of death is a sure\nand safer way then the one in which Adam was first placed; it is one,\nalso, affording higher and more extensive scope for virtue, heroism,\nand merit. It was, therefore, fitting that the chief and prince of the\nhuman race should go before  his brethren in this way of sufferings.\n\"For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all\nthings, who brought many sons to glory, to perfect, by suffering, the\nauthor of their salvation.\" [Footnote 179] As a particular consequence\nof this general law, heroes, patriots, reformers, prophets, and\nsaints, have always been especially exposed to suffering and to\nviolent modes of death. They have been obliged to sacrifice themselves\nto their own fidelity to conscience and to that sacred cause to which\nthey have been devoted. And this sacrifice of life has consecrated\ntheir memories in the hearts of their fellow-men more than any other\nacts of intellectual or moral virtue, however brilliant. It was\nfitting, therefore, that the Saint of saints, the Saviour of the\nworld, should not exempt himself from the peril of death, to which the\nvery character of his mission exposed him.\n\n  [Footnote 179: Heb, II. 10.]\n\nAnother reason for the suffering of the Divine Mediator, is found in\nthe manifestation thereby made of the love of God in Christ to the\nhuman race. There is no need of dwelling on this, or of noticing other\nreasons of a similar kind which have been so frequently and so fully\ndeveloped by others.\n\nWe pass on, therefore, to the consideration of the final and highest\nreason for the death of Jesus Christ, the expiation of sin.\n\nThe true and only possible notion of expiation or satisfaction is that\nwhich apprehends it as a compensation for the failure to perform some\nobligatory act, by performing another act of at least equal value in\nthe place of it. Every noble soul, when conscious of having been\ndelinquent, desires to repair the injury which has been done, as well\nas to redeem its own honor, by some act which shall, if possible, far\nexceed the one which it failed to perform. The same principle impels\nthose who have a high sense of honor to make reparation tor the\ndelinquencies of others with whom they are closely related in the same\nfamily, the same society, or the same nation. Now, the human race has\nbeen delinquent in making a proper return to God for the infinite boon\nof grace. The fall of man and the innumerable sins of the individuals\nof the human race have deprived Almighty God of a tribute of glory\nwhich was due to him, and have brought ignominy upon mankind as a\nrace. Although, therefore, Almighty God might provide for the\nglorification of the elect who are to share with the Incarnate Word in\nhis divine privileges, by an act of pure mercy; it is far more\nglorious both to God and man that a superabundant satisfaction should\nbe made for the injury which has been done to the Creator by the\nmarring of his creation, and a superabundant expiation accomplished of\nthe disgrace which man has incurred. It was, therefore, an act of\ndivine wisdom and love in God to determine that this satisfaction and\nexpiation should be made by the second person of the Trinity in his\nhuman nature. The Incarnate Word, being truly man, identified with the\nhuman race, and its chief, necessarily made its honor and its disgrace\nhis own. Although he could redeem his brethren without any cost to\nhimself, his solicitude for their honor and glory would not permit him\nto do it. He desired that they should enter heaven on the most\nhonorable terms, without any of the humiliation of the delinquency of\nthe race attaching to them, but, on the contrary with the {654}\nexulting consciousness that every stain of dishonor had been effaced.\nTherefore, as their king and chief, he fulfilled the most sublime work\nof obedience to the divine love which was possible; he made the most\nperfect possible oblation to God, as an equivalent for his boon of\ngrace which had been abused by sin. In lieu of that glory which God\nwould have received from the perfect obedience of Adam and all his\nposterity, and that glory which would have been also reflected upon\nthe human race, he substituted the infinitely greater glory of his own\nobedience unto death, even the death of the cross. By this obedience\nJesus Christ merited for the human race the concession of a new grant\nof grace, more perfect than the first, by virtue of which not only the\noriginal sin which is common to all men was made remissible to each\nindividual, but all actual sins were made also pardonable on certain\nconditions.\n\nThat this statement completely exhausts the true idea of the\nsatisfaction of Christ, we will not pretend to affirm. It appears to\nus, however, sufficient to give a clear and definite meaning to the\nlanguage of Scripture and the fathers, and to include all that\nCatholic faith requires a Christian to believe.\n\nJesus Christ having merited by his death the right of conferring grace\nwithout stint or limit upon mankind, and all the grace given after the\nfall and before the redemption having been bestowed in the foresight\nof his death, every spiritual blessing enjoyed by men is referred to\nthe death of Jesus Christ as its cause and source. Strictly speaking,\nit is only the meritorious cause. By giving himself up to die, he\nmerited the right to communicate the grace contained in the\nincarnation to men, notwithstanding the failure of the father and head\nof the race to fulfil the probation on which the transmission of the\ngrace to his descendants depended. He merited also the right to renew\nthis grace in those individuals who should lose it after having once\nreceived it, as often as these, without regard to the number or\ngrievousness of their sins, or the frequency of their lapses. It is,\nhowever, the Holy Spirit; dwelling in the Incarnate Word in the\nplenitude of  his being, and communicating to his human nature the\nfulness grace, not for itself alone, but for all men; which is the\nultimate and efficient cause of all spiritual life. It is the grace of\nthe Holy Spirit which actually removes all guilt and stain of sin from\nthe soul, and constitutes it in the state of justice and sanctity. The\nHoly Spirit is, therefore, the efficient cause of justification. The\nformal cause is the personal sanctity of each individual. That is,\nthis personal sanctity is that which makes each one worthy of the\ncomplacency of God, of fellowship with him, and of everlasting life.\nThe work of the incarnation and redemption must, therefore, produce\nits results and attain its consummation through the Holy Spirit as the\nsanctifier of the human race. Consequently, the creed, after finishing\nit's expression of the Catholic faith so far as the person of Christ\nis concerned, proceeds to enunciate it as regards the person and\noperation of the Holy Spirit, is sent by Christ to complete his work.\nThe articles containing this enunciation complete the creed, and bring\nman to his final destination.\n\n\n\nXII.\n\nTHE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AS THE INSTRUMENT OF\nTHE SANCTIFICATION OF THE HUMAN RACE.\n\n\nThe next articles of the creed are: \"Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum\net Vivificantem, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, qui cum Patre et\nFilio simul adoratur et conglorificatur, qui locutus est per\nprophetas; et in unam sanctam, Catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam;\nconfiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum.\" \"And in the Holy\nGhost, the Lord and Lifegiver, who proceedeth from the Father and the\nSon, {655} who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and\nglorified, who spake by the prophets; I confess one baptism for the\nremission of sins.\"\n\nThe relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son in the\nTrinity has been already considered. The temporal mission of the Holy\nSpirit as the consummation of the divine work _ad extra_ is exercised\nthrough the Catholic Church; and, therefore, the article concerning\nthe church follows immediately in the creed the one concerning the\nHoly Spirit.   [Footnote 180]\n\n  [Footnote 180: Vid. Archbishop Manning's Mission of the Holy Ghost.]\n\nThe organic unity of the Catholic Church follows necessarily from the\nprinciples laid down in the foregoing essays. It is an immediate\nconsequence of the unity of the race, and of the incarnation, which\nare two distinct facts, but which have one principle. The order of\nregeneration must follow the order of generation. Mankind exist\nessentially as a race; as a race they received the original gift of\nsupernatural grace; as a race they lost it. All human life and\ndevelopment is generic. The redemption of mankind must, therefore,\nre-establish the generic relations which were disturbed by the fall.\nJesus Christ, the second Adam, must become the head of a redeemed and\nregenerated race of men, organized in a supernatural society.\nContinuity and perpetuity of life are, therefore, the essential notes\nof the divine society, or human race regenerated, in which true\nspiritual life is communicated to the individual. The sole possession\nof these notes demonstrates the divine authority of the Catholic\nChurch.  [Footnote 181] The continuity of life, embracing integrity of\ndoctrine and law and the faculty of conferring grace, descended from\nthe patriarchal church through the Jewish, with the increment added by\nthe immediate intervention of the divine Lord of the world in person,\nto the Catholic Church.\n\n  [Footnote 181: Vid. Leo, Univ. Hist., vol. I. Lacordaire's\n  Conferences, and the Works of Dr. Brownson, passim.]\n\nThe Catholic Church is, therefore, the human race, in the highest\nsense. In early times, one nation after another broke away from the\nunity of the race, carrying a fragment of the integral, ideal humanity\nwith it. Integrity, continuity, and perpetuity of life were,\ntherefore, rendered for them impossible. The same phenomena are\nexhibited at the present time in all nations and societies outside of\nthe Catholic Church. Partial and temporary developments only can be\nmade of that integral, universal, perpetual life, whose seat is in the\nbosom of the church, and which is sufficient to vivify the whole human\nrace, if the impediments were removed. The proof, _\u00e0 posteriori_, or\nby induction, of the Catholic Church, must be sought for in those\nworks which treat professedly of the subject. Our object is merely to\nshow the conformity of the idea of the Catholic Church with the idea\nof reason, by deduction from primary, ontological principles. The\nattributes of the church follow so immediately from its primary note,\nas the human race restored to unity in the fellowship of God in\nChrist, that they require no special elucidation; especially as this\nparticular branch of theology has been so repeatedly and so amply\ntreated by authors.\n\nIn regard to special dogmas of the church, most of those which present\nany great difficulty to the understanding have already been discussed\nin the former part of this essay; and the remainder find an easy\nexplication from the same principles.\n\nThe doctrine of the sacraments is explicated from the principle that\nthe church is the instrument of sanctification. The sacraments are the\nparticular acts by which the church communicates the spiritual\nvitality which resides in her to individuals. They have an outward,\nsensible form, because the nature of man is corporeal, and all human\nacts are composed of a synthesis of the sensible and the spiritual.\nThey contain an inward, spiritual grace, because the nature of {656}\nman is spiritual, and receives life only from a spiritual principle.\nThe only one of  the sacraments which presents any special difficulty\nto the understanding is the holy eucharist; on account of  the mystery\nof transubstantiation which is included in it's essence. The ground of\nthis difficulty, which lies in crude, philosophical notions, and is,\ntherefore, purely a spectre of the imagination, has been already\nremoved by the doctrine we Have laid down respecting the nature of\nsubstance and the proper conception of space and extension. The senses\ntransmit to the soul nothing more than the impressions of the\nphenomena, which the soul, by an intellectual judgment, refers to a\nreal, intelligible substance, or active force, as their productive\ncause. The substance itself is not sensible, but intelligible; is not\nseen as an essence by the eye, but concluded by a judgment of the\nmind. By divine revelation it is disclosed to us, that the substance\nof bread and wine is the eucharist is succeeded by the substance of\nthe body and blood of Jesus Christ; the phenomena or sensible effects\nof the former substance still continuing to be produced in an\nextraordinary manner. There is a mystery here it is true; but it is\nonly the mystery which belongs to the inscrutable nature of the\nessence of matter as active force, and the mode in which this active\nforce produces various sensible phenomena. The definitions of the\nchurch do not furnish a complete explanation of the Catholic dogma,\nwhich is left to theologians; and even theologians do not precisely\ncoincide in their conceptions or expressions. All we can do then,\nafter stating the Catholic dogma, is to give the explanation which\nappears to be the most probable, according to the judgment of the best\nauthors and the most weighty intrinsic reasons. This is enough,\nhowever, for our purpose; for all that is required is to furnish a\nconception which is, on the one band, theologically tenable, and, on\nthe other, rationally intelligible.\n\nWe may separate the synthetic judgment pronounced by the church, in\nthe definition of the dogma, into four analytic judgments. First, the\nabsence of the substance of bread and wine after the consecration.\nSecond, the presence of the substance of the body of Christ. Third,\nthe absence of the natural phenomenon of the body of Christ. Fourth,\nthe presence of the natural phenomenon of bread and wine. In order to\nreconstruct these elements of the church's dogmatic judgment into a\nmore perfect synthesis, it it is necessary to analyze further these\nseparate propositions. There are three principle, distinct conceptions\ncontained in them: the conception of substance; the conception of\npresence, or relation in space; and the conception of phenomena, or,\nto use the precise term employed by the schoolmen, of _accidents_.\nThere is, also, the conception of the mode in which the phenomena of\nbread and wine subsists out of relation to their proper productive\nsubstances, or, the conception of the immediate, efficient cause to\nwhich they must be referred. These first three conceptions have been\nsufficiently analyzed in a former part of this treatise. The absence\nof the substance of bread and wine after consecration may be\nexplained, in accordance with the conception of substance, by\nannihilation, removal, or identification with the substance of the\nbody of Christ. The senses cannot take cognizance of its presence\nbefore consecration, it being there office merely to report phenomena;\nthey cannot, consequently, take cognizance of its absence. They are\nnot, therefore, deceived in reporting the phenomena as unchanged after\nthe consecration, since they really remain unchanged; nor is the mind\nqualified to pronounce on the report of the senses, that the substance\nis unchanged, by an intellectual judgment; since the judgment which\nwould otherwise be validly made is superseded by a divine judgment,\nmade known through revelation, that in this instance the substance has\nbeen {657} changed for another by the creative power of God. The\nsimplest mode of conceiving the effect of consecration on the\nsubstances of the bread and wine is to suppose their annihilation. St.\nThomas, however, denies that they are annihilated, because the\nterminus of annihilation is nothing, whereas the terminus of the act\nof transubstantiation is the body of Christ. In plain words, the\nargument is: if the substances were annihilated, the effect of\nconsecration would be properly expressed by saying that they are\nreduced to nothing, whereas the language of the church is, that they\nare converted into the body and blood of Christ. The same argument\napplies to the notion of their removal elsewhere. Nevertheless, since\nthey are not supposed to be annihilated or removed simply for the sake\nof getting rid of them, and their destruction or removal is not the\nend or final term of the act of divine power, but only its proximate\nterm, in order to the substitution of the body of Christ, this\nargument is not decisive. It is proper to say that the substance of\nbread is changed into the body of Christ, if the body of Christ is\nsubstituted for it; The natural phenomena which formerly indicated the\npresence of the one substance remaining the same, and indicating the\npresence of the other substance instead of that of the former\nsubstance.\n\nAnother explanation is based on the notion of one generic substance\nindividualized in all distinct, material existences. According to this\nexplanation, the bread and wine, being deprived of their individual\nexistence, are not thereby destroyed; but, as it were, withdrawn into\nthe generic substance, which is identical with the substance\nindividualized in the body of Christ; and therefore properly said to\nbe converted into the substance of his body. We are unable to\nunderstand how the notion on which this explanation is based, which\nappears to require us to accept the realism of William de Champeaux\nand the schoolmen, can be made intelligible; and, therefore, prefer\nthe former, which, we believe, is the one more commonly adopted.\n\nThe presence of the body of Christ, without its natural phenomena, and\nunder the phenomena of bread and wine; which presents usually much the\ngreatest difficulty to the understanding, is really capable of a much\nmore easy and certain explanation. It is present not by its extension,\nbut by its pure substance, or _vis activa_, that is, as Perrone says,\n_per modum spirit\u00e2s_, after the manner of spirit. Spirit, as all\nCatholic philosophers teach, is related to objects in space, by the\napplication of its intrinsic force to them. The presence of the body\nof Christ in the eucharist is, therefore, the application of its _vis\nactiva_; which is, indeed, finite, but, by virtue of its supreme\nexcellence in the created order, through the hypostatic union,\ncommensurate with the whole created universe and all its particular\nparts. The body of Christ, therefore, while it is circumscribed as to\nits extension; and, according to the ordinary sense of the word, is\npresent only in one place; is, in a different but real sense, present\neverywhere where the species of the eucharist are present. These\nspecies or phenomena of bread and wine in the eucharist, are the signs\nindicating its presence by its substantial force or _vis activa_. They\nmay be produced, as every one will admit they can be, by the immediate\nact of God; or, by the _vis activa_ of the body of Christ; which, as a\nperfect body containing eminently all the perfection of inferior\nmaterial substances, can produce their proper effects. The body and\nblood of Christ contain substantially and essentially the virtue of\nbread and wine, and, being in hypostatic union with the divine nature,\nmay be capable of producing the phenomena and effects proceeding\nnaturally from this virtue in many places at once. It appears to us\nmore in accordance with the language of Scripture and the church to\nmake this latter supposition. We sum up, there fore, the explanation\nof the mystery {658} which appears to us the most probable and\nrational, in this short formula. By the effect of the divine power,\nexercised through the act of consecrating the eucharist; the sensible\nphenomena, indicating before the act the presence of the _vis activa_,\nof bread and wine, cease to indicate it; and indicate instead of it,\nthe presence of the _vis activa_ of the body and blood of Christ, The\nlanguage of the definition pronounced by the church is thus exactly\nverified. There is a change of substance, without any change of\nphenomena. There is a transition of the substance of the bread and\nwine; which ceases either altogether as a distinct existence, or, at\nleast, as the cause of the phenomena; in order to give way to the\nsubstance of the body of Christ; which is properly called a\ntransubstantiation.\n\nThe mystery still remains, and must remain, incomprehensible by the\nhuman understanding, however clear the explanation of the difficulties\nwhich beset it may be made. Neither the senses nor the intellect can\nperceive the presence of Jesus Christ in the eucharist. It is believed\nby an act of faith in the word of Jesus Christ. The mode of this\nsubstantial presence and of its action on the soul is, moreover, but\ndimly apprehended; because substance itself, as a _vis activa_, and\nthe mode of its activity, are impenetrable to reason. The rational\nargument respecting the dogma of faith, therefore, merely proves that\nit is not contrary to reason; and that it is partially intelligible by\nanalogy with other known truths and facts. We thus understand that the\npresence f Jesus Christ in the species of the eucharist is _possible_.\nAnd, the revelation of its reality once made, we see also its fitness.\nIt is most fitting and congruous that Jesus Christ should unite\nhimself in the most perfect manner which is consistent with the\ncondition of man in this life, with his human brethren; and that this\nunion should be manifested to the senses. This is accomplished in the\neucharist in such a way that the intellect, the imagination, or the\nheart of man, cannot conceive or desire anything more perfect and\nadmirable.   [Footnote 182]\n\n  [Footnote 182:  _Vide_ F. Dalgairn's on the Holy Communion for a\n  more complete elucidation of the philosophy of substance and accidents.]\n\nWe shall simply note with the greatest brevity the remaining doctrines\nwhose consideration falls under the present head.\n\nThe absolute necessity of grace for works worthy of eternal life, and\nthe inability of man to perform them by his natural strength, is\nexplained by the supernatural principle of which we have already given\nexposition.\n\nThe merit of good works is explained by the doctrine of probation; and\nthe distinction between this kind of merit and the merits of Christ,\nas well as their natural relation and harmony, is obvious from the\nexposition which has been made of the latter.\n\nThe Catholic doctrine respecting the Blessed Virgin and the Saints is\nexplained by the doctrine already laid down of the glorification and\ndeification of human nature through the incarnation.\n\nThe whole exterior and visible _cultus_ of Catholic worship is\nexplained by the doctrine, of sensible things as signs and\nrepresentations of the invisible, and of the essentially corporeal\nconstitution of man. These, and all other particulars of Catholic\ndoctrine, are contained in the universal or Catholic idea, which\nshines by its own light, and proves itself by its sublimity,\nintegrity, symmetry, and correspondence with all the analogies of the\nnatural world.\n\n\nXIV.\n\n THE FINAL DESTINATION OF ANGELS AND MEN;\n CONDITION OF THE UNREGENERATE IN THE  FUTURE LIFE;\n ETERNITY OF THE PENALTY OF SIN;\n STATE OF FINAL THE  BEATITUDE.\n\n\nThe closing articles of the creed are: \"Expecto resurrectionem\nmortuorun et vitam venturi saeculi, Amen.\" \"I look for the\nresurrection of the dead, and the life of the world of come, Amen.\"\n\n{659}\n\nThus, the creation, which proceeds from God as first cause, is shown\nto have returned to him as final cause. This is especially\naccomplished in the beatification of the elect; and consequently it is\nthe glory and blessedness of heaven which is immediately and\nexplicitly affirmed in the creed. The entire creed, however, implies,\nwhat the Catholic church in her exposition of the creed teaches\ndogmatically, that only a portion of the angelic hierarchy and the\nhuman race attain heaven. The doctrine of hell, or the place and state\nof those who are excluded from heaven, is, therefore, the necessary\ncorrelate of the doctrine of heaven. So far as the human race is\nconcerned, we have to consider, first, what is the condition in\neternity of those who are subject to the consequences of original sin\nonly.\n\nIt follows from the doctrine already laid down, namely, that the state\nto which man is reduced by original sin, is entitively the same with\nthat in which consists the state of pure nature; that the condition of\nthis class of human beings in eternity is the same that it would be if\nthey had never been constituted in the order of the supernatural. They\nare destitute of supernatural beatitude, but attain to all the\nfelicity of which they are capable in the natural order. They are\nelevated in the due course of nature to that integrity and perfection\nof soul and body which, in the case of Adam, was anticipated by a\ngratuitous gift. Their felicity consists in a perfect exemption from\nan liability to sin, in the complete evolution of their natural\ncapacities, and in the possession of the proper object of their\nintelligence and will, that is, in the knowledge and fruition of the\nworks of God, and of God himself by abstractive contemplation. This\nlast expression needs some explanation in order to show its conformity\nwith the doctrine we have laid down at the beginning of these essays\nrespecting the primitive intuition of reason. We have there affirmed\nthat the original intuition of reason is the intuition of that idea\nwhich is afterward demonstrated by reflection to be identical with the\nbeing of God. Some, rejecting this doctrine of the idea, object to it\nthat it leads to a confusion of the act of intelligence constitutive\nof rational nature with the act proper only to beatified nature, that\nis, the intuitive vision of God. Others, who accept it, endeavor to\nrebut this objection, and to show the distinction between the\nknowledge of God derived from rational intuition and that which is\ncommunicated by the light of glory. But in doing this they make the\nfirst to be only the inchoation of the second, and the second the\ncompletion or full evolution of the first. It would follow, then, that\na rational creature cannot attain to the proper object of his\nintelligence and will, consequently cannot attain perfect felicity,\nwithout the beatific vision. We cannot admit either that the objection\nis a valid one or that the explanation which is made in order to do\naway with it is sufficient. We venture, therefore, to suggest another.\n\nIt is real and concrete being, not possible and abstract being, which\nis the intelligible object of reason. Reason, however, does not, by an\nintrinsic, perceptive power, actively elicit the intuition of its\nintelligible object. In other words, it is not by its virtue as\nintelligence that real being, or the intelligible, becomes\nintelligible to it. The intelligible has the precedence and the\nsuperiority in the act of intelligence. The presence of the object\nmakes the subject intelligent in the first act, and this first act is\none in which the creative spirit is the agent and the created spirit\nthe terminus of the act. The original, immediate contact of the\nintellect with real, concrete being, that is, with God, is, therefore,\na contact in which the soul is passive, because this contact precedes\nand is the cause of its activity. It is only by reflection, or bending\nbackward upon itself, that the intellect can have distinct\nself-consciousness and elicit thought. When it does so, it takes\nalways the affirmation of real, necessary being, by which {660} God\ncreated it rational, as the first and absolute elements of its\nthoughts. But this affirmation, as soon as it enters into reflection,\nand becomes an element of the spontaneous activity of the soul,\nbecomes _abstract_. It is not a pure abstraction, or an act which\nterminates on the abstract or possible as its ultimate object, but an\nabstraction formed from the concrete object as apprehended by the\npassive intelligence, or an abstract conception of the concrete idea.\nIt would require too much time to develop this statement fully. But it\nis plain at a single glance that it is justified by the facts of\nconsciousness. All our judgments respecting necessary and universal\ntruth are abstract. The judgment respecting necessary cause, that\nrespecting the infinite and the eternal, that respecting ideal space\nand time, those which respect mathematical relations, and those which\nform the data of logic, are all of this kind. There is no direct,\nimmediate intuition of God as the infinite, concrete, personal truth,\nto be found in our consciousness; as we have previously proved in our\ndemonstration of the being of God. The necessity of using the term\n_intuition_ in reference to our apprehension of the idea is,\ntherefore, an unfortunate one, and gives rise to a confusion of the\nact in which we conclude the existence and attributes of God by a\nrational, deductive judgment, with the act in which the soul\nimmediately beholds him by an intellectual vision. Intuition and\nvision are, strictly speaking identical. Experience teaches us that\nour first distinct vision is the vision of sensible objects, and that\nwe refer constantly to this as the standard of clear vision, since\nthere is nothing which appears to us equally clear and distinct. By\nthe aid of our perception of the sensible, we attain to the perception\nof ourselves as existing, thinking spirit, and of other spirits like\nour own. But we never attain a similar intuition of God by the mere\nexercise of our intellective activity. It is of the essence of a\ncreated spirit that its active intuition or intellective vision is\nlimited to finite objects as its immediate terminus, commensurate to\nits finite visual power. It sees God only mediately, as his being and\nattributes are reflected and imaged in finite things, and therefore\nits highest contemplation of God is merely abstractive. The natural\nfelicity of created spirits is, therefore, at its maximum, when they\nattain the most perfect exercise of their faculties in this mode of\naction which is connatural to them. It is the fruition of God\nmediately through his creation.\n\nWe now proceed to show that the Catholic doctrine permits us to\nbelieve that this perfect felicity which is possible without\nsupernatural grace is actually conceded to those who die in original\nsin only. It is reasonable to believe that any felicity which those\nsouls can attain, consistently with their position as liable to the\neternal consequences of original sin, will be actually attained by\nthem. For God has created them for good; and to what end as he made\nthem capable of this felicity, unless it be that they may possess and\nenjoy it? We shall quote from a treatise written in the seventeenth\ncentury by F. Maria Gabrielli, in defense of the doctrine of Cardinal\nSfondrati, a very thorough summary of the opinions of the theologians\non this point: [Footnote 183]\n\n    [Footnote 183: Dispunctio Notarum, 40 etc, Colon. 1699.]\n\n\"Joseph Maria de Requesens [Footnote 184] enumerates in his little\nbook on the state of infants many theologians of great name who\nconcede to these infants a certain kind of imperfect natural\nbeatitude.\n\n  [Footnote 184: de Statu Parvui. Rom. 1684.]\n\nHe says that Richard (of St. Victor) teaches that these children will\nhave more goods and greater joy in their possession than sinners have\nwho possess created goods in this life. Lyra says, that according to\nthe opinion of all doctors they will enjoy a happier life than would\nbe naturally possible in this present world. Almost in the same way\nspeak Origen, Marsilius, St. Buonaventure, Cajetan, and others {661}\ncited by Cornelius \u00e0 Lapide, who all teach that children dying without\nbaptism lead a happier life than those who are living on the earth.\nLessius writes, that although they may be said to be damned because\neternally deprived of the celestial glory for which they were created,\nit is nevertheless credible that their state is far happier and more\njoyful than that of any mortal man in this life. Salmeron says, these\nchildren will rise again through Christ and above this natural order,\nwhere they will daily advance in the knowledge of the works of God and\nof separate substances, _will have angelic visits_, and will be like\nour rustics living in the country, so that as they are in a medium\nbetween glory and punishment, they will also occupy an intermediate\nplace.  Suarez says, that children will remain in their natural good\nand will be content with their lot; and, together with Marsilius as\nquoted by Azor, he describes to them a _knowledge and love of God\nabove all things_, and the other natural virtues. Didacus Ruiz, a\ntheologian of extensive reading, lays down this conclusion: Great\nmercy will be mingled with the punishment of infants dying in original\nsin, although not a diminution of the punishment of loss, since that\nis incapable of diminution; yet in the remission of death which was\nthe punishment directly do to original sin, and would naturally have\nendured to eternity, so that in spite of this infants will be\nresuscitated at the day of judgment nevermore to die, endowed with\nsupernatural incorruptibility and impassibility, and they will also\nsupernaturally receive accidental, infused sciences, and will be\nliberated from all pain, sadness, sickness, temptations, and personal\nsins, which are naturally wont to arise from original sin.\nConsequently, they are liberated from the punishment of hell which\nthey might have incurred. Albert (the Great), Alexander (de Hales),\nand St. Thomas agree with this doctrine. Suarez shows that these\nchildren obtain some benefit, in a certain way, from the merits of\nChrist; and says that it pertains to the glory of Christ that he\nshould be adored and acknowledged as prince and supreme judge on the\nday of universal judgment even by infants who died without grace. He\nalso considers it more probable that they will understand that they\nhave done neither good nor evil, and therefore receive neither glory\nnor pain of sense, and also that they are deprived of glory on account\nof sin (that is, original). He adds the reason of this, to wit, that\nthey may understand the benefit which they received, first in Adam and\nafterward in Christ, and on this account may worship and adore him.\nMartinonus adds: when even the demons love God in a certain way even\nmore than themselves as the common good of all, according to St.\nThomas, why shall not these children love Christ as their benefactor\nand the author of their resurrection, and of the benefits which they\nreceive with it through Christ, who is the destroyer of corporeal as\nwell as spiritual death? He cites also what Suarez says, that although\none who should speak of the bodies of infants in the same way as of\nthe other damned would say nothing improbable, since St. Thomas speaks\nof all indifferently, nevertheless since those bodies will have a\ngreater perfection and some gifts or benefits which are not at all due\nto nature, therefore, in regard to these gifts, Christ may be said to\nbe their model. The same Martinonus subjoins: although those words of\nthe apostle, \"In Christ all shall be made alive,\" Suarez affirms, must\nbe properly and principally understood of the predestined,\nnevertheless they can probably be applied to a certain extent to these\nchildren, inasmuch as they will have in their risen bodies a certain\nspecial conformity and relation to Christ, which will be much less and\nmore imperfect in the damned than in the predestined. Nicholas de Lyra\naffirms that \"infants dying without baptism do not endure any sensible\npunishment, but have a more delightful {662} life than can be had in\nthis present life, _according to all the doctors_,  [Footnote 185] who\nspeak concerning those who die in original sin alone.\"\n\n  [Footnote 185: This is true of the great majority, but not of all.]\n\nThose who die in actual sin, and the fallen angels, although in the\nsame state of existence with those who die in original gin only, that\nis, in the Infernum, or sphere below the supernatural sphere of the\nelect angels and men, have to undergo a punishment corresponding to\ntheir individual demerits. This truth, which is clearly revealed in\nthe Holy Scriptures and defined by the church,  is confirmed by the\nanalogies of this present life. The transgressions of law is punished\nin this world in accordance with the sense of justice which is\nuniversal among men. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing that\nthe same principle of retribution is not continued in the future life.\nMoreover, there is positive proof from reason that it must continue.\nThere has never been a more absurd doctrine broached than that of the\nUniversalists. To suppose that all men are saved on account of the\nmerits of Christ without regard to their moral state or personal\nmerits, is most unreasonable; and subversive of the moral order as\nwell as destructive of the idea of a state of probation. It is equally\nabsurd to imagine that the mere fact of death can make any change in\nthe state of the soul, or that separation from the body causes the\nsoul to make a mechanical rebound from a state of sin to a state of\nholiness. The soul can be made happy only from its own intrinsic\nprinciples, and not by a mere arbitrary appointment of God, or a\nbestowal of extrinsic means of enjoyment. Sin brings its own\npunishment, and the state of sin is in itself a state of misery. Plato\nand other heathen sages taught the doctrine of future punishment, Mr.\nAlger, who has written the most elaborate work on the subject of the\nhistory of the doctrine of a future life which has appeared in recent\ntimes, has fully proved the universality of the doctrine of future\npunishment. Other rationalistic writers of ability have also of late\nyears seen the impossibility of removing this doctrine from the\nteaching of Christianity and from universal tradition. We have already\nfully proved that God does not deprive any of his rational creatures\nof the felicity which is proper to their nature by his own act. It\nfollows from this that it is the creature himself who is the author of\nhis own misery. Existence is in itself a good, a boon conceded from\nlove by the Creator. So far as this good is turned into an evil, it is\nby a voluntary perversion of the gift of a benevolent sovereign by the\nsubject himself.  The punishment which he must undergo in eternity is,\ntherefore, the necessary consequence of his own acts, together with\nsuch positive penalties as are required by the ends of justice and the\nuniversal good. This doctrine, which is the doctrine of the Catholic\nChurch, based on the clear evidence of Scripture and ecclesiastical\ntradition,  [Footnote 186] is also the doctrine of calm, unbiased\nreason, and of the common sense of mankind. The probation of the\nAngels having been finished with their first trial, and the probation\nof men ending for individuals at death, and for mankind generically at\nthe day of judgment, the epic of grace is closed for ever with the\ncompletion of this present cycle of providence; and consequently the\nstate of all angels and men is fixed for eternity. Hell is, therefore,\nan eternal state out of which there is no possibility of transition\ninto heaven.\n\n  [Footnote 186: It is now considered by the best authorities as fully\n  proved that Origen and St. Gregory Nyssen, who have been so often\n  cited by the advocates of the doctrine of universal salvation, did\n  not teach anything contrary to the Catholic doctrine of eternal\n  punishment.]\n\nHeaven, or life everlasting, is the eternal state of supreme,\nsupernatural beatitude, to which the elect angels and men are elevated\nby the grace of God, and in which they participate in the {663}\nglorified and the deific state of the Incarnate Word, through and\nineffable fellowship with the three persons of the Blessed Trinity.\n\nMan being integrally composed by the union of soul and body, and his\ncorporeal nature being hypostatically United with the divine nature in\nthe person of the Word, the resurrection of the body must necessarily\nprecede his complete glorification. The only difficulty which the\ndoctrine of the resurrection of the body presents to the understanding\nrelates to the principal of identity between the earthly and celestial\nbody. This principle of identity, or unity and continuity of life,\nmust be the same with that which constitutes the unity of the body in\nall the stages of its natural growth; and through all the changes of\nits material particles, from the instant of its conception to its\ndisintegration by death. It is the soul which is the form of the body,\nits vivifying principle. The soul and body have an innate\ncorrespondence with each other, not only in the generic sense, but in\nthe sense of an individual aptitude of each separate soul for its own\nbody, and each separate body for its own soul. The soul and body act\nand react upon each other perpetually while the development of both is\ngoing on, producing a specific type in each individual which is a\nmodification of the generic type of manhood. The determination of the\nactive force of the soul to the production of this type remains with\nit after the separation from the body. At the resurrection, it forms\nanew its own proper body in accordance with this type which is the\nproduct of the conjoint action of the soul and body during the earthly\nlife. There is, therefore, the same continuity and identity between\nthe earthly body and the celestial body that there is between the body\nof the embryo and that of the full-grown man. The celestial body is\nthe same that it would have been if there had been no death\nintervening between the two corporeal states, but a transformation of\nthe earthly body into the celestial perfection and glorification of\nits proper type. If this is not all which is included in the\ndefinition of the church respecting the identity of the body in the\ntwo states, we must believe, in addition to what has been stated\nalready, that there is a material monad which forms the nucleus of the\ncorporeal organization and is a physical principle of identity. This\nphysical principle must contain virtually the whole body, as the germ\ndoes the plant; it must be preserved when the body is disintegrated;\nand reunited to the soul at the resurrection, in order to become the\nphysical germ from which the celestial body is developed.\n\nThe natural beatitude of the glorified angels and saints, which is\nonly a more exalted grade of that felicity which is accorded to the\ninferior intelligent creation, need not be specially noticed. It is\nthe essential and supreme beatitude consisting in the clear, intuitive\nvision of God, which is the principal subject of the divine revelation\nproposed by the creed as the object of faith.\n\nThe possibility of this divine vision will not be called in question\nby any who are properly speaking theists and rationalists, and with\nothers we have nothing to do at present. Much less will it be\nquestioned by any class of believers in the divine inspiration of the\nScriptures. We have not, then, the task of laboring to show the\nintrinsic reasonableness and credibility of the doctrine, but merely\nof setting forth that which can be made intelligible respecting the\n_relation between our present state in which we are unable to see God,\nand the future state in which we may be enabled to see him_. The\nexamination of this relation includes that of the means and method by\nwhich the soul is elevated to an immediate intuition of that which\nconstitutes the divine essence and personality. It requires a\nstatement which shall show what is the nexus between the act which\nconstitutes the soul in the power to exercise {664} intelligence, and\nthat which constitutes it in the power to behold God immediately. It\nmay be said, that the essence of the soul is transformed or enlarged\nin such a way that it becomes able, _per se_, to see God as it now\nperceives the creation. But this would be equivalent to the creation\nof a new essence with a new personality; which would destroy the\nidentity of the subject who is supposed to be elevated to this new\ngrade of existence. Moreover, according to the doctrine we have laid\ndown, that supernatural grace elevates the soul _super omnem naturam\ncreatam atque creabilem_, the supposition is impossible. We cannot go\nover again the principles already discussed, but merely endeavored to\nstate such a theory of the mode of the beatific vision as shall be in\nharmony with these principles. We, therefore, dismiss this first\nsupposition without further discussion. Another supposition may be\nmade, that the complete evolution of the idea of God which the soul\npossesses in the present state in an obvolute manner bring it to that\nrelation _vis-\u00e0-vis_ two God as its intelligible object, which\ncorresponds to the relation of the visual faculty to the visible,\nmaterial object. We cannot accept this supposition any more than the\nother. It contradicts the principles we have previously laid down, and\nthe generally accepted maxims of Catholic theology respecting the\nsupernatural quality of the power conceded by God to the creature of\nbeholding his intimate essence, just as palpably as the first one. We\ndo not deny that the reason of man is to a great degree in a obvolute\ncondition in this life, and that it is capable of evolution in another\nand higher life. In this higher life the soul may be capable of\nperceiving immediately the essence of things, and spiritual\nsubstances, after the mode of intelligence which is proper to the\nangels. But the angels themselves, according to Catholic theology,\nthough created at the summit of the intelligent order, with the\ncomplete exercise of intelligence in the highest possible grade, have\nno natural power to see God immediately; and their natural knowledge\nof him, though very perfect, is merely abstractive contemplation like\nthat of men. The power of seeing spiritual substances, and the perfect\nevolution of the idea of God in the soul, therefore, do not give the\nintuition of the essence of God which constitutes the beatific vision.\nThe beatific vision is supernatural, by means of immediate light\ncommunicated by God to the intelligence, called by theologians _lumen\ngloriae_, the light of glory. By means of this light the intelligence\nperceives God by an active intuition, or a clear, distinct act of\nreflective consciousness, as immediately present to it in the creative\nact, the cause of its existence, the source of its active power, the\nlight of its reason, in whom it lives in moves and as it's being. God\npresents himself to the intelligence immediately in his concrete\nbeing, as the visible world is presented to the eye by the light of\nthe sun. This is not accomplished by the creation of any new essential\nfaculty in the soul or the addition of anything to its substance. The\nvery same intelligent, thinking principle, or subject, which in this\npresent state of existence of firms to itself the existence of God by\nand intellectual judgment, behold him in the beatific state by an\nintuitive vision. It must be, then, by a concurrence of God with the\nsame faculties of the mind by which we think and reason and perceive,\nand our self-conscious, in our natural mode of rational activity, that\nthe intelligence is raised to this higher power of supernatural\nintuition. That act which constitutes it rational in the natural\norder, must be the basis and substratum of its supernatural tuition of\nthe divine essence. It has already been proved that a created spirit\ncannot be constituted rational in the first instance by the beatific\nvision of God; that is, cannot have an essence whose intrinsic,\nnecessary act is a clear intuition of the divine essence, like that\n{665} act in which God has the eternal, necessary intelligence of\nhimself. The created spirit must first be constituted a rational,\nintelligent subject, before it can be capable of a supernatural\nillumination. It must be extrinsicated from God, made a distinct,\nthinking substance, and constituted in its own finite, rational\nactivity; before there can be any subject, or really existing, active\nforce, with which God can concur; with which he can unite himself, and\nto which he can communicate the power of looking back upon himself by\na distinct intuition. The created spirit must be, therefore, in a\ncertain sense, self-subsisting, or containing in itself its own\nrational principle. It must have its own separate self-consciousness\nas a thinking substance, containing within itself all the necessary\nprinciples of thought. The necessary, the universal, the eternal, or,\nin a word, the idea, cannot be contained in a created spirit in its\nconcrete being, but only in an abstract form, any image, or a created\nword. This is identical with the intelligence itself; it is what\nconstitutes its intellective force and principle of activity. In man,\nas we have already seen, this intellective activity needs the\nconcurrence of exterior, sensible objects, acting on it through the\nsenses and occasioning perceptions and reflections, before it can\nattain distinct reflective consciousness of itself, and evolve its own\nideal formula. This reflective consciousness cannot go back of the\nsoul itself, where it finds the abstractive idea passively received\nfrom concrete being. The contact of being, or of God who is alone\nbeing, gives the apprehension of being to the soul by creating it. The\ncreative act, and the being who produces the creative act, are\nunperceived by the soul, and lie back of its existence, which is the\nterminus of the creative act. The soul's separate activity begins at\nthe terminus of God's activity, and is projected forward to its own\nproper terminus. Its natural activity would never bring it face to\nface with its creator, God, or enable it to contemplate him in any\nother way than it is now able to do so, by the vividly apprehended\ndemonstration of his being from its own first principles and exterior\nworks of his hand. In order that the soul, in its reflexive acts, may\nsee God continually and clearly, it is necessary that he should unite\nhimself in a new and ineffable manner to its substance and its\nfaculties, and concur with them in such a way that they can look\nbeyond their natural limit of vision into the infinitude of the being\nof God which surrounds the creation like an ocean on every side. The\nsoul, which is, so to speak, projected from God by creation, must\nreceive a movement of return, which does not arrest itself at the mere\nfact of self-consciousness, but brings the soul to a consciousness of\nGod as immediately and personally producing its self-consciousness.\nThis act is most perfect in the human soul of Jesus Christ, the\nIncarnate Word. The personality of the human and divine natures in him\nbeing one, there is but one Ego. The human soul, therefore, terminates\nits act of self-consciousness, not upon itself, as its own\n_subsistentia_, but upon the divine Ego or person. It is conscious of\nitself as a distinct substance, but not a substance completed and\nbrought to distinct subsistence in itself. Its consciousness\nterminates in the divine person, and is referred to it, so that Jesus\nChrist, in every human act, affirms himself by self-consciousness as\nboth God and man in one person. The union of glorified spirits to God\nis similar to this hypostatic union, though not so perfect, and not\nimplying personal identity. The nature and mode of this union of the\ncreated spirit with God, by which it is glorified, beatified, and even\ndeified--as the doctors of the church fear not to affirm, in\naccordance with the declaration of the Holy Scripture--is impenetrable\nto the human understanding. The Indian philosophers, having retained a\nconfused idea of it from the primitive revelation, have expressed this\nidea in their sublime mysticism with all the superb imagery of their\nluxuriant imaginations. With {666} them, it is an absorption of all\nindividual souls in the infinite fount of being. Nearly all their\nlanguage may, however, be adopted, in a good sense, as expressing the\nChristian dogma, if clear, philosophical conceptions are substituted\nfor their obscure and unscientific notions of the creative act.\nWithout these clear conceptions and definitions, it is impossible to\nescape money into pantheism. The language of Christian mystic writers,\neven, is liable to misapprehension as expressing the pantheistic\nnotion of the identity of God and the creatures, unless their terms\nare properly explained. In point of fact, Eckhart did give expression\nto some propositions which implied pantheism and were condemned by the\nHoly See. The mystic writers continually affirm that the soul is made\n_una res cum Deo_, and becomes God by participation. By this, however,\nthey do not mean that the soul loses its distinct substance or becomes\nidentified with the divine nature. They intend to signify and\nineffable union between the soul and God, in which, each remaining\ndistinct in its own proper essence, God communicates his own\nknowledge, sanctity, glory, and beatitude to the soul; and admits it\ninto the Fellowship of the Blessed Trinity. This is the vanishing\npoint of all theology, and of all sciences, beyond which even the most\nilluminated eye cannot penetrate. The return of all things which\nproceed from God as first cause to God as final cause, consummated in\nthis beatific union, solves all the problems of time; there remains\nonly the problem of eternity, which eternity alone can solve.\n\n--------\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\nMY AUNT'S WORK-BOX.\n\n\n  Sure, such a mess was never seen\n  Of white and brown and black and green!\n  Not Noah's Ark, Pandora's box,\n     Such dire confusion e'er displayed\n  Here's wool, shorn from the fleecy flocks\n     That o'er Circassian Meadows strayed,\n  With spools of cotton, every number;\n  Buttons and studs, and other lumber;\n  Needles of every size and kind,\n    The blunts and sharps, the coarse and fine;\n  White linen, recent wounds to bind;\n    And rows of pins in order to shine.\n  Lo! Thimbles, for each finger fit,\n  And yarn too darn with or to knitt.\n  Here's sewing-silk of every hue\n  From brilliant red to modest blue;\n  And floss, with which the maiden traces,\n    With all the painter's art and skill,\n  Flowers, landscapes, birds, and human faces,\n    The verdant field or purling rill.\n  Here every sort of thread is seen,\n  The jolly ball and languid skein;\n  And here's the ivory thing that shapes\n  Small eyelet-holes in caps and capes.\n\n{667}\n\n  Look at that pair of rusty tweezers!\n  They must blame their many years.\n  Dear! what a tiny pair of scissors!\n  Sure, they're the twins of those huge shears.\n  Here's lots of crewel, which I mean\n  To use, someday, to work the screen.\n  Here are pin-cushions and emery bags,\n  Small shreds of lace and other rags,\n  Linen, calico, and crape,\n  And hanks of twine and bits of tape.\n  In short, here's every earthly thing\n  That thrifty wife could wish, I ween;\n  But I've not time to say or sing\n  The treasures of this magazine.\n\n--------\n\n\nOriginal.\n\nHOW MY AUNT PILCHER FOUND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.\n\n\nPerhaps you don't know my aunt, Patients Pilcher? Very likely not. i\nknow her very well, and am going to tell you something about her. She\nis my  mother's sister, and was born in the town of Squankum, Vermont,\nwhere she lived until she was over thirty years old--she says,\ntwenty-five, but that don't matter--when she came to New York to see\nUncle George. Well, Aunt Pilcher was mightily pleased and surprised\nwhen she saw New York; and as she knew every house, barn, and fence,\nand every lane and field in Squankum, and to whom they belonged, she\nthought she must find out as much about New York. She had no sooner\ntaken off her bonnet and shawl when she got to our house--I say _our_,\nbecause I live with Uncle George since mother died--than she wanted\nto put them on again and go out \"and see the places, and find out\nwhere people lived, and git introduced,\" as she said, adding that she\nwould \"hev to begin directly, or she would never git through.\"\n\nMy Aunt Pilcher is a very tall, thin woman, with a very cold face, as\nI found out on the first day she came to our house, when she bent over\nand kissed me. She thought I wiped off her kiss, and said \"Oh, fie!\"\nbut it wasn't that, it was the cold. As I was saying, she wanted to\nsee all of New York, and I believe she has, too, by this time; but she\nsoon got disgusted with what she called \"the offishness of the\nYorkers.\" \"You don't know anybody,\" said she, \"and nobody 'pears to\nwant to know you.\" She never tired, however, of seeing the many\nbeautiful buildings in the city, and among them all the churches seem\nto her to be the most attractive and the most worthy of her close\ninvestigation.\n\n\"I'm gittin 'most ashamed of our wooden meetin'-house to Squankum,\"\nsaid she, one day, after returning from a visit to Trinity Church; \"we\nused to be kinder proud of it, though, when some of the folks down to\nRattlebog came over to spend Sabbath with us; 'cause ye know what a\nmis'able little country skule-house of a place they've got over there.\nThen, ye've got sich a lot o' churches, my! I'm 'most afeered never\nsee them all, or I'll forgit abeout the first ones afore I git\nthrough.\"\n\n\"What sort of churches have you seen, aunty?\" I asked.\n\n{668}\n\n\"Oh! I've seen white-marbled ones and brown-stun ones, and a sort o'\nspeckled mixed ones like Washin'ton cake, ye know, a streak o' jelly\nand a streak o' cake. Then agin, I've seen all kinds o' styles;\nGrecian, Beshantem, Gothys, high-steepled style, low-steepled style,\nand no-steepled style. But I haint seeing a green winder-shutter one\nlike ours to Squankum yit. I s'pose the taste in architectur here in\nYork don't run that 'a way.\"\n\nBut I was not thinking of the outside of the churches when I asked her\nthe question, but of their inside. The truth was that Uncle George and\nI had been two or three times to see Mass and Vespers in the Catholic\nChurch, and I was so full of all I had seen and heard there that I was\nnearly dying to talk with some one about it. But Uncle George had told\nme that he thought Aunt Jane--that is, Uncle George's sister who keeps\nhouse for him and me--might possibly disapprove of our going again if\nI happened to mention it, and so I took care to say nothing about it.\nI was very anxious to find out if Aunt Pilcher had seeing a Catholic\nChurch, so I asked her if she happened to see any boys in the churches\nshe had been to.\n\n\"Boys!\" said she. \"Why boys? Of course boys. Shouldn't boys go to\nmeetin' as well as girls?\"\n\n\"But boys dressed up,\" said I.\n\n\"Dressed up! Laws yes, in their best Sunday-go-to-meetin', as they ort\nto be.\"\n\n\"In long red coats, perhaps, down to their heels,\" I suggested, in\nspite of Uncle George's frown; \"with nice white lace jackets over that\nagain, and carrying torch-lights and censers, and going up and down\nand all around?\" I added, eager to describe all I had seen.\n\n\"Why! what's come to the boy?\" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, raising up her\nhands in astonishment. \"He ain't right,\" meaning in my head.\"'\n\n\"Oh! yes, he is!\" said Uncle George, \"that's the way the Catholics go\non in their churches, and I suppose that Fred must have seen it\nsomewhere.\"\n\n\"Catholics!\" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, in a tone of horror, and half\nlooking over her shoulder as if some ghost of one might come in at the\nsound of the word. \"Ye don't mean them papists and other Jesuits that\ncall themselves Catholics! It's enough to make a body hate the name.\"\n\n\"That won't do, you know, sister Pilcher,\" said Uncle George, \"because\nit is in the Apostles' Creed.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" returned Aunt Pilcher, \"but I'd like to know what the\nHoly Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed has got to do with them\nignorant idolaters, the Catholics, the Roman papists, I mean?\"\n\n\"It's the same name, that's all,\" said Uncle George, with a sly\ntwinkle in his eye; \"and they say it's the same thing.\"\n\n\"Which in course is nonsense!\" ejaculated my aunt.\n\n\"Oh! of course it is,\" rejoined Uncle George. \"We are the real and\ntrue Catholic Church, and if some one wanted to come to our true and\nreal Holy Catholic Church we would just tell him to ask for the\nCatholic church and anybody would show him.\"\n\n\"Well, they ort to, that's all I got to say,\" said Aunt Pilcher\ndoubtfully.\n\n\"Certainly,\" continued Uncle George, \"and I've no doubt now, sister\nPilcher, that if you were to go out and ask people in the street here\nto point you to a Catholic church that they would show you our\nProtestant churches directly.\"\n\nAunt Pilcher looked very hard at Uncle George, as if she feared he\nmight be making game of her; but he looked so solemn and sedate that\nshe didn't suspect, but I did, and I got a crick in the back of my\nneck trying to keep from laughing. She seemed to think that she was\nbantered by my uncle, and said:\n\n\"Well, I never sot eout to do a thing yit that I didn't do it, and I'm\ngoing to do _that_.\"\n\n\"Hurrah! Aunt Pilcher,\" I shouted, \"I would too, if I were you.\" And\nthat confirmed her in her engagement, {669} for the very next morning\nshe put on her bonnet and shawl, and hung her reticule on her arm,\nwithout which she never went out of doors, and off she started. She\nwas gone all day and did not return until tea-time, appearing\ncompletely fagged out and exhausted. She was not in the best of humors\neither, to judge of the way she pulled off her out-door additions to\nher ordinary dress, and bade me \"carry them things up-stairs, for\npeople dead a'most and starved can't always be expected to wait on\ntheirselves.\" But not a word did she say about the object of her long\nday's journey. I was all curiosity to know where, she had been and\nwhat she had seen; and when we had nearly got through tea, that is,\nUncle George, Aunt Jane, Aunt Pilcher, I, and Bub Thompson, who had\ncome to play with me in the afternoon, and said he smelt short-cake,\nand wondered whether Aunt Jane could make it nice, and so got invited\nto try them--then I could stand it no longer, and said I, \"See\nanything nice to-day, Aunt Pilcher?\"\n\n\"I didn't particularly _see_ anything, my dear, but I heered something\nI shan't forgit, I can tell you, if hearin' a thing a hundred and\nninety-nine times over is enough to' make a body remember it.\"\n\n\"What did you hear, aunt?\" asked everybody at once.\n\n\"Hear!\" exclaimed she. \"These Yorkers never knows anything if a body\nasks them a perlite question abeout who lives in any house, or which\nis the way to somewhere; but to-day I do think they was all possessed,\nfor everybody 'peared to know only one church, when, dear knows, they\nort to know their own churches, I should think, and not be a'\ndirectin' everybody everlastin'ly to St. Peter's.\"\n\n\"How was that, aunt?\" asked every one again.\n\n\"Well,\" said she, \"I told you what I was goin' eout for, and I went.\nNeow I always do things in order: commence at the beginnin', I say,\nand then ye'll know when ye git to the eend. So I went clean deown to\nthe battery, and then I turns reound and comes up. Not wishin' to ask\nquestions of people _too_ fur off (for these Yorkers don't know where\nanythin' is ef it ain't right deown under their nose), I walked on\ntill I got pretty near Trinity Church, belongin' to the Episcopals,\nand says I to a knowledgable lookin' man, says I, 'Couldn't ye pint me\neout, neow, a Catholic church?' 'I can't precisely pint ye to it,'\nsays he, which I thort was queer, with a Christian church right afore\nhis eyes, 'but I can tell you where one is: in Barclay street, right\nup Broadway, ma'am, Saint Peter's church,' and off he went like a\nshot. These Yorkers air in _sich_ a hurry, they won't stop to hear a\nbody eout. Well, on I walks, and I saw another church, Saint Paul's in\nBroadway, similarly belongin' to the Episcopals; and this time I got\nstraight in front of it. The folks 'peared to be in sich an orful\nhurry jist here that I thort somebody must be dead; or somebody's\nhouse had ketch't afire, and I couldn't git eout the first word afore\nthe person I spoke to was a whole block off, and I got kind o'\nbewildered like. At last, I tried a lady--for I give the men folks\nup--and says I to her:\n\n\"'Is this a meetin'-house of the Holy Catholic Church, ma'am?'\n\n\"'No, ma'am,' says she rather short, 'ef you want to go there, you had\nbetter go deown Barclay street, next street above, St. Peter's on the\nleft,' and off she went. Well; I goes deown Barclay street, jist to\nsee this St. Peter's, and do you believe, I found eout it was one of\nthem papist churches.'\n\n\"That was rather strange,\" interrupted Uncle George.\n\n\"I thort it was a leetle so myself,\" said Aunt Pilcher, \"and I began\nto conceit people took me for a papist or a Jesuit, so I made up my\nmind to say so to once; and on I walks agin till I come to Broome\nstreet, deown which I went till I found a nice look-in' church, and\nsays I to a minister-lookin' gentleman, says I:\n\n{670}\n\n\"'I'm not a Jesuit, sir.'\n\n\"'Glad to hear it, ma'am,' says he, 'there are concealed Jesuits all\nover.'\n\n\"'I'm a Protestant,' says I, 'pre-haps you can show me a meetin'-house\nthat believes in the Holy Catholic Church; is that one there?'\n\n\"I am grieved,' says he, 'that anybody should wish to know anythin'\nabeout the Catholic Church, and I hope you have no intention of goin'\nto sich a place of abomination.'\n\n\"He didn't 'pear to know my mean-in', so says I, 'I mean the _real_\nCatholic Church.'\n\n\"'Ma'am,' says he, 'real or unreal, it is always the same thing;\nalways was and always will be. That is a Baptist church, ma'am, before\nyou, and not a Catholic mass house. There is one of them, called St.\nPeter's, in Barclay street, I believe,' and off he walked without\nsayin' another word. 'Patience,' says I to myself, 'be true to your\nname,' for, to tell the truth, I was gettin' a leetle bit flustrated.\nI walks on, turnin' corners and reound and reound, and at last I got\ninto a street called Bedford street. There I saw a meetin'-house with\na sign over the door tellin' it was a Methodist. Says I to a man that\nwas jist then sweepin reound the door--thinkin' to begin right this\ntime--says 'I:\n\n\"'My Christian friend, the apostles believed in the Holy Catholic\nChurch.'\n\n'\"Not a bit of it,' says he.\n\n\"'Oh! yes,' says I, 'they did; it is in the Apostles' Creed.'\n\n\"'Is it?' says he.\n\n\"'Yes, it is, and what's more, you ort to know it,' says I, gettin'\nbothered with sich ignorance.\n\n\"'None o' yer impudence,' says he.\n\n\"'Why, good lands!' says I, almost swearin', 'they believe in the Holy\nCatholic Church in this meetin'-house, don't they?'\n\n\"'No, they don't, and don't want to,' says he, and slammed the door in\nmy face. Then I wanders reound and seen lots of churches, but I didn't\nsee anybody, to speak to till I got ever so fur off in the Fifth\navenue, where I saw a handsome brick church with a tall steeple, and\nthere I saw some people goin' in. I asked what was goin' on, and they\nsaid it was a prayer--meetin\". I should liked to have jined in a York\nprayer-meetin', but I wasn't in a fit state jist then--in sich a\ntwitter as I was--so I ups and speaks to a young lady who looked like\na Sabbath school teacher, and says I:\n\n\"'The real Catholic Church in the Apostles' Creed is where the gospil\nis preached.' She kinder opened her eyes at me, and says she:\n\n\"'The gospil is preached here, ma'am; but this is not a Catholic\nchurch; this is a Presbyterian church.'\n\n\"'But,' says I agin,' where the gospil is preached is the true\nCatholic Church.'\n\n\"'I guess not,' says she, 'the gospil is not preached in the Catholic\nChurch.'\n\n\"'Well, ma'am,' says I, feelin' considerably riled, 'I guess I larnt\nmy catechism, not afore you was born, but abeout the same time, I\nshould say; and I'm jist lookin' for somebody else that knows it, and\nif anybody in York knows what and where the Holy Catholic Church is;'\nand do you believe she actually turned 'reound to another gal and said\nI was crazy, and had run away from a 'sylum. I went away disgusted and\ntried agin, one plase and another. I even tried the Washin'ton cake\nchurch in the Fourth avenue, but not a soul would own up to what they\nort to believe. You wouldn't get papists sendin' you to their St.\nPeter's, I'll be bound, if you asked them for a Protestant church.\"\n\n\"Of course not,\" said Uncle George, \"and what conclusion have you come\nto, sister Pilcher?\"\n\n\"I've come to the conclusion,\" said Aunt Pilcher, \"that these Yorkers\ndon't know the Apostles' Creed.\"\n\n\"I should say,\" said Bub Thompson, \"that those folks you 'saw didn't\nbelieve it.\"\n\n{671}\n\n\"Boy!\" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, with an awful expression of\ncountenance, \"speak when you air spoken to.\"\n\n\"How is it when you're spoken about?\" asked Bub; \"'cause I'm a\nCatholic, a papist as you say, and you've been speaking about my\nchurch.\"\n\n\"My! I never!\" ejaculated Aunt Pilcher, looking first at one and then\nat another for explanation.\n\n\"Sister Pilcher,\" said Uncle George, \"the truth is, it is no use for\nus Protestants to call ourselves Catholics, for we are not. You see\nhow everybody denied it. Of course you could never get a Protestant to\nown to the name of  'Catholic,' either here in New York or anywhere\nelse, any more than you could persuade any one to give us the name;\nand it seems to me that where the name is, and always has been, the\nreality is likely to be. As for your experiment to-day, it is just\nwhat would have happened thirteen hundred years ago; for I read in a\nbook that Bub Thompson's father lent me, that St. Augustine said,\nspeaking about the sects that tried to call themselves 'Catholics' in\nhis time: 'The very name of _Catholic_ detains me in the Catholic\nChurch, which that church has alone, and not without cause, obtained\namong so many heretics, in such a way as that while all heretics wish\nto be called Catholics, nevertheless not one of them will dare to\npoint out his basilica or house to a stranger inquiring for a place of\nCatholic worship.\"  [Footnote 187]\n\n  [Footnote 187: Epist. contra Manich. I. 5, 6.]\n\n\"Well! sakes alive! live and larn,\" exclaimed Aunt Pilcher, \"but it's\nenough to make a body think they never knowed anythin' when they find\noat some things!\"\n\n----------\n\n\nTranslated from Le Contemporain.\n\nA PORTRAIT OF FRA ANGELICO.\n\nBY EDMOND LAFONDE.\n\n\nAt dawn of a summer's day in the year of grace 1453, a Dominican monk\nset out from his convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, at Rome. He was\nan old man, but the brightness of youth still shown in his aged\ncountenance, attributable, perhaps, to the shadowless sanctity of his\nlife, and the purity of a soul which had never known wrinkles. He\nwalked slowly in his dress of white woolen covered with a black\nscapular, his shaven head bared to the sun, his eyes cast down, and\nhis hands employed in rolling the beads of the Rosary of St. Dominic.\nHe traversed the square of the Pantheon, and was going to cross the\nbridge of St. Angelo, when, in passing the prison of the Tor di Nona,\nhe saw coming out of it a funeral cort\u00e9ge; a condemned person, led to\ndeath in the usual place of execution, the piazza della Bocca Verit\u00e0.\nA man nearly forty years of age, of noble and proud figure, but\nseemingly worn out by vice or grief; his costume curious, and wholly\noriental; clothed in red silk, with a turban ornamented with gold and\nermine. A Franciscan accompanied him, but endeavored in vain to direct\nhis thoughts to heaven, and make him kiss the crucifix, from which he\nturned away his lips in discussed. The crowd that followed, becoming\ninfuriated, exhorted him to penitence, crying out, \"Amico, pensa a\nsalvar l'anima.\" \"My friend, think of saving thy soul.\"\n\n{672}\n\nAs soon as the Franciscans saw a brother priest, he called to him,\nsaying: \"Ah! Fra Giovanni, in the name of the holy friendship which\nunited our two glorious patriarchs, St. Dominic and St. Francis, come\nto my aid. You see this unhappy man. He is one of the Greeks just come\nfrom Italy, since the taking of Constantinople. His name is\nArgyropoulos. He has murdered a Roman woman; is doomed to die, and\nwill not reconcile himself with God. He is not merely schismatical,\nbut pagan. Try if you can be more successful than I.\" At a sign from\nthe chief of the guard the _cort\u00e9ge_ stopped--for in Rome, since the\nearliest age, pontifical justice does not wish to kill the soul, and\nmakes every effort to save it while sacrificing the guilty body. Fra\nGiovanni tried to speak to the Greek, but was met with repulse and\nblasphemy. With tears rolling down his cheeks he whispered a few words\nto the Franciscan, who, elevating his voice, thus addressed the chief\nof the guard: \"This son of St. Dominic,\" he said, \"is Fra Giovanni of\nFiesole, the favorite painter of his holiness. He is going to the\nVatican, and will ask the Holy Father a delay of one day, in order to\ntry once more to induce the sinner to repent.\" The people applauded,\nand the captain of the guard declared himself willing to assume the\nresponsibility of suspending the execution while awaiting a new order\nfrom the sovereign pontiff. The condemned man, who remained apparently\nimmovable during this debate, was re-conducted into the prison of Tor\ndi Nona, where still later were to be enclosed the guilty family of\nCenci, and the Franciscan entered with him. The crowd remained a long\ntime before the door, losing none of its interest or curiosity. Fra\nGiovanni again pursued his way to the Vatican, his soul, so calm\nordinarily, deeply agitated and troubled by the unfortunate event.\nArrived at the square of St. Peter, he kneeled by the obelisk which\ncontains a piece of the true cross; then passing the guards, who were\ndaily accustomed to see him, entered without difficulty into the\npontifical palace. He repaired immediately to the new chapel, which\nPope Nicholas V. had just finished, and charged him to decorate; for\nit is time to say that Fra Giovanni was the painter-monk of Fiesole,\nwhose purity of genius and sanctity of life had surnamed him Beato\n(blessed) or Fra Angelico (the angelical brother), under which latter\nname he is most generally known, and which is equally appropriate to\nhis beauty of soul and to his works. The great Pope Nicholas V., who\nhad known him at Florence, and watched the budding of these marvellous\nproducts of his pencil in the convent of St. Mark, had just called him\nto Rome, where Eugene IV. had already bid him come, to enthrone in his\nown person Christian art in the Vatican. Nicholas V. had built in his\npalace a small chapel, in which he desired the painter-monk to retrace\nfor him the story of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen, reuniting them in\nthe same poetical commemoration; as had been the custom of the\nfaithful to invoke them, since their bones had lain united outside the\nwalls in the ancient basilica of St. Lawrence. This chapel being very\nsmall is lighted by a single arched window; happily it has been\npreserved, and is one of the sanctuaries where the friends of\nChristian art love to make a pilgrimage. Below the window is now\nplaced the altar which formerly faced it. On the three other sides Fra\nAngelico has painted two series of compositions, one above the other;\nin the arches of the upper part is represented, in six compartments,\nthe history of St. Stephen, and in the lower that of St. Lawrence. On\nentering the chapel Fra Angelico fell on his knees to pray God to\nguide his pencil, then commenced to paint the scene where St. Stephen\nwas led to martyrdom. He there represented an enraged Jew, who\nconducts the saint outside of Jerusalem, while others pushed and\npursued him with stones in their hands. While painting the violence of\nthe Jews Fra Angelico {673} thought deeply of the Greek whose\nexecution he had arrested, and awaited with pious impatience the\narrival of the Pope, who never failed daily to visit the works of his\nfavorite painter. The Dominican interrupted his work now and then to\nrest, reposing his mind with prayer and singing occasionally a stanza\nof Dante, who was then for mystical painters an unfailing source of\nreligious inspiration. He recited the exquisite passage where Dante\npaints the glorious martyrdom of St. Stephen:\n\n  \"Poi vidi genti accese in fuoco d'ira\n  Con pietre un giovinetto ancider, forte\n  Gridando a se pur; Martira, martira, ect.\"\n\n\"Then I saw an excited and angry crowd, stoning and forcing onward a\nyoung man, with loud cries of 'Kill him, kill him!' And him I saw bent\nto the earth by the weight of death, but with eyes uplifted and turned\nto heaven; in the midst of the terrible struggle praying the sovereign\nGod to forgive his enemies, with an expression so beautiful as to\ncommand pity and respect.\"\n\nAt last the door of the chapel opened and the Pope entered. Nicholas\nV. was old, but more bent by sorrow than age. In his youth he was\ncalled the poor student of Sarzana, and had passed his life in the\nsociety of saints and literary men. Become sovereign pontiff, he\nencouraged piety, science, art, and letters; laid the foundation of\nSt. Peter's, embellished Rome, and merited truly to give his name to\nthe fifteenth century as Leo X., gave his to the sixteenth. During the\nCouncil of Florence he had known Fra Angelico, and soon perceived that\nthe soul of the Dominican artist was worth far more than his pencil.\nPope Eugene IV. had thus judged him when he wished to name this holy\nreligious Archbishop of Florence. Fra Angelico, seized with fear on\nlearning the intentions of the pontiff, besought to be spared so great\na weight. His vocation, he said, was not to govern, but stated at the\nsame time he could recommend a brother of his order far more worthy\nthan he of such a dignity. Eugene IV. listened to his suggestion and\nnamed for archbishop the monk who was afterward to be St. Antonine.\nWhen Nicholas V. entered the chapel he appeared so unhappy that Fra\nAngelico, in kneeling to implore his blessing, could not forbear\nasking the cause of his sadness; if some recent misfortune had not\nbefallen him. \"O my son,\" replied the Pope, \"the misfortune which has\nhappened me is the catastrophe long since foretold, but not the less\nbitter to all Christian hearts, the taking of Constantinople by the\nTurks! My dreams, even, are troubled, for since I have been Pope the\nprincipal aim of my pontificate has been the pacification of\nChristianity, so as to unite and direct all our forces in a crusade\nagainst the Turks. But the unfortunate Greeks have upset all my\nprojects in their hatred of the papacy, preferring the turban to the\ntiara. They have broken the peace of Florence, ill received the\nassistance of the Latins, and now their capital is no longer for Jesus\nChrist, but Mahomet. Ah! Fra Giovanni, can any one in the world be\nmore wretched than I? Were it not that I fear a failure of duty, I\nwould renounce the pontifical dignity, to become again Master Thomas\nof Sarzana. Then, one day gave me more true happiness than I have\nsince enjoyed in a whole year.\" The Pope shed tears abundantly.\n[Footnote 188]\n\n  [Footnote 188: See this scene in Muratori, volume 25th, page 286.\n  The taking of Constantinople was a mortal blow to Nicholas V. From\n  that day he was never seen to smile.]\n\nFra Giovanni deeply commiserated him, and replied in a voice choked\nwith emotion: \"Most Holy Father, let us resign ourselves to the will\nof God. Bear your cross as did he of whom you are the vicar; I wish I\nwere the good Cyrenean to aid you. Let us contemplate the images of\nthe two martyrs I am to paint on the walls of the chapel, and, like\nthem, let us learn to suffer.\" \"You are right, Fra Giovanni. Your soul\nand talent are truly consolatory, and I love to come here and open my\nheart, charged as it is with incurable anguish.\" {674} Just then\ntwelve o'clock struck. The Pope knelt down to recite the Angelus, and\ndried the tears which since St. Peter so often had reddened the eyes\nof the sovereign pontiffs. At this moment a prelate came to announce\nthat the dinner of his holiness was ready. \"My son,\" said the Pope,\n\"do not leave me in this hour of affliction. I beg you to dine at my\ntable.\" \"Holy Father,\" replied the humble monk, \"without the\npermission of the prior I dare not do so. I must dine with my\ncommunity.\" \"But, my son, I can dispense with this obligation. Come,\ncome!\" The Dominican dined, therefore, _tete-\u00e0-tete_ with the Pope,\nbut in silence, and with eyes cast down, as if he had been in his own\nrefectory. It was not a day of abstinence, and meat was served on the\nPope's table, but the monk refused to partake of it, \"Fra Giovanni,\"\nsaid Nicholas, \"you exhaust yourself with this painting, and I perhaps\nurge you too closely to finish it. You have worked hard to day, and\nshould strengthen yourself anew by eating some meat.\" \"Holy Father, I\ncan not without the permission of the prior.\" The Pope smiled, but\ncould not help admiring the innocent scruples of the pious monk. \"My\nson,\" said he, \"do you not think the authority of the sovereign\npontiff greater than the permission of your prior? For to-day I\ndispense with the rule of St. Dominic, and order you to eat all that\nis offered you.\"  [Footnote 189]\n\n  [Footnote 189: This scene, which so well portrays the virtue of Fra\n  Angelico, is related by Vasari and Fra Leandro Alberti; De Viris\n  Illustribus Ordinis Predicatorum, libri sex.]\n\nThe Dominican obeyed in silence, but his mind seemed preoccupied. He\nthought unceasingly of the poor guilty Greek whose execution he had\nsuspended, but he dared not speak of him to the Pope. Nicholas V.\nperceived his distraction and asked him of what he was thinking. Then\nFra Angelico related to him the story of Argyropoulos, and added:\n\"Holy Father, with justice your government has condemned this unhappy\nman to be executed, but I know your holiness desires not the death of\nhis soul, and I have hoped your mercy would grant him the delay of a\nday that he may still have time to repent.\" \"My son, I thank you for\nhaving acted thus. I accord you not only one day,  but several if\nnecessary.\" Nicholas V. then wrote an order suspending the execution,\nand gave it to Beato, who full of joy, asked permission to retire\nwithout finishing his repast. He obtained it, and in haste quitted the\nVatican. After passing the bridge of St. Angelo, he was strongly\ntempted to stop at the prison of Tor di Nona; but he considered his\nduty to his convent, where doubtless his absence from dinner had\noccasioned surprise. When he entered the cloister of Santa Maria sopra\nMinerva, the brothers had left the refectory, so the prior exacted of\nthe dilatory monk a penance, which consisted of eating his dinner in a\nkneeling posture. The Beato, without saying a word to excuse himself,\nknelt down and simply made a sign he would rather not eat. The prior\nthen ordered him to explain his absence. \"My Father,\" said he, \"I am\nguilty; mea culpa. His Holiness wished me to dine with him, and\nobliged me to eat meat without your permission.\" The prior admired the\nsimplicity and obedience of the blessed one, but said nothing to\ndisturb his humility. The habit of obedience was so natural to him\nthat all orders for his art were received through his spiritual\nsuperior; and when any work was requested of him, his friends were\nreferred to the prior, as nothing could be done without his consent.\nHe refused to stipulate a price for his works, and distributed all\nthey bought him to the poor and unfortunate. \"He loved the poor during\nhis life,\" said Vasari, \"As tenderly as his soul now loves the heaven\nwhere he enjoys the glory of the blessed.\" If he loved the poor, Fra\nAngelico better loved souls; he obtained from the prior permission to\ngo immediately to the prison. He ran thither with the wings of\ncharity, and showed the order from the Pope which delayed the\nexecution. He gained {675} admittance to what is now called the\nprisoner's cell, now that so many of our ancient abbeys are\ntransformed into houses of detention. Argyropoulos presented himself,\ngrave and sad, clothed always in his red dress and white turban, which\ngave him an air of majesty quite oriental. He was seated on a straw\nbed, but his attitude was King Solomon enthroned. The Dominican, with\nhis white robe and angelical figure, resembled one of the beautiful\nlilies he so often painted in the hands of the angel of the\nannunciation; one of the lilies of the field, of which the Saviour\nhimself has said, \"Not Solomon in all his glory could be arrayed like\none of these.\" Fra Angelico, without saying anything at first, stopped\nat the entrance, and, kneeling, prayed God to cure this ulcerated\nsoul. A ray of light, which shone obliquely through the only window,\nilluminated his bared and shaven head, and gave him the anticipated\ncrown of glory of the blessed. The Greek contemplated with\nastonishment this luminous apparition, and thought he dreamed again\nthe dream of the patriarch Jacob, who saw angels ascend and descend a\nmysterious ladder. Having strengthened himself by prayer, Fra Angelico\napproached the prisoner, and said in a voice truly angelical: \"My\nbrother!\" But the charm to which Argyropoulos had given himself up at\nthe vision of the blessed one was broken by the sound of his voice; he\nsaw in him only a Catholic monk, and thus a being he detested. \"I am\nnot thy brother, we have nothing in common, and I hate the religion of\nthe Azymites.\"  [Footnote 190]\n\n  [Footnote 190: A name that the Greeks gave the Catholics on account\n  of the discussion on the _unleavened_ bread as material of the\n  eucharist.]\n\n\"My brother, you and I are Christians, although fifteen years ago you\nhave separated the Greek and Latin churches, which the Council of\nFlorence so happily united.\"\n\n\"No! As our great Duke Notaras said, there is no peace between us. I\nwould rather see the turban of Mahomet at Constantinople than the\ntiara of the Pope.\"\n\n\"O my brother, can you say so? If you are not Catholic, are you not\nChristian?\"\n\n\"No, I am so no longer. I do not believe in God; and besides, if there\nis a God, I have committed crimes too great for him to pardon. I am\npagan and of the school of Plato; I prefer Jupiter to Jehovah, Plato\nto the Scripture, and the gods of Homer to the Saints of\nChristianity.\"\n\n\"Why, my brother, you have gone backward two thousand years, to\nbreathe what Dante calls the fetid air of paganism, 'Il puzzo del\npaganes mo.'\"\n\nFra Angelico tried in vain to move this heart, as hardened and\ndesperate as that of Judas; during three days he fasted, prayed, and\nbegged the prayers of his fraternity, offered himself to God as a\nvictim to save this soul, and employed against his own body the\ninstruments of penance. But God did not grant him the grace he sought.\nEvery morning, while painting at the Vatican, he rendered an account\nto the Pope of his unsuccessful efforts, and recommended the Greek to\nthe pontifical prayers. The three days expired; again he solicited a\nstill longer delay of the execution. \"Holy Father,\" said he, \"a\nresidence in prison seems to exasperate this unhappy man; perhaps I\nmight obtain a better hearing if I could take him out and let him\nbreathe the fresh air.\" \"I can refuse you nothing, Fra Giovanni. Bring\nhim to see this chapel, I am sure your painting will do his soul some\ngood.\" \"I will bring him to-morrow, since your Holiness permits me,\nand at the same time solicit your daily visit, as I am certain his\nmeeting the vicar of Jesus Christ will have more effect on him than my\npictures.\" Nicholas V. promised to do so, and wrote an order to place\nthe captive at liberty for one day, and at the responsibility of Fra\nGiovanni. It was a touching spectacle to see the Pope and the monk so\ngenerously united in their {676} efforts to convert this paganized\nschismatic.\n\nThe next morning Fra Angelico ran to the prison, brought out the\nGreek, and proposed to him to see his pictures, without mentioning the\nPope. Argyropoulos, who rather prided himself on his knowledge of art\nas well as of literature, willingly accepted the invitation. The fresh\nair and the glorious Roman sun softened his mood, hitherto so\nferocious, and gave him an air almost of serenity. Fra Angelico,\ntransported with joy, conducted his future neophyte to the Vatican,\nand introduced him to the chapel, praying God to work in him the same\nmiracle which he had granted to St. Methodius, whose painting of the\nLast Judgment, on the walls of a palace belonging to the King of\nBulgaria, had not only converted the king, but as many of his subjects\nas looked upon it. The Greek was deeply affected by these admirable\npictures, and took upon himself to explain them lengthily. To show his\nartistic knowledge, he criticised the executioners who stoned St.\nStephen, and thought their countenances lacked sufficient energy. The\npainter monk humbly accepted the criticism, which was not wanting in\njustice. A competent judge has said that the character of Fra Angelico\nwas so formed of a love amounting to ecstasy that he never could\nfamiliarize himself with dramatic scenes where hateful and violent\npassions had the ascendency. In the painting of the life of St.\nLawrence, the Beato begged the Greek to particularly observe the\nprison window where the martyr was converting a man on his knees, who\nafterward became St. Hippolytus. \"In painting this scene of conversion\nI thought of you, my brother,\" he said, in a voice so sweet and tender\nit would have touched a heart of marble; but Argyropoulos turned away\nhis eyes, and pretended not to hear him. Fra Angelico's heart was\ngrieved, and he felt his only hope was in the sovereign pontiff. He\nhad not long to wait for him. Nicholas V. entered into the chapel,\nwith a dignity tempered by an ineffable tenderness. The Beato knelt\ndown--his forehead in the dust--to kiss the feet of His Holiness. The\nsight of the Pope always caused him transports of joy, equal to those\nof St. Joseph of Cupertino, who went into ecstasy whenever in the\npresence of the vicar of Jesus Christ. But a contrary effect was\nvisible in the mind of the pagan of Constantinople. At the sight of\nthe pontiff he reassumed all his dignity. \"On your knees, my brother,\non your knees!\" in vain said Beato to him, while pulling his dress.\n\"Never,\" cried the Greek, \"never will I bend the knee before the idol\nof the Azymites--before a priest who wished our submission at the\nCouncil of Florence.\" Angelico sighed in the dust at the obstinacy of\nthis pagan, but the Pope, calm and dignified, began to converse in\nGreek with Argyropoulos, who, captivated instantaneously by this\ngraciousness, replied by a verse of Homer. \"My son,\" said Nicholas V.,\n\"I also will cite you a passage from Homer. In the second book of the\nIliad, the prudent Ulysses cries out: 'All Greeks cannot reign, too\nmany chiefs would do harm; let us have but one sovereign, but a single\nking, him to whom the prudent Saturn entrusted the sceptre and the\nlaws to govern us:\n\n  [Greek text]\n\nThus, my son, God wished in his church but one chief, one flock, and\none shepherd.\" At these words the Greek grew angry and replied in\nharsh terms. \"My son,\" said the Pope to him with tenderness, \"I\nforgive you, I pity your blindness, and I will continue to pray God to\nenlighten you.\"\n\nNicholas V. withdrew.\n\nArgyropoulos, mortified at his own conduct, returned to Fra Angelico,\nand again commenced to eulogize the pictures. \"My paintings are worth\nnothing,\" cried the monk, bursting into tears, \"since they have failed\nto convert you. I am unworthy the name of preacher, since all my\nteaching has not succeeded, {677} and I have brought you before the\nholy father, only to hear you outrage the dignity of God's\nrepresentative on earth.\" The remembrance of this scene completely\novercame the tender and pious soul of Fra Angelico. He became pale and\nweak, sank on his white robe like a lily on its stalk, and fell on the\npavement as one dead, according to Dante:\n\n  \"E cadi, come corpo morte cade.\"\n\nThe Greek, seized with pity and astonishment, tried vainly to restore\nhim. He thought he had killed him, and this man, whose hands were\nalready bloodstained, imagined he had committed another murder. He\nhated himself when he saw this angel extended at his feet. He knelt\nbefore him, rubbed his hands in his own, and threw in his face the\nwater in the vase which was used in his painting. \"Father, father,\"\ncried he, \"come back to life, and I swear to do all you wish.\" The\nAngelico opened his beautiful eyes, languishing and moist with tears.\n\"My brother,\" said he, \"you restore me to life, but again you will\ngive me to death if you forget your promise. Now we must leave the\nchapel; it is time, according to my duty, that I take you back to\nprison.\" Notwithstanding his pallor and feebleness Fra Angelico\ninsisted on leaving the Vatican immediately, and returned home leaning\non the shoulder of Argyropoulos. He said nothing until they reached\nthe prison of Tor di Nona. But there again, alone with him, the\nangelical monk knelt before the prisoner, and reproached him for his\nconduct toward the Pope with that sweetness he never lost, and which\nso greatly astonished his biographer Vasari.  [Footnote 191]\n\n  [Footnote 191: \"Never,\" said he, \"could one surprise him in an angry\n  moment. This seemed to me incredible: Il che e grandissima cosa e mi\n  pare impossibile a credere.\"]\n\nThis touching kindness greatly affected the Greek, who had been\nalready so deeply moved by the fainting of Beato. He began to\ncomprehend the love with which this pious monk was inflamed for the\nsalvation of his soul. \"My brother,\" said the Dominican to him, while\njoining his hands, \"you have restored me to life, but in promising to\ndo as I wish, and I only desire to save you. You must discharge your\nconscience of its weight of sin--you must confess.\" \"But I cannot\nbelieve in the necessity of confession, or in its divine institution.\"\n\"O my brother, if you could contemplate your poor soul in its mirror\nof truth, it would appear so shaded and sullied. Your soul is bound in\ncords ruder than those that chained your body when they led you to\nexecution. But confession would deliver you from all.\" \"Let me see\nthis with my eyes, or I can never believe it.\" A sudden inspiration\ncame to the mind of the angelical painter. \"My brother, we will speak\nagain of this. I am hurried to finish a picture; would you be pleased\nI should paint it with you by my side, that I might every morning\ndistract your thoughts and keep you company?\" \"Oh! yes, my father, I\nshould be most happy, for you are very good to the poor prisoner.\" The\nBeato obtained permission from Nicholas V. to suspend for some days\nhis work at the Vatican, and from the next morning he installed\nhimself in the prison, accompanied by his pupil Benozzo Bozzoli, who\nbrought with him an easel, some brushes, and a box of colors. After a\nfervent prayer, he placed on the easel a small panel of wood, upon\nwhich he commenced to paint rapidly, and without retouching, according\nto his custom; he never perfected his paintings, leaving them\naccording to his first impression, believing, as he said, so God\nwished them. \"His art,\" says M. de Moutalembert, \"was so beautiful in\nhis eyes, and so sacred, that he respected its productions as the\nfruits of an inspiration much higher than his own intention.\" He\ncommenced by painting, as a foundation for his picture, some trees,\nwhich rose near a house of simple appearance, and a modest church,\ndecorated by a portico supported by four pillars in Florentine style.\nIn a court grown over with herbs and studded here and there with {678}\nflowers, he grouped five personages. At the right our Saviour, clothed\nin a blue robe and draped in a red mantle, is seen in profile; a large\nnimbus of gold encircles his tender and majestic countenance, his\ngolden hair falls on his shoulders. The Saviour has an attitude of\ncommand, and extends his arm and hand which holds a golden rod. He\naccomplished one of the greatest acts of his mercy, he institutes the\nsacrament of penance, he gives to his apostles the power to remit\nsins: one can almost hear him repeat the words which he addresses to\nPeter, that he may transmit them to the entire Christian priesthood:\n\"Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and\nwhatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.\"\n[Footnote 192]\n\n  [Footnote 192: In the convent of St. Mark at Florence, the Beato has\n  painted the grand scene of Calvary, where he represents St. Benedict\n  holding in his hand the rod of penitence.]\n\nThe painter monk put into action these words of Christ. He painted a\npriest in Florentine costume; a red cap encircled with ermine and a\nblue dalmatic, which hung in graceful folds; his figure is youthful,\nand expression benignant. This priest approaches a sinner in a red\ndress, and turbaned with a cap of gold and ermine. The sinner is bound\nwith cords which are passed several times around his body. The priest\napproaches him with ineffable compassion. With what care, what\ndelicacy, what respect, what love, he unties the cord with his white\nand pure hands! With what grace and dignity he fills his office of\npriest and confessor! The seven capital sins are figured by seven\ndemons chased from his body by absolution, and who are making every\neffort to re-enter it. Rage and impatience are depicted on the faces\nof these servants of Satan, and their attitudes are as various as\nstrange. One of them still threatens the sinner with his iron trident.\nIn the second part, Fra Angelico represents a person in a green robe\nand turban, who expresses, by figure and gesture, his admiration at\nthe sight of this miracle of divine mercy, which is called the\ninstitution of confession. Near this man, and right against the\nSaviour, is a second personage, of whom the face only is seen. His\nhead is bared, and his angelical features seem to recall those of the\nBeato, such as they are sculptured on his tombstone at Santa Maria\nsopra Minerva. The Greek had followed with curiosity and profound\ninterest all the details of this picture, accomplished in three days\nunder his own inspection. He had admired the piety of the Angelico,\nwho, according to his custom, had not dared to paint the head of the\nSaviour but on bended knees. Contrary to his usual manner, he had only\nlightly sketched the face of the sinner bound with the cord. It was on\nthe third day that he suddenly finished it. But how express the\nsurprise and emotion of Argyropoulos, when he perceived that, under\nthe pencil of the painter-monk, this face became his own portrait! The\nblessed one had painted his gray beard, his noble profile, and\nexpressed in his face at the same time the grief of being restrained\nby sin and the hope of a speedy deliverance. Argyropoulos, in the\nmidst of the picture, had truly an expression of contrition in the\nintensity of his regard. \"It is I,\" cried the Greek, \"it is I indeed!\"\nAnd he burst into tears. The divine touch of grace had vanquished him\nat last. \"My father, my father, untie me also, deliver me from the\nbonds of many sins.\" The Angelico seized him in his arms, and in\ntransports of joy pressed him to his breast, then begged him to kneel\nwith him and render thanks to God. He passed several days in\nexplaining to him Catholic truths; then he received the acknowledgment\nof his faults, baptized him conditionally at St. Jean de Latran, in\nthe baptistry of Constantine.  [Footnote 193]\n\n  [Footnote 193: The author has here fallen into a mistake; the\n  sacraments of the Greek Church are never reiterated conditionally.\n --Ed. CATHOLIC WORLD.]\n\n{679}\n\nThe eve of this great day he had enjoined him, as penance, to go to\nthe Vatican, throw himself at the feet of the Pope, and ask pardon on\nhis knees for the invective he had cast on the holy father in the\nchapel. Nicholas V. received him kindly, and said: \"My son, Jesus\nChrist has pardoned you, and I could not do otherwise than he of whom\nI am vicar; I absolve you, not only for what you have said against me,\nbut the crimes committed against society. I grant you full and entire\npardon from the punishment you have merited, in the hope that your new\nlife will atone for the past.\" The Greek prostrated himself with\ngratitude, and kissed his feet; then showed the picture from which he\nwould never part. The Pope admired it, and said to the painter-monk:\n\"Your pencil has worked another miracle of conversion.\" The humble\nartist replied that only to God must be given the glory, and recited\nthe verse of David: \"Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da\ngloriam.\" This was the device of the Templars, and we have seen it in\nVenice engraved on the wall of the old palace Vendramini. \"Most holy\nfather,\" said the Greek. \"I know with what goodness your Holiness has\nreceived my compatriots, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond,\nCalchondylos, and Gemistos Plethon, who after the taking of\nConstantinople took refuge on a Venetian galley, and have come to\nItaly, bringing with them the precious manuscripts of the ancient\nGreek authors and fathers of the Greek Church, which but for them\nwould have been burned by the infidels. They have been most happy to\nrepay your hospitality by enriching the library of the Vatican with\nthese literary treasures.\" \"It is true,\" said Nicholas V. \"Thanks to\ntheir and other conquests, we have become able to reunite in the\nVatican nearly five thousand manuscripts; it is, we believe, the\nrichest collection made since the dispersion of the Alexandrian\nlibrary. But I still have one gap to fill, and I have promised a\nreward of fifty thousand ducats to him who will bring me the gospel of\nSt. Matthew in the original language.\" \"O holy father, how can I\nexpress my happiness! I possess this manuscript, which I brought from\nConstantinople. After having committed the crime by which I merited\ndeath, I hid this book in a place in the Roman campagna, where I could\neasily find it again. To thank your Holiness for all your goodness, I\nam only too happy to offer you the gospel of St. Matthew,\" Nicholas V.\nwas delighted, he who ever thanked God for the taste given him from\nhis youth for literature, and the faculties necessary for its\nsuccessful cultivation. On the receipt of the manuscript the Pope paid\nto the Greek the fifty thousand ducats, who, finding himself possessed\nof so great a fortune, resolved to go to Venice, and engage in\ncommerce with one of his compatriots. He quitted Rome with regret to\nleave Fra Angelico, but returned at Easter to confess to the saviour\nof his soul, as he called him, and receive the communion from his\nhands in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The mass said by the\nBeato inspired him with great devotion, and he was happy to receive\nfrom such pure hands the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The year that\nfollowed 1455, the Greek appeared at the same epoch, carrying ever\nwith him, in a casket of cedar, the precious painting which had been\nthe determining cause of his conversion,   [Footnote 194] and which,\nhe never ceased to contemplate with love and, gratitude, repeating\nwhat Vasari said of another picture of the Beato: \"I can affirm I\nnever contemplate this work that it does not appear new to me, and I\nam never satisfied gazing upon it.\"\n\n  [Footnote 194: This picture on wood is painted _a tempera_ and\n  enriched with gold. It is twenty-seven centimetres high, and\n  twenty-three broad. After various vicissitudes it was carried from\n  Rome to Venice, from Florence to Turin, and finally found an asylum\n  in Paris, in the celebrated Pourtales gallery. To-day it is in\n  possession of him who relates the story, according to a traditional\n  account received by him at Rome.]\n\n{680}\n\nScarcely landed at Rome, Argyropoulos hastened, according to his\ncustom, to the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and asked for Fra\nAngelico. At this name grief overshadowed the countenance of the\nbrother porter, who replied: \"Alas! signor, the blessed one has gone\nfrom earth and left us to sorrow. His death was as angelical as his\nlife.\" The prior, who appeared, confirmed the sad news and gave the\ndetails to the heart-broken Greek. The holy father said he was so\nimpatient to enjoy his beautiful chapel that he hurried continually\nour blessed brother to finish his work; and he, ever willing to be\nsacrificed to duty, and believing he worked for God in serving this\nvicar, would not even interrupt his work during the fever season,\nwhich is always more pernicious at the Vatican than elsewhere. His\nhealth was lost by it entirely, he languished, and died at last of\nmalaria. Argyropoulos shed tears and asked to pray by the tomb of his\nfriend. It is still seen at the left of the church choir, a simple\ntombstone encased vertically in the wall; the painter-monk is rudely\nsculptured in bas-relief in his Dominican robe, with hands joined, his\nhead uplifted, and mouth partly opened as in prayer, as he was in\nlife, as he was particularly in death. I have often contemplated this\nsepulchral stone, and recalled the verse of Dante, which could so well\nhave described the heart of Argyropoulos:\n\n  \"Come, perche di lor memoria sia,\n  Sovr' a sepoiti le tombe terragne\n  Porton segnato quel ch'elli eran pria;\n  Onde li molte volte siripiagne.\n  Por la pun ura della rimenbranza\n  Che solo a pii da della calcagne.\"\n\n\"As to preserve the memory of the dead, the tombs given them on earth\nbear the impress of their features as they were in life, so each time\none weeps over them the pious heart is pierced with the remembrance.\"\n\"Nicholas V.,\" said the prior to the Greek, \"was inconsolable at the\ndeath of his painter and friend, and survived him but a few weeks. It\nis this great Pope who has erected this monument to Fra Angelico, and\nwho composed the epitaph you can read on this stone:\n\n  \"'Hic jacet ven. Pictor.\n    Fr. Jo. de Flor.  Ord. P.\n    MCCCCLV.\n  Non mihi sit laudi quod eram velut alter Apelles.\n  Sed quod lucra tuis omnia Christe dabam\n  Altera nam terris opera extant, altera caelo;\n  Urbs me Joannem flos tulit Etruriae.'\"\n\n\"Here lies the venerable painter.  [Footnote 195] Brother John, of\nFlorence, of the order of Brother Preachers; 1455. Let me not be\npraised because I have painted as another Apelles, but because I have\ngiven all I made to the poor. O Christ! I have worked for heaven at\nthe same time as for earth. I am called John, the town which is the\nflower of Etruria was my country.\"\n\n  [Footnote 195: We must remark this title of venerable given the\n  Angelico immediately after his death, and which justifies the\n  popular canonization which has surnamed him in Italy, Il Beato.]\n\nArgyropoulos remained long kneeling by the tomb, then on rising said\nto the prior: \"Tell me exactly the day of his death; for me it will\never be an anniversary to be celebrated with prayers and tears.\" \"It\nwas the 18th of last March,\" replied the prior, \"that the blessed one\nwent to heaven, there to contemplate the true models of the dear and\nholy pictures which, with so much love, he painted on earth.\"\n\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\n\n\"I  AM   THE   WAY.\"\n\n  \"I am the way.\"  I well believe thy word;\n  The truth of it is plain enough to see.\n  For never was there yet a man, O Lord,\n  So roughly trodden under foot like thee!\n\n--------\n\n{681}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nCHRISTINE.   [Footnote 196]\n\n  [Footnote 196: Christine, and other Poems. By George H. Miles\n  New-York: Lawrence Kehoe.]\n\n\nThe writer of the present remarks made his first acquaintance with the\nvolume under consideration during the magic season of Indian summer,\nand perused many of its pages beneath the shade of sycamores by the\nside of a woodland streamlet, ever and anon lifting his eyes from the\nbook to scan the many-colored foliage of trees mellowed by the\ndistance and draped in luminous haze. He took it up a second time when\ndriven into the house by equinoctial storms, and a third when the\ntrees had doffed their painted leaves and stood as black and cold as\nthe iron woods we read of in the Scandinavian Edda. But whether\nin-doors or out, by waterside or fireside, he always found Christine\nand her sisters the same genial and charming companions.\n\nWho does not prefer the sunny side of a landscape to the dark one? Are\nnot coins and medals more pleasing when viewed on the side bearing the\nprincipal legend and inscription? Juicy fruit, whether plum, peach, or\napple--does not the eye dwell with more pleasure upon the side which\nis tinted with the finest blush and which glows with the rosiest\nbloom? The same may be said of a pigeon's neck, a maiden's cheek; and\nwhy not of a volume of poems? Let us, therefore, fix our eyes upon the\nbright points, the beauties; and as every human production _must_ have\nits imperfections, let us, when we discover these last, pass them over\nlightly and almost in silence. The poet, when he composed his book,\nhoped that its perusal would add to our enjoyment, and expected to\naccomplish this, not by means of its defects, but by reason of its\nmany excellences.\n\nMany, many such excellences belong to Christine. Open the book,\nreader, and as if by magic you will find yourself transported some\neight hundred years backward in the world's history, and will fly on\nfancy's wings from the age of steam-cars and telegraphs to that of\nchivalry and the crusades. You will find yourself now in the\nsouth-east of France, now in Savoy, gazing in succession at the Rhone,\nthe Is\u00e8re, the Alps, Pilate's Peak, and the Grande Chartreuse, and, in\nshort, wandering over that romantic land so dear to all true lovers of\npoetry, and so renowned of old for\n\n   \"Dance, Proven\u00e7al song, and sun-burnt mirth.\"\n\nThe story is founded on one of those old devotional legends of the\nearly church, many of which have afforded such fine subjects both to\nthe painter and poet. Were I to enumerate one-tenth part of the fine\nspecimens of pictorial art which have been founded on such subjects, I\nshould soon swell out the list to a sufficient number to constitute a\ngood-sized picture-gallery. I will only allude, in passing, to a few\nmasterpieces, most of which are familiar, even to the untravelled\nreader, from engravings, copies, and written descriptions. Among the\nmost noted are the St. Cecilia by Raphael, the Vision of Constantine\nby the same artist, the the Assumption of the Virgin by Murillo, the\nMarriage of St. Catharine by the same, the Archangel Michael by Guido,\nand St. Patronilla by Guercino. These two last have been copied in\nmosaic to adorn the interior of St. Peter's. Of poems of this nature\nmight be cited as among the best, Dryden's Ode to St. Cecilia, the\nVirgin Martyr by Massenger, the Golden Legend by Longfellow, and the\nEve of St. Agnes by Keats.\n\n{682}\n\nChristine, I think, may fairly be catalogued among the same sainted\nsisterhood.\n\nThese traditions and legends of an earlier and more credulous age may\nbe likened to the eggs, beautifully spotted and fantastically marked,\nwhich some delighted school-boy finds in spring-time, after hours of\nclimbing and nest-hunting. Such eggs, curious in themselves, and\nbrooded over by genius, often break forth into winged and musical\npoems, which afterward soar high above the nests and the tree-tops in\nwhich they were first cradled. Such is the case with the one now under\nconsideration. In a new world, in a land which was not then even\ndreamed to be in existence, it arises lark-like, soaring and singing\ntoward \"heaven's gate.\" Let us watch it for a few moments, reader, and\nlisten to its matin melody; my word for it, we shall be none the\nworse, either in heart or head, for having done so.\n\nI shall not mar the beauties of this radiant little poem by attempting\na cold and prosaic outline; this would, indeed, be to offer a dingy\nsilhouette in place of a picture glowing with all the colors of a\nTintoretto. Instead of this, I say, let the volume speak for itself;\nprocure it, read it aloud to your friend; there is music sleeping in\nthe book, awaken it to the sound of your own voice, and even though\nyou may be a Protestant of the strictest school, you will find here\nnothing to offend, nothing to call forth a word of disapprobation,\nwith one proviso, however, and that is that you read it as the\ntitle-page directs. Remember always that it is supposed to be \"A song\nby a Troubadour.\"\n\nA troubadour? And what was a troubadour? And what were his mainsprings\nof action? Hear an answer in the language of one of the most gifted of\ntheir number.\n\n  \"A Dien mon ame, ma vie au roi,\n  Mon coeur aux dames, l'honneur pour moi!\"\n\nThis, interpreted into tamer and more prosaic language, means that his\nruling principles of action were religion, loyalty, gallantry, and\nhonor; in other words, his soul, his life, his heart belonged\nrespectively to God, to the king, to the ladies, and only his honor he\nreserved to himself. Such was his creed, such was the disinterested\nand noble spirit which animated him, and which breathed through all\nhis lays, his vire-lays, his morning songs, his serenades, his\nsonnets, his idyls, his villanercas, his madrigals, and his canzonets.\nIn this spirit acted the enthusiastic Rudel, who became enamored of\nthe Countess of Tripoli from the reports which he heard of the\nhospitable manner in which she treated the Crusaders, and who, without\nhaving ever seen her, actually started of on a long voyage to visit\nthe object of his admiration. Who has not heard of Blondel, and of the\nromantic incident by which he discovered the lion-hearted Richard\nwhile imprisoned in the castle of Lovenstein?\n\nBut in addition to the above-mentioned motive principles, the\ntroubadour was influenced by another sentiment, which had a powerful\neffect on all the feelings and actions of his life. This was an\nintense and romantic veneration for the Virgin Mary. In fact, with\nlittle variation the following words, which we find in another poem in\nthe same volume, entitled \"Raphael Sanzio,\" might with equal propriety\nbe attributed to one of the troubadours.\n\n --\"Her whose colors I have worn since first\n  I dreamed of beauty in the chestnut shades\n  Of Umbria--Her for whom my best of life\n  Has been one labor--_Her, the Nazareth maid,\n  Who gave to heaven a queen, to man a God,\n  To God a mother_.\"\n\nSuch, then, was the troubadour. His birthplace was Provence. It was\nthere, in fact, that during the darkness of the Middle Ages the muse\nrelit her torch which had long been extinguished. Many years before\nDante's great poem rose like a sun--never again to set--the\ntroubadours, those morning-stars of poesy, \"sang together and shouted\nfor joy.\" The troubadour preceded the Saxon bard, the Anglo-Norman\nminstrel, and the German minnesinger. There were held those curious\ncourts of love where {683} queens and noble ladies often presided, and\nthere were exhibited, on green and flowery meadows, those poetical\ncontests, those festive jousts and tournaments, the idea of which\nseems to have been caught from the neighboring Saracens of Spain. The\ncross and the crescent both added something to the great result, the\none contributing the deep and earnest glow of devotion, the other the\npomp and circumstance of chivalry.\n\nOf all these circumstances our poet has, with exquisite tact and\nskill, availed himself. Christine herself, when only ten years old,\nhad accompanied her father to the Holy Land. This throws an oriental\nrichness around her whole bearing and manner of thinking:\n\n  \"Sooth thou art fair,\n  O ladye dear,\n    Yet one may see\n  The shadow of the East in thee;\n    Tinting to a riper flush\n    The faint vermilion of thy blush;\n    Deepening in thy dark-brown hair\n    Till sunshine sleeps in starlight there.\"\n\nThe gray charger which plays so conspicuous a part in the action was\nborn under the palm-trees of Palestine, and his name, Caliph, would\nseem to indicate an Arabian descent. By this subtle link the\nconnection between Proven\u00e7al and Arabic poesy seems delicately to be\nhinted at. The fact that the main poem concludes in sonnet-form, if\naccidental, is curious; if brought about by design, is a happy\nthought, inasmuch as the sonnet derived its birth in Provence, and\nalso from the fact that, from the number of its lines (twice _seven_),\nand the collocation of its rhymes, it is instinct with Christian\nsymbolism.\n\nThe song itself, or story of Christine, is divided into five cantos or\nsub-songs, which, like the five acts of some romantic melodrama,\narrest the attention from the start, and conduct the reader by five\nstages of increasing interest to the jubilant conclusion.\n\nThis main picture, as it may be called, has hanging on each side of it\na smaller lateral one, one of which is a kind of _prelude_ and the\nother the _finale_ to the whole performance. This reminds us of some\nof those works of art by the older masters, in which a smaller\nside-picture may be seen to the right and left of the main\nrepresentation. These appendages, though apparently slight and worded\nwith extreme conciseness, are artistically conceived and add greatly\nto the general effect. They are also in fine keeping with the time and\nspirit of the legend itself, reminding us of one of those\ntriple-arched emblazoned windows so often seen in old Gothic edifices.\nBut the chief advantage derived from such an arrangement is, that the\ntwo smaller or lateral pieces serve as links to connect the more\nconfined interests of the story with that grandest event in history,\nnamely the Crusades, and thus to impart to the whole a breadth and\ngrandeur of design which the size of the poem scarcely led us to\nexpect. In the prelude we are presented with a view of the troubadour\nhimself, who is supposed to sing the song, and not only himself, but\nhis lady love, together with Richard of the Lion Heart, his queen, and\nall his chivalry. These last are at the time gazing over the blue\nMediterranean, on which, in the distance, King Philip of France is\nseen sailing homeward with his receding vessels. The finale exhibits\nthe arrival of a fleet under English banners. In both, a glimpse is\ncaught of the troubadour who sings the song; in the one case, before\nhe commences his romaunt, in the other, as he retires unnoticed and\nunthanked by the English monarch.\n\nIn the midst of so many beauties and artistic excellences, it is with\nreluctance that I notice two little circumstances which some might\nconsider as slight blemishes. Caliph, the charger above alluded to, is\nspoken of as \"the gallant gray.\" This expression sounds almost too\ntrite and commonplace to find a place in so original a poem. Even if\nthe color were preserved, I should {684} prefer some more novel and\nstriking form of words. But would not pure _white_ be a hue more\nsuitable in itself, and also form a finer contrast with the\n_coal-black_ steed which is ridden by the Goblin Horseman of Pilate's\nMount? The last personage forms the evil, as Christine forms the\n_good_, principle of the poem. By placing one upon a white and the\nother on a black horse, the antagonism would be brought out in bolder\nrelief, and we should be reminded of the fine allegory in Plato's\nPhaedra, where the chariot of Psyche is represented as drawn by two\nsteeds of opposite colors, under the guidance of Reason, who is the\ncharioteer.\n\nThe other--a trifle scarcely worthy of mention--is this: For the\nexpression \"Santo sudario\" I should like to see substituted\n\"Veronica,\" not so much on account of its effect upon the ear, as on\naccount of those subtle trains of associated ideas which either lead\nus _off from_ or _on_ to poetical ground, as the case may be.\n\nIn justice to the author I must add that of these supposed blemishes I\nam doubtful, whereas of the beauties above alluded to I feel perfectly\ncertain. It is much more easy to suggest alterations when a work is\nfinished than by one's own effort to finish a perfect work. As a\nwhole, there is a youthful fire and glow about the poem which cannot\nfail to render it captivating to the young, and a devotional and\nearnest tone of feeling which must be extremely acceptable to those\nmore advanced. Reserving the \"other poems\" which accompany it for a\nfuture article, I shall conclude my remarks by a short extract taken\nalmost at random from the third song:\n\n  \"They are coming from this castle,\n    A bevy of bright-eyed girls,\n  Some with their long locks braided,\n    Some with loose golden curls.\n  Merrily 'mid the meadows\n    They win their wilful way;\n  Winding through sun and shadow,\n    Rivulets at play.\n  Brows with white rosebuds blowing,\n    Necks with white pearl intertwined,\n  Gowns whose white folds imprison\n    Wafts of the wandering wind.\n  The boughs of the charmed woodland\n    Sing to the vision sweet,\n  The daisies that couch in the clover\n    Nod to their twinkling feet\n  They see Christine by the river,\n    And, deeming the bridegroom near.\n  They wave her a dewy rose-wreath\n    Fresh plucked from her dark-brown hair.\n  Hand in hand tripping to meet her\n    Bird-like they carol their joy,\n  Wedding soft Proven\u00e7al numbers\n    To a dulcet old strain of Savoy.\"\n\nHow trippingly and buoyantly do these verses gallopade adown the\njocund page, as if one of the blithest of the old masters of the \"gaya\nscientia.\" had been thrown by Merlin into an enchanted sleep, and,\nawaking from his slumber of eight centuries, was even now pouring into\nverse one of the freshest of his matin visions. And that bevy of\ndancing maidens! long may they continue to bound in tiptoe jollity\nadown the salient page. The glad creatures are as yet ignorant of the\nfact that Christine's noble lover is lying in a death-like a swoon,\nand that Christine herself has just had an interview with the fearful\ndemon who wishes to bear her off in triumph. Each one of them seems to\nbe a kind of Proven\u00e7al Minnehaha, and may be compared to one of those\nmerry waterfalls which come tumbling down the mountain-side, leaping\nin joy from rock to rock, and quite heedless of the black precipices\nwhich surround them.\n\nBut enough. As Cleopatra's barge of old went sailing down the river\nCydnus, with burnished hull and perfumed sails, and silver oars rowing\nin unison with dulcet flutes, so ever and anon, at long intervals, is\nlaunched into the world some rare poem, which moves sailing down the\nriver of time, to the admiration of all beholders. It behooves us,\nwhen such an apparition heaves in sight, whether it be poem or vessel,\nto be on the lookout and not to miss the pleasure of saluting it with\nour heartiest cheers.\n\n--------\n\n{685}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nGENIUS IN A PARISIAN ATTIC  [Footnote 197]\n\n   [Footnote 197: In a private letter received from a member of the\n   Gu\u00e9rin family--one whose name is held in gentle reverence by all\n   the readers of Eug\u00e9nie's Journal--we are asked if it would be\n   possible to interest devout souls in America in the reconstruction\n   of the little church of Andillac. We would gladly answer this\n   question in the affirmative, for the restoration of Eug\u00e9nie's\n   parish church would be a monument that even her humility could not\n   reject.\n\n  The smallest sums for this purpose will be gratefully received and\n  forwarded to Andillac by Miss E. P. Cary, Cambridge, Mass., or\n  Office of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, 145 Nassau Street, New-York.]\n\n\n\nIn a former article   [Footnote 198] we traced the course of Maurice\nde Gu\u00e9rin's career at La Ch\u00eanaie; and left him in Paris, bewildered by\nthe rush and whirl of such a city, one day to become so familiar to\nhim. We will now let his journal and letters exhibit the curious\nchange through which he passed in turning from the fair Utopian dreams\nof Lamennais to the work-day experiences of an unsuccessful author.\n\n  [Footnote 198: See article in THE CATHOLIC WORLD of June, 1866,\n  entitled: Two Pictures of Life in France before 1848.]\n\nTo do this fully we must retrace our steps to Le Val, the asylum\nthrown open to him by Hippolyte de la Morvonnais when he left\nPlo\u00ebrmel. Gu\u00e9rin's record of that peaceful sojourn in Brittany is as\ndistinct from our popular ideas of French life as Eug\u00e9nie's sketches\nof Rayssac and Le Cayla. The brother and sister have successfully\nproved that all Frenchmen are not deceitful and unbelieving, nor all\nFrenchwomen vain and perfidious. Surely no young man in any country\never met with influences more sound and elevating than Maurice found\nin the society of Eug\u00e9nie and Mimin; of Louise de Bayne, Madame de la\nMorvonnais, and Caroline de Gervain; or with friends more enduring\nthan Hippolyte, Paul Quemper, Marzan, Tr\u00e9butien, and D'Aurevilly.\n\nThere is in France an undercurrent of domestic life as pure and fresh\nas the superficial existence in her great  cities is shallow and\nturbid. Indeed, the more familiar one becomes with French life and\nmanners, the more one appreciates the truth of the _mot_ of a certain\ncardinal: \"There is no purgatory for Frenchmen; they go straight to\nheaven or hell.\" But we will no longer detain the reader, by moral\nreflections, from the perusal of the selections we have made from\nGu\u00e9rin's writings.\n\nLE VAL, Dec. 7th, 1833.\n\nAfter a year of perfect calm, but for interior tempests for which I\nmust not blame the solitude that has unfolded me in such silent peace\nthat any soul less unquiet than mine would have slumbered deliciously\ntherein; after a year, I say, of absolute tranquillity, Fate, who had\nlet me enter the holy house to rest awhile, smote on the door to call\nme forth again; for she had not gone on her way, but had sat waiting\non the threshold till I should gather strength to resume the journey.\n\"You have tarried long enough,\" she said; \"Come.\" And she took me by\nthe hand and tramped on like the poor women you meet in the road,\nleading a tired, lagging child. But what folly it is to complain; are\nthere no troubles in the world but mine to weep for? I will say\nhenceforth to the fountain of my tears, \"Dry up,\" and to the Lord,\n\"Lord, heed not my complaints,\" whenever I am tempted to invoke God\nand my tears in my own behalf; for suffering is good for me, who can\nmerit nothing in heaven by my actions, and, like all weak souls, can\nearn nothing there except through the virtue of suffering. Such souls\nhave no wings to raise them up to heaven, and the Lord, who would fain\npossess them, sends help. He lays them on a pile of thorns, and\nkindles the fire of grief; the consuming {686} wood mounts up to\nheaven like a white vapor, or like the doves that used to spring\nupward from the dying flames of a martyr's stake. This is the soul\nwhich has completed its sacrifice, and grown light enough in the fire\nof tribulation to rise to heaven like a smoke. The wood is heavy and\nimmovable; set fire to it, and a part of itself will ascend to the\nclouds.\n\n8th.--Yesterday the west wind blew furiously. I watched the shaken\nocean, but to me its sublime disorder was far from equalling the\nspectacle of a calm blue sea, and yet why say that one is not equal to\nthe other? Who can measure these two sublimities and say that the\nsecond surpasses the first? Let us only say: \"My soul delights rather\nin serenity than in a storm.\"\n\nYesterday there was a great battle fought in the watery plains. On\ncame the bounding waves, like innumerable hordes of Tartar cavalry\ngalloping to and fro on the plains of Asia--on to the chain of granite\nislets that bar the entrance to the bay. There we saw billows upon\nbillows rushing to the assault, flinging themselves wildly against the\nrocky masses with hideous clamor, tearing along to leap over the black\nheads of the rocks. The boldest or lightest sprang over with a great\noutcry; the others dashed themselves with sluggish awkwardness against\nthe ledges, throwing up great showers of dazzling foam, and then drew\noff growling, like dogs beaten back by a traveller's staff.\n\nWe watched the great struggle from the top of a cliff, where we could\nhardly keep our feet against the whirling wind. The awful tumult of\nthe sea, the rushing boisterous, waves, the swift but silent passing\nof the clouds, the sea-birds floating in the sky, balancing their\nslender bodies on wide-arched wings; all this accumulation of wild,\nresounding harmonies, converging in the souls of two beings five feet\n(French) high, planted on the crest of a cliff, shaken like two leaves\nby the energy of the wind, and not more apparent on this immensity\nthan two birds perched on a clod of earth. Oh! it was something\nstrange and wonderful, one of those moments of sublime agitation and\ndeep revery combined, when the soul and nature rear themselves in\nmajesty before each other.\n\nFrom this height we clambered down into a gorge which opens a marine\nretreat, such as the ancients could have described to peaceful waves\nthat rock themselves to sleep there murmuring, while their frantic\nbrethren lash the rocks, and wrestle among themselves. Huge blocks of\ngray granite, embossed with white lichens, are thrown in disorder on\nthe slant of the hill which has hollowed out an inlet for this cove.\nThey look, so strangely are they tossed about, half tipping toward the\nslope, as if a giant had amused himself with hauling them from the\nheight above, and they had been checked by some obstacle, some a few\nfeet from the point of departure, and others half way down; and yet\nthey seem to have paused, not stopped, in their course, or rather they\nappear to be still rolling. The sound of the winds and waves pouring\ninto this echoing recess makes glorious harmony. We stood there a long\ntime, leaning on our walking-sticks, looking and listening and\nwondering.\n\n9th.--The moon was shining with a few stars when the bell called us to\nmass. I especially enjoy this mass, celebrated in the early morning\nbetween the last rays of starlight and the first beams of the rising\nsun.\n\nIn the evening Hippolyte and I wandered along the coast, for we wished\nto see what the ocean is like at the close of a calm, gray December\nday. Mist veiled the distance, but left space enough to suggest\ninfinity. We stationed ourselves on a point where a tidesman's hut\nstands, and leaned against the wall. To the right a wood, spreading\nover the slope of the coast, stretched its thin, naked branches out\ninto the pale light with a faint, sighing sound. Far away to our left\nthe tower of Ebihens vanished into the {687} mist, and then appeared\nagain with a faint gleam upon its brow, as some furtive ray of\ntwilight succeeded in eluding the clouds. The sound of the sea was\ncalm and dreamy, as on the fairest days, but with a more plaintive\ntone. We followed this sound as it swelled along the shore, and only\ntaking breath when the waves that had poured it forth gave place to\nanother. I believe it is from the deep, grave tone of the advancing\nwave as it unfurls itself, and from the shrill, pebbly sound of the\nretreating wave, gritting against the shells and sand, that the\nmarvellous voice of the sea is created. But why dissect such music? I\ncould say nothing worth hearing on the subject, for I am no adept at\nanalysis, so we'll go back to sentiment.\n\nThe shadows thickened around us, but we never thought of going away,\nfor as the earth grew still, and the night unveiled its mysteries,\ngrander grew the harmony of the sea. Like those statues set on\npromontories by the ancients, we stood immovable, fascinated and spell\nbound by the beauty of the ocean and the night, giving no sign of life\nexcept to look up when we heard the whistling wings of the wild duck\noverhead.\n\nThe thread of my wandering fortunes led me to a solitary headland in\nBrittany to dream away an autumn evening, there for several hours\nthose interior sounds were hushed that never have been still since the\nfirst tempest arose in my breast. There a sweet, heavenly melancholy\nstole into my heart with the ocean chords, and my soul wandered in a\nparadise of revery. Oh! when I shall have left Le Val and poured my\nparting tears into the bosom of your friendship; when I shall be in\nParis where there is neither vale nor ocean, nor any soul like yours;\nwhen I shall wander alone with my sadness and with an almost\ndespairing heart; what tears I shall shed over the memory of our\nevenings; for happiness is a fine, gentle rain that sinks into the\nsoul, and then gushes forth in torrents of tears.\n\n21st.--For several days the weather has done its worst. The rain falls\nand the wind blows in gusts till it seems as if everything would be\ntorn to pieces by the storm. These three nights I have started up wide\nawake as the gale swept by at midnight, besieging the house so\nfuriously that everything in-doors shook and trembled. I spring up in\nmy bed white, and listen to the hurricane, while a thousand thoughts\nthat swept, some on the surface, others deep down in my soul, start\ninto shuddering wakefulness.\n\nAll the sounds of nature; the winds, those awful breathings from an\nunknown mouth, rouse up the innumerable instruments in the plains or\non the mountains, hidden in the hollow of valleys or massed among the\nforests; the waters with their marvellous scale of tone, ranging from\nthe tinkling of a fountain through moss, to the wondrous harmonies of\nthe ocean; thunder, the voice of that sea that floats above us; the\nrustling of dry leaves beneath a human foot or before a whirling\nbreeze; in short, for I must stop short in enumerating innumerable\nsounds, this continual emission of tone, the floating rumor of the\nelements, dilates my thoughts into strange reveries, and throws me\ninto unutterable amazement. The voice of nature has taken such hold\nupon me that I can hardly free myself from its perpetual influence,\nand in vain I try to turn a deaf ear. But to wake at midnight amid the\ncries of the storm, to be assailed in the darkness by a wild,\ntumultuous harmony, overthrowing night's peaceful empire, is something\nincomparable among strange impressions. It is ecstasy in the midst of\nterror.\n\nCAEN, 24th January.\n\nI have been wandering along the streets of this city by the dim light\nof the street lamps. What did I see? Black phantoms of steeples and\nchurches, whose outline I could barely trace. The mystery of night,\nwhich enveloped them without limiting their dimensions {688} like dear\ndaylight, added to their impressive influence, and filled me with an\nemotion that was worth more, I believe, than forms. My thoughts soared\nup to heaven with the never-ending spires, and wandered awe-struck\nthrough naves that were mournful as sepulchres. That was all. The\nstreets were crowded, but what is a crowd by night, or even, by day?\nAt night I enjoy more the sound of the wind, and in the daytime those\ngrand assemblies, now silent and now rocking and roaring, called\nforests. Besides, I met several of that class of men who always put me\nto flight; students strutting along in gown and cap, and wearing in\nevery feature a nameless expression that reduces me to rout and\ndiscomfiture. Oh! my dear journal, my gentle friend, how I felt that I\nloved thee, as I worked my way out of the multitude. And here I am\nwith thee now, though the night is far advanced and I am half dead\nwith fatigue; all alone with thee, telling thee my griefs, and letting\nthee peacefully into my secrets. Can I recall often enough those\nmemories all steeped in tears, that will ever dwell incorruptible\nwithin my soul? Kind Hippolyte and his exquisite Marie! I bade her\nfarewell; she answered me in a few words of touching kindness. I\nstammered out a few words more, and was running down the steps\nthinking that she had not come beyond the threshold, and that all was\nover; when I heard another farewell coming to me from above, and,\nlooking up, saw her leaning over the balustrade. I answered very\nsoftly, for her voice had taken away the little strength I had to keep\nback my tears.\n\n  MAURICE   DE   GU\u00c9RIN   TO\n  M.  H.   DE   LA MORVONNAIS.\n\n  PARIS, Feb. 1st, 1834\n\nYou thought you would receive news of me by the end of this week. Your\ncalculation has proved false, and you are feeling impatient, and\nthinking that I am neglectful, and that the tumult of Paris has dulled\nmy ear to the sweet, lovely voice of friendship that sings unceasingly\nin the depths of my soul. Imagine no such thing, my dear friend. God\nknows that since I came to Paris I have listened to nothing but the\ntwo farewells that I heard on that black Thursday evening, one from\nher whom you must let me call your sweet Marie, who, as I went\ndown-stairs thinking that everything was at an end, leaned over the\nbalustrade to say good-by once more; and the other from you, on the\nsteps of the carriage, uttered half aloud as you clasped my hand. I\nhear these two voices incessantly, and never fail to listen to them,\nwhile all other sounds pass by as if they were not.\n\nI did not see Quemper until two days after my arrival, Tuesday\nmorning, when I surprised him in bed, dreaming, between sleeping and\nwaking, of music, dancing, fresh garlands of young maidens, and all\nthe other vague and enchanting images that float through the\nimagination long after the magic of a ball has passed away. Our friend\nhad spent the night at one of those radiant entertainments, whose\nbrilliancy his pen, fresh as if dipped in a dew-drop, depicts with\nsuch sparkling charm. All of a sudden my pale and melancholy visage\nappeared to put these fair dreams to flight; but though it must have\nlooked among them much like one of those crows that we used to see\nflying among flocks of white sea-gulls, he embraced me with all the\ncordiality that you remember in him. I sat down by his bedside, and\nthe vivacity of our first greetings having effervesced, a long and\ncharming conversation gradually unrolled itself, of which this is the\nsubstance: remember that he was the speaker and that I interrupted him\nvery seldom, so anxious was I to gather up all his instructions.\n\nThe most difficult task to accomplish at the beginning of the career\nwhich we have chosen _is to get published_, to bring one's name before\nthe public; {689} and he mentioned the names of several young men who\nhad been vainly knocking at the gates of journals for several years\npast. We are already far advanced, since two are thrown open to us,\nCatholic France and the European Review. Booksellers have no faith in\nthe unknown, and would refuse obstinately to have a masterpiece\nprinted if it were the first attempt of its author, while if they have\nseen his name ever so little in reviews and journals they would prove\nfacile and accommodating. Therefore we must devote our whole strength\nto making our names known through magazines and papers.\n\nBut in order to write acceptably for this sort of publication one must\nadapt one's self to its habits, speak its language, and become all\nthings to all men--in matters of style merely, you understand. Let us\nstrive, then, to catch their ways, as the saying is, and to throw our\nthoughts into the conventional mould, until we shall have attained to\nsuch independence of pen as will leave us free to clothe our thoughts\nafter our own fashion. There is no use in disguising the fact that as\nlong as we serve under an editing committee (I dwell upon this point\nbecause it is an important one, and Quemper insisted upon it very\nstrongly), we must, to a certain degree, renounce the habits of style\npeculiar to ourselves, and adopt those of the journal; so that, while\npreserving our individuality, we may blend and combine it with customs\nforeign to our nature. It is hard for men like us, with characteristic\ntraits of their own, proud and independent of the fashions they have\nrailed at and disdained; it is hard for such men to muffle themselves\nin the livery of the day, to follow instead of leading, to copy\ninstead of designing; but necessity with her iron nail stands before\nus. Finally, the committee of the European Review refused an article\nof Cazal\u00e8s himself because it was in Germanic form.\n\nAs to the Review, we must share the editing of it thus: Each number\nshould contain a leading article purely philosophical, an article of a\nhigh order of literary criticism, and an article, artistic or\nimaginative, of a light character fitted to relax the mind after\nreading the first two. You, Duquesnel, and I could share the labor and\nplay into each other's hands, so that each number should have as often\nas possible three articles from us, conceived in the manner that I\nhave just indicated; only remember that you must leave the light\narticle for me, because I know nothing of philosophy or criticism.\n\n. . . . .\n\nAnd now let me tell what my present position is. I have hired a little\nroom at twenty francs a month, near my cousin. He could not take me\ninto his own family; my friend, Lefebvre, could not accommodate me\neither; and besides, the fact is that one must be alone and quite\nindependent if one would work well; it is better to have a house of\none's own. I take my meals at my cousin's; in short, I am in a very\ntolerable position, and one that will allow me to try my fortune for\nthree months to come, and I hope much longer.\n\nAdd to this a most charming perspective, from which I hope much for\nthe advancement of my fortunes and the maintenance of my courage. At\nthe end of this month Quemper is going to change his lodgings. He has\nin view, still, in the rue des Petits-Augustins, an apartment\nconsisting of three rooms, two bed-chambers and a parlor. He proposes\nthat I should take one of these rooms, which would cost me twenty\nfrancs, like the one I have at present, and that we should share the\nparlor. You may imagine that I accepted the plan with both hands,\nespecially because it will be so delightful to live with such a\nfriend. We have already laid out a life of uninterrupted happiness not\nto be described, a sort of Le Val for us two in the midst of Paris.\n{690} Can discouragement seize upon me there? and if it comes, cannot\nwe put it to flight? Quemper has drawn up a rule of life for me, and\ngiven lessons in a double economy of which I knew nothing--that of\ntime and money; in short, as he says, he will pilot me through life\nand Paris, two paths where I lose myself completely, though I number\ntwenty-three years of life and eight years of Paris. I begin to\nbelieve that in spite of myself or any evil genius, I shall accomplish\nsomething.\n\nIf I turn to the source of all these blessings, I find you, my dear\nfriend, who by your exhortations and generous reproaches, sowed in my\nsoul the first germs of the courage that I feel stirring within me\nnow. You urged me to come to Paris when I was contemplating a cowardly\nretreat; you bound me in that ripe sheaf of friendship with yourself,\nQuemper, and Duquesnel, an endless blessing from which, perhaps, all\nthe success of my life will grow; to you I owe two months of beautiful\nimpressions and pure happiness. You let me look upon Le Val as a\nsecond Le Cayla, love it with the affection that belongs to one's\nbirthplace, for it was the June of my second birth; weep for it in\nmomenta of sadness, and sing of its charms when I am glad.\n\nMy cousin's little girl is nine months old; she is charming, can stand\nalone already, without walking of course, has an enchanting smile; in\nshort, would be a companion angel for Marie. When her tongue is\nloosed, I will teach her all the little words that her baby sister in\nLe Val can say, \"_Bon jour, ma, \u00e0 tant\u00f4t, le v'la lia_\" and I will\nswing her in a napkin; in short, I will do everything I can to make\nher another Marie, her faithful and bewitching likeness.\n\nI have not yet written to my sister. I shall do so this evening with\nexhortations and entreaties. How happy it would make me to see a firm\nfriendship grow up between Madame de La Morvonnais and Eug\u00e9nie! those\ntwo souls so formed for mutual understanding, and to draw forth the\nwealth of sweetness from each other's souls.\n\nOffer my homage to her who will, I hope, soon call my sister friend,\nand win the same title from her; as it is between you and me, my dear\nfriend. Countless kisses to Marie. Don't forget me, I beg, when you\nwrite to Mordreux and St. Malo. Love to Duquesnel and Fran\u00e7ois.\n\nAt the time the following idyl was written, the pernicious style of\nliterature which it satirizes was confined to France. To-day, when our\nbookstores teem with works of the same class, we fear that the\nallegory may meet with less favor among American readers than it would\nhave aroused thirty years ago.\n\n  MAURICE   DE   GU\u00c9RIN   TO\n  M.   H.   DE   LA MORVONNAIS.\n\n  PARIS, February, 1834.\n\nI fear me much that the month of May will bring us snow-balls instead\nof roses.\n\nWhen I left you, dear friend, your solitude was just ready to burst\nforth into flowers and verdure. The reddening fruit walls in your\ngarden, and the little chilly shrubs that love the sun, were trusting\ntheir tender foliage, in all confidence, to the benign and gentle\nwinter, smiling upon them with the grace of spring. The wood that\nstretches over your sloping shore, dipping almost into the sea, wore\nthat look of life and gladness that trees put on as spring-time draws\nnear. The sticky, oval buds of the Indian chestnut, glistened in the\nsun; beech buds, sharp and slim, pricked themselves up with pert\nvivacity, even the small round oak buds were beginning to gather in\nbunches at the end of the branches, and yet the oak leaves out later\nthan other forest-trees. We saw the young shoots of undergrowth\nblushing with the red tint that colors them at the awakening of\nvegetation, as if blood were purling through their veins instead of\nsap. The grass, pushing its way up through the bed of dead leaves and\nwithered vegetation, thrown over {691} it in autumn, was bordering the\npaths, and spreading a velvet carpet in every glade, decked with the\nenamel of a thousand Easter buds and daisies. Everything was gay in\npreparation for the great feast of nature. Oh! if nightingale,\nswallow, oriole, and sparrow knew all this, how they would bestir\nthemselves to fly _dulcesque revisere nidos_. It may be that their\nEuropean brothers have sent messengers to tell them that everything is\nready for their reception, woods, groves, hedge, and bush; that seeds\nand berries will come early; that, morning and evening, the gnats are\nwhirling in myriads in the beams of the rising and setting sun; that\nall is lovely here, and they must hurry home to enjoy the glorious\nfestival. I don't know that our domestic birds have paid this\nattention to their travelled brethren, but at least they have given\nthemselves up to joy and harmony in awaiting their return. Do you\nremember, Hippolyte, how the blackbirds whistle, the gay, sweet warble\nof the thrush, or the twitter of some wren perched on the top of a\nwall, used to beguile us from our study, tempting us forth to pleasant\nrambles?\n\nSuch was your Theba\u00efd, as you call it, the day before I left you, full\nof warmth and animation, vivid with rising sap and the labor of\nvegetation. To-day I will wager that the eruption of leaves and\nflowers is far advanced, that the birds are hopping about in search of\nmoss, twigs, stray feathers, and bits of down, and that you are\nwandering in spring revery under the first shade of your chestnut\ntrees. But, my friend, are you slumbering serenely on these fair\npromises? Does it never occur to you that this may be all a stratagem\nof winter, and that the old despot may have manoeuvred, merely to draw\nout verdure and blossom, and kill them with his baleful breath? Do you\nnever fear that thus the acme may be reached of our delusions? What if\nthis balmy, perfumed air turned to a north wind; if a black, sharp\ncold condensed all this living sap, this fecundity now gushing through\nthe veins of nature; if the frost crystallized your woods and their\ntender leaflets; if your little eddying brooks were to clasp in ice\nthe flower, stems, and stalks of herbs that grow upon their beds and\nborders; if, instead of nightingales and singing-birds from southern\nshores, you should see triangles of long-necked geese and swans\npouring down from the north, and files of those ducks that we used to\nhear cutting the clouds with whistling wings on December evenings; if\nthe exterminator, winter, were to kill in one night all these\nfirst-born of the year; in short, if your Theba\u00efd were to turn into a\nSiberia, what would become of your dreams of plenty, fruits, and\nflowers, soft siestas under the shade of a tree, songs on the\nsea-shore, and of that whole existence, nourished upon sunlight,\ngentle breezes, and sweet odors, that you lead in your dear\nwilderness?\n\nIf you had power over nature, I should say to you: \"Give your gardens\nand woods and birds a lesson of wisdom. Bid those buds that I saw\ngaping in the sunshine to hold back well in their envelope the leaves\nentrusted to their care, scare them with the rigors that may surprise\nthem; the brightest sun is a deceiver. Put them on their guard against\nthe wiles of a fair day, teach them to be austere, and tell them the\nthousand tales you know of flowers that have crumbled into dust\nbecause they heeded the lures of a passing breeze or of a glowing\nsunbeam. Tell them that, if perchance a few be saved amid the general\nhavoc, they will one day bear shrivelled, meagre, tasteless fruit that\nno fair hand shall ever gather, and that shall wither on the branch or\nfall a prey to the vile appetite of insects. Tell them that their thin\nand pallid foliage shall draw disdain upon them from the panting\ntraveller, the young maidens, and the winged musicians that take\nrefuge under their shade to rest or dance or sing. Men will take them\nfor useless cumberers of the earth, and one day {692} perhaps the axe\nwill be laid at their root.\" As to the birds, the best advice you can\ngive them is, to leave their brothers in exile until the first day of\ntrue spring shines. It is better to bear banishment a little longer\nthan come home to find their country the wretched slave of winter. Let\nyour birds beware how they recall their brethren or begin to build\ntheir own nests. The brood would not prosper; the poor mothers would\nshiver on their eggs, and the bitter cold, stealing under their wings,\nwould kill the chicks in the shell, despite the warmth of the maternal\nbosom. Oh! if you had, power over nature, what a discourse I would\nsend you for your Theba\u00efd, to save it from the seductions of this\nperfidious spring whose perils I know so well.\n\nDo you take all this seriously, my friend? I fear not, and that you\nwill dismiss it with a smile, as the prattle of a child. I even fear\nthat you may regard my letter as very eccentric, and say to yourself:\n\"What nonsense is this? Talking of woods and flowers to a hermit;\nwandering on into homilies addressed to birds and flowers, when he is\nwriting from Paris, and not one word of what is stirring in the world!\nHe deserves in punishment that I should send him an essay upon the\ndramas and romances of last year!\" My friend, restrain your wrath, and\ncontain yourself long enough to hear, my reasons.\n\nHorace said: \"At Rome I prate of Tiber, and at Tiber I prate of Rome.\"\nDon't imagine that my taste is light and changeable as the wind, and\nthus explain to yourself my long tirades on your solitude. When I was\nin your Theba\u00efd, did I ever speak regretfully of the joys of Paris?\nDid I not, on the contrary, say always that a city life is repugnant\nto my taste, and that I care not at all for any pleasures to be\nenjoyed here? Don't you remember how the little rough huts of your\ntidesmen used to excite my envy, and that I used to have dreams of\nhollowing out a cool, dark grotto in the heart of a rock in one of\nyour creeks, and letting my life glide away in the contemplation of\nthe vast ocean, like a sea-god? If you recall all this, you'll easily\nunderstand why in Paris I talk of the country and forget Paris.\nIndeed, you will see that it cannot be otherwise; for having said to\nthe fields, as you know,\n\n  \"Le corps s'en va, mals le cocur vous demeure,\"  [Footnote 199]\n\nmy discourse must turn on them, and I can only live in this mad\ntornado of Paris as not belonging to it.\n\n  [Footnote 199: Froissart (manuscript note).]\n\nIf you know me well, these reasons will more than suffice to make you\nunderstand the beginning of my letter. But will you be able to resist\nthe perpetual impulse that makes you look for mysteries in the\nclearest things, so insatiable is your taste for divining? No; you\nwill look under the natural sense of my words, and think you have\nsurprised a sly meaning, crouching like a serpent under flowers,\nbeneath my sentences, which breathe only sweet images of spring. I'm\nnot afraid of your discovering some political allusion in them, for\nyou are too solitary, and hold yourself too much aloof from such\nthings for that idea to occur to you. But, if your eyes turn from the\narena of politics, they will settle on the noble field of literary\ndoctrines; and because lately the combat has grown hot, and the noise\nof the m\u00eal\u00e9e is resounding far and wide, you will fancy that I am a\npassionate spectator of the struggle, amusing myself with winding the\nopposing party in subtle mocking allegories. Let me tell you that this\ninterpretation, or any similar one given to my idyl on the precocious\nspring, misses its aim; that my idyl veils no satire; and that if it\nseems to you the least in the world insidious or guileful, 'tis only\nbecause you've breathed your own malice upon the innocent thing. I\nrepeat, it conies merely to discourse with you about nature; and what\ncan be more natural? Know that never has a ray of sunlight shone\ndirectly {693} into the room where I live; I receive it only by\nrepercussion. Toward noon the sun strikes some garret windows opposite\nthat send across to me a few pale reflections, without warmth or\ncheerfulness, like the rays of a lamp; and even this vague,\nlanguishing light vanishes in a quarter of an hour. These are the\nbeams that gladden my eyes, accustomed to the broad overflowing\nliberality of a southern sky. A narrow, sombre court-yard, where\nthere's not a blade of grass growing in the cracks of the pavement,\nnor a flower-pot on a window-sill to smile upon me--this is the\nhorizon to which I am reduced; I, who so many, many times have scaled\nwith you your rocks and downs and sea-cliffs, whence our eyes embraced\nthe divine expanse of ocean, the marvellous indentures of your coast,\nand the wide fields all green with wheat and flax. And now that I've\nfallen from these fair heights into a hole that hardly admits the\nlight of day, do you suppose I shall not try to live over again these\ncharms in imagination, or that I shall talk to you of anything but\nyourself and your solitude? And you, you cynical recluse, would\nenvenom these sweet, innocent recollections, and find some apologue or\nanother in the images of nature among which I seek recreation? But as\nI have every reason to suppose that you are not attending to me, and\nare still working to disentangle the metaphors, let us see if\nperchance malice can make anything out of my precocious spring, and to\nwhat allusion it can be turned.\n\nInterested as you are in literary matters, and attentive to the\ndisturbances that have risen tip lately among our authors, I am sure\nthat it will not be long before the _facile literature_ comes to your\nmind. Then you will think you have the clew, and with that thread\nyou'll plunge into the labyrinth of my supposed allegory, hoping to\nemerge maliciously triumphant and content. I allow that, without any\nextraordinary flights, imagination might pass from the buds, opening\nprematurely on the faith of a brilliant winter sun, to this young\nliterature, which has burst into blossom before its time, and\ninnocently exposed itself to the returns of frost that I predict to\nyour woods and groves. But, my friend, will you, who rejoice so\nardently at sight of an almond-tree in flower, will you reproach\nseverely these trusting souls that have opened in the broad-day light\nand displayed with touching faith their treasures to the graces of\nheaven? Blame rather the burning sun of our day, and the atmosphere\nall charged with fatal heat, which have hastened this development and\nperhaps reduced the harvest of our age to a few ears.\n\nAnd the trees whose blossoms are only born to die, and those that bear\nbitter fruits which no one will ever pluck, or will gather only to\nthrow away--ah! you'll not have much trouble in seeing in them the\nemblems of the many authors who have appeared once and vanished for\never; the many authors whose books, distasteful to a few grave judges,\nare welcomed by seekers after novelty and romance readers; and who,\nhaving filled these vain souls with vain ideas, often sink into the\nwell of oblivion with hands relaxed by the lethargy that comes from\ndull satiety.\n\nWill you have it that the trees shunned by travellers, young maidens,\nand birds figure those renowned books, worthy of their fame as works\nof art, which do not contain a grain of the hidden manna, nor one of\nthe sweet, beneficent thoughts that nourish the soul and relax it\nafter fatigue?--books that maidenly hands dare not touch, and that put\nto flight everything fresh and innocent--a thought to make one die of\nshame and grief! Will you have it so? I yield the point with good\ngrace, for in truth my thoughts bear your interpretation as well as if\nI had really hidden it therein, and I will follow you no further in\nyour suspicious investigations, feeling sure that my test will not\nsuffer violence from you, {694} and that you will go on to the end\nwithout losing your way.\n\nWhat conclusion do you draw from all this? First, that, resolved to\nenter the lists, I am preparing in secret my lance and chariot, and\nkindling my wrath. But are my peaceful inclinations unknown to you, or\nthe weakness of my arm and my very doubtful courage? I a combatant!\nJust remember that the least tumult scares and routs me like a flying\nprey, and that my strength bravely suffices to drag me out of danger;\nso how could it drag me in?\n\nIn the second place, you will suppose that I am nursing an aversion\nfor the new school and calling out for a classical reform. M. Nisard,\nof course, does not wish the new school to perish, but to amend its\nways; and it is with that belief, and, I dare to say, on that\ncondition, that I pray ardently for the success of the campaign he is\nabout to open. The Catholic faith would never allow me to sympathize\nentirely with a sceptical and fatalist literature, that sets no value\nupon morality. But, on the other hand, the same faith makes me feel a\ncertain interest in it; for is not this disorderly, frantic new school\na truant from our fold?\n\nNo, dear friend, I am not a prey to devouring anger; but I must groan\nin solitude over the wanderings of this literature, which has\nforgotten the home and the teaching of its father, and has so\nhopelessly lost itself, until the last and most terrible romance, in\nthat style, would now be its own history. Amid these sighs there come\nto me a few reflections upon the cause of the evil and the means to\nremedy it; and that is what I meant to announce to you in this\nincoherent letter, in which I beg you to see only a whimsical prelude\nof my imagination, turning, as it always does, toward you.\n\n  MAURICE   DE   GU\u00c9RIN   TO\n  M. H.  DE  LA MORVONNAIS,\n  AU VAL SAINT POTAN.\n\n  AU PARC, July 9th, 1834.\n\nI wrote to you  on leaving Paris a short letter, of which I begged you\nnot to take any notice. To-day, dear Hippolyte, when I have all\npossible leisure, and the untroubled peace of the country is around\nme, I resume our talk with every intention of carrying my confidence\nto the utmost limits; that is, to the point where I shall begin to\nfear that my chattering bores you.\n\nI announced to you a complete account of my affairs and my position\nduring these five months past. Now I am going to begin and you must\nlisten. You know what my hopes were when I left Le Val; I felt a\ndecided taste for literary life, the profession of a journalist smiled\nupon me, and I was hugging some bright phantom or other of the future\nthat had sprung up in my imagination; and in spite of the distrust\nthat you know I mingled with my love, I had given myself up to this\ndream with intense ardor. For, let me tell you, _en passant_, that I\nthrow myself impetuously into every new project that can modify my\nexistence; and whether a walk is proposed to me for the next day, or\nwhether I am told, \"To-morrow your destiny is to be completely\naltered,\" I feel equally excited, and rush to meet the two events with\nequal impatience. A strange activity of thought possesses me, and I\nshake myself and champ my bit because time prevents me from seizing at\na bound what I am already devouring with my eyes. You may imagine\nthat, with a soul subject to such ardent cravings, I reached Paris\nfull of enthusiasm and seized the journalist's pen with a quiver of\ndelight. But, as usual, my enthusiasm did not last long, and\ndifficulties, personal as well as external, made themselves felt. I\nsaw the entrance to the journals bolted and barred by that selfishness\nwhich guards the gates of everyplace against the approach of poor\nyoung fellows who come to Paris full of innocent hopes. Catholic\nFrance alone admitted me within its circle; but this journal,\nnotwithstanding the good-will of its directors, could not satisfy my\nneeds. My articles were favorably received, {695} but the narrow frame\nof the journal cut me off from frequent contributions, and in four\nmonths I had only appeared four times.\n\nIn the mean time expenses were not behindhand, and, although I lived\nin a very small way, my expenditure was large in comparison to my\nresources. I was exhausting fruitlessly time and money, my own\npatience and my father's. For several months I persisted in this\ndisposition, holding my ground against adverse fortune in order to\nsave appearances and not yield the field without making fight. But at\nlast everything went so badly that I had to decide promptly upon a\nplan suggested by the extremity of the ease. If I had been alone, I\ndon't know what would have become of me in my utter failure of\nstrength and courage; but God, as if for my preservation, has placed\naround my wavering soul friends who prop and sustain it, restoring me\nto myself with touching solicitude. I went to Paul, and laid before\nhim the whole story of my painful position. I proposed to him the\nterrible enigma of my destiny and asked him for a solution. Without an\neffort he untied the Gordian knot with these words: \"If you leave\nParis, the future will slip through your hands. Do not let go your\nhold at any cost. Make your father feel that this concerns your whole\nlife, that our last effort may save everything, and a first refusal\nmay ruin everything.\" And thereupon we set to work to compute article\nby article all the necessities to be satisfied, all the debts to be\npaid, all the most threatening possibilities of the future; and the\nwhole account, amounting to the sum of twelve hundred francs, I sent\nto my father, with a petition written by my cousin in order to give it\nmore weight.\n\nAt the end of a fortnight my father returned it with his approbation\nand a gift of the sum I had asked. What happiness it was to go in\nsearch of Paul that I might thank him, triumph with him, overwhelm him\nwith joy for my joy; for I knew his kindness too well to doubt that he\nwould share all my transports. I was not mistaken; his rejoicings over\nmy success were sweeter to me than my own, and I had the inestimable\npleasure of seeing it communicated to my other friends, Fran\u00e7ois,\nElic, etc. How delightful it is to receive such proofs of pure,\nheartfelt sympathy! In short, my dear Hippolyte, here I am launched\nupon the waves, provisioned with money and courage, and walking with\nassured step to meet the future; I feel as if a light were guiding me,\nand as if I were advancing toward an unknown goal. For the present\nthis is what I mean to do: I shall spend the end of August and the\nwhole of September at the College Stanislas, where I shall have a\nclass during vacation: when the term begins, I shall establish myself\nin the college if there is a place for me; if not, I can have quite an\nadvantageous situation at my cousin's, by helping him to keep his\nlittle _pension d'el\u00e8ves_. This is an abridged history of these last\nfive months; it gives only a superficial view, but you are well enough\nacquainted with my inner life to understand the course of my thoughts\nduring the time. Here I am at rest, dreaming of the future, giving\nmyself up to the pleasures of friendship and conversation, and\ndrinking in the country-life and all the dear idleness that one can\nnever fully enjoy except in the fields. Our solitude is so profound\nthat we do not even know the result of the elections. Another\nignorance, harder to bear, is concerning all that is going on among\nour friends and affairs in Paris. I know nothing more than when I left\nthem, and it is a very long time also since I heard from my sister.\n\nPray, present my respectful compliments to Madame Morvonnais, and my\nremembrances at Mordreux and Saint-Malo. I am going to write to\nAm\u00e9d\u00e9e. Ask Marie, who can answer me now, if she remembers M. Gu\u00e9rin,\nwho sends her a thousand kisses.\n\n\n  TO M. H.  DE LA MORVONNAIS.\n  PARIS, Sept. 21st, 1834.\n\nI have just  received your manuscript, my dear friend, and the letter\n{696} it enclosed; it has only this moment arrived, and I write before\nreading, that my despatch may be ready for Paul, who leaves day after\nto-morrow in the morning. You are to possess this inestimable treasure\nof friendship, freshness of soul, and warmth of heart. He will rest\nfrom his busy, devoted life in the fair sanctuary of peace and\nfriendship, of which you are the priest; he will bathe in the current\nof those easy, limpid days that murmur beneath your roof. What an\ninterruption and vacuum in my life will be between his departure and\nthe day of his return with the other brothers! What will become of me\nin my _ennui_. Tomorrow evening we shall have our farewell _soir\u00e9e_.\nDo you know what evenings we have now and then? We meet at dinner-time\nand have a cosy dinner, intimate talks, long wandering walks under the\nchestnut-trees of the Tuileries, through the perfume of\norange-blossoms and flower-beds in the gleams of the setting sun.\nThese talks come and go between Paris and Le Val, from one friend to\nanother, from present to future, from melancholy to the liver,\nphilosophy to poetry, weak sadness to firm and manly resolutions, from\none thing in life to another. To paint these conversations for you\nwould be like trying to render with a style the colors of twilight,\nthe vague nonchalance of the breezes, or, a still more difficult task,\nwhat comes more softly shaded to our hearts. Tomorrow will be the\nfarewell evening, the close of these melodious evenings. How many\nthings come to an end under our eyes! I will not speak of my own\naffairs; Paul will tell you where I stand, and how my hopes ebb and\nflow, rising to the chair of rhetoric of Juilly, and falling to a\nlittle schoolroom. He will tell you about my firm resolutions and the\nmanly efforts of my will to seize the empire of my soul. It would be a\nlong story to relate the history of my interior revolutions, changes\nof government, civil wars, anarchy, despotism, gleams of liberty.\nThese are annals that write themselves in rude characters upon the\nsoul and in wrinkles on the brow. Sometimes I feel that I _can no\nmore_, like an old empire. O my charming hermit, my sea-swan, my\npoet-philosopher, how shall I express the jumble there is in my soul\nat this moment of pleasure and pain, the pell-mell of joyful and sad\ntears that rush from my eyes and roll over each other down my cheeks?\nI see you in my soul; I see Paul's departure and embrace him in\nfarewell; I see Le Val, your meeting, the charm of your life, the\nisolation of mine, and my longings after my dear Brittany. My friend,\nsometimes the soul wanders out of sight, and is restless and troubled\nlike the sea.\n\n  MAURICE   DE   GU\u00c9RIN\n  TO   M. H. DE LA MORVONNAIS.\n\n  PARIS, Oct. 19th, 1834.\n\nAt last, my dear friend, I can be with you, I can open my heart and\nconfide my soul to you; a doubtful privilege, perhaps you think, but\nunluckily I cannot keep it to myself. Today, then, this gray Sunday, a\ncalm day, a day of decline quite suited to the fall of leaves and the\nemigration of souls, my busy life, heated with action, pauses to\nrecover its strength, and resume its confidential intercourse so long\ninterrupted; to give itself up to the genius of autumn and lend its\near to the memories whose rustling we hear so distinctly on certain\ndays; and, all laden with impressions, reminiscences, and autumnal\nmelodies, to retire into some lonely corner far from chances of\ninterruption, and pour itself out to you. But I have left behind me\nthe mystery that I wish to unveil to you: _My busy life, heated with\naction_. What! I a man of action! Some potent voice must have bade me\ntake up my bed and walk! The day after Paul left me I was to go to\nVersailles, where I had reason to hope I could have a place as teacher\nin an institution. I went to Versailles, and this was what I found:\nfour hours of teaching {697} every day, _des salles d'\u00e9tudes_,\nrecreations, walks with the pupils, and a salary of 400 francs.    The\nposition I had hoped for in the College Stanislas having failed me\nalso, there remained only my last plan, that of going to my cousin's.\nBut, as if to complete and crown the lesson that she was resolved to\ngive me, fortune decreed that my cousin should all of a sudden be\nabsolutely without scholars.  Thus for a time was I trampled beneath\nthe feet of destiny.  Then indeed I had time to write to you, I had a\nsuperabundance of leisure. To punish me for my sins--me, so long a\nrebel against the ancient condemnation to labor, God took from me the\npossibility of doing anything. He turned aside and removed from my\nreach all working tools at the moment when my hands were eager for\nthem. Leisure on every side, far stretching, never ending, condemned\nto bury myself in unlimited leisure as in a doleful desert.  Why did I\nnot write to you when my whole life lay before me at my own disposal?\nMy friend, I had nothing to tell but misfortunes, and my recital would\nonly have grieved you.  I preferred waiting for the wind to blow away\nthese black days and clear my atmosphere. The tempest was short; the\nsky of my little world is tinged anew in the east, and it is by the\nlight of its first gleams that I write to you.  The professor of the\nfifth class at Stanislas asked leave of absence for a month; I have\ntaken his place and shall have 100 francs for the work. I am looking\nfor private lessons and have found several. Classes and recitations\noccupy my day from half-past seven in the morning until half-past nine\nin the evening; I sleep at my cousin's, the college dinner serves me\nfor breakfast, and in the evening I get a dinner for twenty-four sous\nlike a _d\u00e9butant_.   Such has been my life for the last three weeks; a\nsudden revolution in my existence, an abrupt transition from careless\nrevery to breathless action.  An urgent pressure, a little reason, a\nfew grains of irritating self-love, supply fresh strength to my soul,\nwhich is exhausted at the first tug. However, I must say that in the\ndeepest and most hidden recesses of my being, in the sanctuary of the\nwill, lives a resolution, that is, I believe, firm and steady, to\nsacrifice half my existence to external things, in order to insure\nrepose to the inner man; and therefore I have decided to prepare\nmyself for the _agr\u00e9gation_ (corresponds to the expression, master of\narts). I have explained to you the facts, accidents, and external\ncircumstances; let us go deeper. Latin, Greek, and all the bustle of\nlaborious life, absorb a certain portion of my thoughts; but it is\nthat floating and least, valuable portion which, without regret, I let\nflutter in the wind like the fringe of a cloak. These are the waves\nthat break upon he beach; the sand drinks them in, men gather their\nspoils, the sea tosses them to any one who wants them. Thus, as I tell\nyou, my mind near its shores is occupied by the cares and duties of\nactive life; but far out at sea nothing touches it, nothing passes\nover it, nothing is lost from its waves, except by the continual\nevaporation of my intelligence drawn up by some unknown star.\n\nIt will soon be a year since from the heights of Cr\u00e9hen I hailed Le\nVal, lying all golden on the hillside beneath the beautiful autumn\nsun. Dear anniversary, full of gentle melancholy like the season that\nbrings it. Every morning, on the way to college, I cross the Tuileries\nwhere the ground is covered with the heaps of autumn leaves, the wind\nsighs through the branches as in a desert, and, like the ring-doves\nthat build their nests in ancient chestnut-trees, a few of the poems\nof solitude flutter about in these city groves. Sometimes the murmur\nof a breeze among the boughs recalls to me the sound of the sea, and I\npause to possess myself of the delusion, and isolate myself with it\nfrom the whole world: these are the waves, I am walking along the\nshore with you, wandering over headlands in the evening twilight; I am\nsitting on La {698} _R\u00f4che-Alain_. Then when I feel the illusion is\nfading away, I resume my walk, all full of emotion, all full of you,\nand cry like the _Young Bard_: \"Good God, give us back the sea!\"\n\n\n  MAURICE   DE   GU\u00c9RIN\n  TO   M.   H.   DE   LA MORVONNAIS.\n\n  PARIS, Dec. 5th, 1835.\n\nYour impatience to know how I dispose of my time, and all the turnings\nof the roads I am following, that you may go with me in thought,\nroused in me a very delightful feeling, and one that does not easily\nfind expression in words. But your idea of my life is quite too\nelevated; you attribute to it a dignity with which it is not invested\nwhen you speak of my sufferings and the courage with which I bear\nthem. No, my dear Hippolyte, my lot is not so beautiful as you would\nmake it out. The difficulties of my life consist in a few material\nfatigues, to which the body easily becomes hardened, even deriving a\ncertain strength from contending with them; and in the distaste for a\nprofession which is conquering my antipathy through the slow but\nirresistible action of habit, which tames the wildest spirits, and\nreduces them to complete submission almost without their knowledge,\neverything becomes deadened, everything dissolves insensibly. The\nfirmest revolutions yield each day something to the progress of the\nhours. All rebellions are absorbed again by degrees into the common\nsoul. All things lie upon a declivity which opposes itself to\ncontinued ascent. I have chosen my course in life; I come and go in\nthe leading-strings of habit, keeping my mind in the middle of the\nroad, restraining it carefully from those thoughts that would draw it\naside, and mar the blessed monotony which lends something to the\npettiest existence. Being reduced to this state, I have no need of\ncourage. I required, of course, some resolution to arrive at it, but\nit was not worth much and was borrowed from circumstances.\n\nThese are the principal features of my day: I set forth on foot at\nseven o'clock to give a lesson in the neighborhood; then I go to the\nCollege Stanislas; at the other end of Paris, and remain there until\nsix in the evening. That leaves me an hour and a half to dine and\nretrace my steps again to the further extremity of Paris, where my\nlast lesson awaits me, which ends at half past eight. My liberty\nclaims possession of the night. Custom having worn away the asperities\nof this life, only one defect remains, but a capital one; and that is\nthe difficulty of using the fragments of time that are left to me\nafter using the larger portions for studies that are to raise me above\nmy present condition. How to make the cares of self-subsistence agree\nwith these exacting labors seems to me an insoluble problem in Paris.\nBut time is so fertile in good advice, and sometimes unties knots so\neasily that would have defied a sword, that I await its solution in\npatience. You wish me to compose, to unveil the gifts which you think\nI possess. My friend, why interrupt the course of a wise resolution\nand mar a work that is so slow of formation and so costly? Let the\nwaters flow in their natural hidden course, following their tranquil\ndestinies in a narrow, nameless bed. My mind is a domestic animal, and\nshuns adventure; that of the literary life is especially repugnant to\nits humor, and excites its contempt, speaking without the least\nself-sufficiency. I see delusion in the career, both in its essence\nand in the prize we seek, charged often with the venom of a secret\nridicule. Looking at life with the naked eye, in the severe,\nmonotonous expanse she presents to some of us, seems to me more\nconformable to the interest of the mind, and more in accordance with\nthe laws of wisdom, than unceasingly applying one's eyes to the prism\nof art and poetry. Before I embrace art and poetry, I wish to have\nthem demonstrated with an eternal solemnity and certainty, like {699}\nGod. They are two doubtful phantoms, and wear a perfidious gravity\nthat conceals a mocking laugh. That laugh I will not bear.\n\n\n\n  MAURICE\n  TO MLLE. EUG\u00c9NIE DE GU\u00c9RIN.\n\n  PARIS, Feb. 9th, 1836.\n\nI saw Madame ------ (name illegible) day before yesterday. She is to\nleave Paris in a fortnight, and offered very obligingly to take charge\nof my commissions to Gaillae. I shall profit by her kindness to send\nyou what you ask, the velvet neck-ribbons, the net for your hair (but,\npray, why have you adopted this very ugly coiffure?) and the albe that\nMimi asked me to send her. I hope the little articles I send will suit\nyou both and fulfil your expectations exactly. But why be afraid of\nbeing indiscreet in drawing upon my purse a little? Think, dear\nfriends, that I am your treasurer here, and that I wish you to\nconsider me as such. If you had reminded me sooner of the cloaks, you\nwould have had them now. I would gladly have deferred getting one for\nmyself until next year, and should not now be regretting the fact that\nmy shoulders are well covered, while I know that cold and damp air are\npenetrating to yours as you go to Andillac. I am quite provoked with\nmyself for not having thought of it. Am I not very ungracious, never\nbeforehand with any idea, but waiting to be urged out of what looks\nlike indifference? Are you annoyed with me for this, and could you\never judge me by mere external signs? Never, I am sure. You have too\nmuch penetration to deceive yourselves for a moment about my\naffection, when it is most hidden or most ungainly.\n\nI am glad to know that the union which has been so long uncertain is\nat last secured. I have no doubt that all the conditions of happiness\nwill be found in it, if only health can be added to them.\n\nThe lime of papa's journey is drawing near. From a distance it is\ndifficult to judge his course correctly; the moment itself must have\narrived before one can appreciate it truly.\n\nI am trying to find out at this moment what I may count upon in the\nfuture for the accomplishment of my dearest hopes.\n\n\nThe last sentences in this letter refer to Gu\u00e9rin's marriage with\nMlle. de Gervain, which is so fully described in Eug\u00e9nie's letters\nfrom Paris that it needs no comment here. Then followed a few months\nof tranquil success, a lingering illness at Le Cayla, a happy\ndeath-bed; and our story ends, as all true stories must end, in a\ngraveyard. By the gateway of that old cemetery of Andillac, where\nEug\u00e9nie sunned herself one day sitting on a tombstone, while waiting\nfor her turn to go to confession, is a white marble obelisk surmounted\nby a cross. Caroline placed it there as her last gift to her husband,\nand it bears these words:\n\n  Here rests my friend\n  Who was my husband\n  Only eight months. Farewell.\n  Pierre George Maurice\n  De Gu\u00e9rin du Cayla.\n  Born August 4th, 1810,\n  Died at Le Cayla\n  July 19th, 1839.\n\nClose by stands the little church whose chief ornament is a delicately\nwrought statue of the Blessed Virgin, presented by Queen Marie Am\u00e9lie\nat Eug\u00e9nie's petition. The belfry is crumbling to decay, and the\ntottering porch under which the dove of Le Cayla passed so often\nappeals pitifully to those who have a zeal for the preservation of\nGod's house.\n\n--------\n\nA record has been made of Eug\u00e9nie's daily life by one who had hourly\nopportunities of watching her actions, and we cannot refrain from\nlaying it before our readers. Nothing concerning the sister of Maurice\ncan be inappropriate in an article devoted to him, and it will be well\nto see how holy and regular a life may be led in the world without\nsingularity or narrowness.\n\n{700}\n\n\"She rose at six in the morning when she was not ill. After dressing\nshe made a vocal or mental prayer, and never failed when she was in a\ntown to hear mass at the nearest altar. At Le Cayla, after saying her\nmorning prayer, she went into her father's room, either to wait upon\nhim, or to carry his breakfast in and read to him while he took it. At\nnine o'clock she went back to her room and followed mass spiritually.\nIf her father was well and did not need her assistance, she occupied\nherself with reading and writing or with sewing, of which she was very\nfond (fairy in hands as she was in soul); or in superintending the\nhousehold, which she directed with exquisite taste and intelligence.\nAt noon she went to her room and said the Angelus; then came dinner.\nWhen it was over, if the weather was good, she took a walk with her\nfather, or sometimes made a visit in a village if there was any\ninvalid to see or any afflicted person to console. If she resumed\nreading on her return, she took up her knitting also and knitted while\nshe read, not admitting even the shadow of idle hours. At three she\nwent to her room, where she generally read the Visit to the Blessed\nSacrament by St. Alphonsus Liguori, or the life of that day's saint.\nThis ended, she wrote until five o'clock if her father did not call\nher to be with him. At five she said her rosary and meditated until\nsupper time. At seven she talked with the rest of the family, but\nnever left off working. After supper she went into the kitchen for\nevening prayers with the servants or to teach the catechism to some\nlittle ignorant child, as often happened during the vineyard times.\nThe rest of the evening passed in working, and at ten o'clock she went\nto bed, after reading the subject of meditation for the next day, in\norder to sleep upon some good thought. And, finally, it should be\nadded that every month she prepared herself for death and chose some\nsaint whom she loved best that she might imitate his virtues. Every\nweek she went to communion, and even oftener during the last years of\nher life, when her failing health would allow her to go to the church,\nwhich was at some distance from Le Cayla.\"\n\nThe hour of release came at last for her too, after a lingering\nillness of which we possess few details. After receiving the last\nsacraments, she gave a key to her sister, saying: \"In that drawer you\nwill find some papers which you will burn; they are all vanity.\" She\ndied in 1848 on the last day of the beautiful month of Mary, which she\nand Mimin had always observed with such tender devotion in the\n_chambrette_.\n\n  \"All was ended now, the hope and the fear and the sorrow,\n  All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,\n  All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience.\"\n\nThe dear old father survived \"his angel, his second self and much\nmore,\" only six months. Grembert died in 1850. Three graves now\nsurround Maurice's, and on one of them, which is already regarded with\nveneration by the country people, is a wooden cross, bearing a\ncircular medallion that encloses a virginal crown with these few\nwords:\n\n  \"Eug\u00e9nie de Gu\u00e9rin, died May 31st, 1843.\"\n\n\"Soft as the opals of the east at dawn, and sad as the gleams that die\naway so quickly in the twilight, she will be, for those who read her,\nthe Aurora of her brother's day; but an Aurora who has tears too! May\nthese tears fertilize the grave over which she wept, and make the\nflower of glory spring up rarer than ever now for poets! The\nmaterialism of our times has thickened the earth, so hard to break at\nall times. We know there is a flower that pierces the snow, but one\nthat can penetrate the mind of an age devoted to matter is harder to\nfind.\" (Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's unpublished notice of Mademoiselle\nde Gu\u00e9rin.)\n\n--------\n\n{701}\n\n\n\nFrom The Month.\n\nSYRACUSE AND AETNA.\n\n\nTourists bent on the ascent of AEtna leave Catania at the end of the\nlong straight street which terminates in the Piazza Giorni. The ascent\nbegins at once. On both sides of the road luxuriant groves of orange,\ncitron, almond, and carouba trees alternate with vineyards and\ncornfields rich in the promise of future crops. Yet all are growing on\nthe lava, and lava meets you at every turn: the walls, festooned with\nthe \"Bourgainviller,\" the passion-flower, and beautiful yellow roses,\nare still of lava; so are the pretty villas and the _riant_\nfarm-houses and the lodges in the vineyards--all are built of it. The\nstreets through the villages are paved with it. There is a sort of\nallegorical beauty and poetical justice in the way in which the great\ncommon enemy has been, as it were, conquered and subdued--at least for\na time--and forced to repair the terrible mischief it has wrought. As\nthe road ascends higher and higher, the vegetation diminishes, and you\ncome at last to a wild waste of rock sprinkled with broom and dwarf\noak. A twelve-miles' drive brought our travellers to Nicolosi, where\ntheir first visit was paid to the kind old professor and geologist,\nDr. Gemmellaro, from whom every kind of assistance is obtained for the\nascent of the mountain, which is, as it were, both his child and his\nhome. He is a most good-natured and agreeable old man, whose whole\nlife has been devoted to this one great interest, and whose greatest\npleasure seems to be to make others share in the knowledge which he\nhimself possesses. His house a museum of curiosities, and contains a\ncarefully arranged collection of all the geological phenomena of the\nmountain. Among other things, he showed the party a ptarmigan which\nhad been \"caught sitting\" by the lava stream, and had been instantly\npetrified, like Lot's wife! the bird preserving its shape perfectly.\nThe village of Nicolosi is composed of low houses built up and down a\nlong straggling street, with a fine church in the centre. Horse-races\nwere going on the day of our travellers' arrival, and causing immense\nexcitement among the people, who were all in the street in holiday\nattire. The horses ran, as at the carnival in the Corso, without\nriders, and were excited to a pitch of madness by the shouts of their\nstarters and the _bandeleros_ stuck in their sides. After watching the\nraces for some little time, our travellers  returned to the kind\nprofessor's, who had seen the guides required for their ascent of\nAEtna, but who advised them to delay their expedition for two or three\ndays to allow of a greater melting, of the snow, the season being\nbackward, and to procure the requisite number of mules for so large a\nparty. It was also necessary to send some one beforehand to clear out\nthe snow from the Casa Inglese, the small house of refuge which the\nprofessor had built on the  summit  of the mountain, at the base of\nthe principal cone, and where travellers rest while waiting for the\nsunrise, or before commencing the last portion of the ascent to the\ncrater. He is very anxious to have this house better built and\nprovided with more comforts, and tried to enlist the interest of  our\ntravellers with the English Government in its behalf. Having arranged\neverything with him, our party retraced their steps to Catania, having\ndecided to visit Syracuse first, and take AEtna on their return.\n\n{702}\n\nThe following morning, consequently, at half-past three, they started\nfor Syracuse, so as to arrive there before the great heat of the day,\nand also in time for mass. A long marshy plain occupied the whole of\nthe first stage; after which the road wound through limestone rocks\nand rich cultivation, till they reached the picturesque village of\nLentini. The lake of Lentini is the largest in Sicily, famous for its\nwild fowl, but also for its malaria. There is a beautiful view of the\nlittle town, with its wooded cliffs and deep ravines, from the\nCapuchin convent above. The scenery increases in beauty as you\napproach Syracuse, the road descending into deep glens full of ilex,\nmyrtle, oleander, and a variety of aromatic shrubs, and rising again\nover rocky hills scented with thyme and every kind of wild flower.\nFrom hence comes the delicious Hybla honey, which rivals that of Mount\nHymettus. Over the wide downs which stretch seaward, the picturesque\ntown of Augusta was seen, perched on the edge of the broad sandy bay.\n\nOur travellers had excellent horses; so that it was not more than\nhalf-pas ten when they reached the gates of Syracuse and found\nthemselves in the comfortable little hotel near the port. One of the\nparty started off at once to find a mass; but the good people of\nSyracuse are very early in their habits, and the lady wandered half\nover the city before she found what she sought in the beautiful little\nchurch of St. Philip, where there happened to be on that day the\nexposition of the blessed sacrament, and in consequence masses all the\nmorning. On her return she found that the vicar-general had been\nkindly sent by the archbishop to show her the curiosities of the\nplace. He first took them to the temple of Diana, now converted into a\nprivate residence, and of which nothing remains to be seen but some\nvery ancient Doric columns. From thence they proceeded to the\nworld-famed fountain of Arethusa. The spring rises from an arch in the\nrock, and is protected by a bastion, which defends it from the sea.\nThe papyrus grows here in great luxuriance, and the party gathered\nsome as a specimen, having first duly drank the anciently sacred\nwater. Resuming their carriages, their kind guide now conducted them\noutside the town to the interesting church and crypt of San Marzian,\nthe first church of Sicily, built on the spot where St. Paul preached\nduring his three days' stay in Syracuse. It is a simple, massive\nbuilding, of the shape of a Greek cross, and contains the episcopal\nchair of St. Marzian. Here also is the tomb of the saint, who was the\nproto-martyr of Sicily. Near the tomb is the rude stone altar where\nSt. Paul said mass. A column of gray granite is shown as that to which\nSt. Marzian was attached for the scourging previous to his execution:\nit is tinged with his blood. The crypt, however, is the most sacred\nspot. Here came the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, with the\nevangelists St. Mark and St. Luke, on their successive visits to the\nholy bishop, St. Marzian; where also the local tradition affirms that\nSt. Mark was martyred. The curious font now in the cathedral was found\nin this crypt, and was probably used for the baptism of many of the\nearly Pagan converts. Adjoining is the place of St. Marzian's\nmartyrdom. The church itself is built over the site of an ancient\ntemple of Bacchus. Leading out of a side door is the entrance to the\ncatacombs, which are more extensive than even those of Naples or Rome,\nand abound in Christian emblems: crosses, palm-branches, the dove, and\nother Catholic symbols, are rudely carved on all the vaults and\nniches, with here and there an early fresco of the Blessed Virgin and\nChild, or a Greek inscription.\n\nFrom the catacombs our travellers crossed the plain, thickly studded\nwith ancient columns, sarcophagi, and remains of Greek and Roman\nbuildings, till they came to the little church of St. Nicolo.\nUnderneath is a reservoir with an aqueduct, leading to the great\namphitheatre; the principal monument left of Roman work in Syracuse,\nand {703} still in perfect preservation. Recent excavations have\ncleared the space, so that the seats and arena are clearly visible.\nFrom the amphitheatre, a five-minutes' walk leads to the Latomia del\nParadiso--a quarry containing in its further recesses the famous Ear\nof Dionysius. This cavern was excavated by the tyrant for a prison,\nand so constructed that the faintest whisper could be heard in the\nchamber above, where he sat listening to the conversation of his\nvictims. It is to be supposed that the listener, according to the\nproverb, rarely heard any good of himself. It is a wonderfully\npicturesque spot; the sides of the quarry being lined with fruit-trees\nand ferns and flowering shrubs, mingled with masses of fallen rock and\nfragments of ancient masonry. Pistols were fired off by the guides to\nlet the party hear the full force of the echo, which is tremendous.\nRound a deep spring at the further end of the cavern grew the most\nbeautiful maiden-hair fern. Close by is the Greek theatre, the largest\nin Sicily, hollowed out of the rock, and capable of containing more\nthan 20,000 spectators.\n\nReturning home to luncheon, the ladies visited on their way the\nSisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who are lodged in one of\nthe fine old mediaeval palaces of Syracuse, with beautifully carved\nwindows and doorways. But it is very much out of repair, and very\ninconvenient for their large orphanage. There are only six or seven\nsisters here. Their superior is a charming person, and only another\nproof, if one were needed in that wonderful religious order, of the\nway in which energy, zeal, and, above all, a burning charity can\ntriumph over the sufferings entailed by a delicate frame and sickly\nconstitution.\n\nAfter luncheon our travellers started again to meet Monsignor B------\nat the cathedral. It is built on the site of an ancient temple of\nMinerva, but has been ruined by modern church-wardenship and\nwhitewash. There are two fine side chapels, however; one dedicated to\nthe Blessed Sacrament, the other to St. Lucia, in which, is exposed a\nlarge silver figure of the saint of great antiquity. The font, of\nwhich notice has been taken above, is of marble, supported by seven\nfine bronze lions. There is a beautiful renaissance doorway leading to\nthe sacristy. A beautiful benediction service with litany was being\nsung; after which the relics and treasures were examined, which\ninclude a beautiful chalice of amber, cut out of one piece, and a\npastoral ring of great size and value. In the Place, or court of the\ncathedral, are fourteen fine columns of Cipollino marble, supposed to\nhave formed part of the ancient temple of Ceres. Opposite the north\ndoor of the cathedral is the museum, containing all the antiquities\nlately discovered in Syracuse and its neighborhood. The finest is a\nbeautiful torso, a Venus of the best date of Greek art. There are also\nsome very fine cameos and medals. The day was closed by a sweetly sung\nbenediction at the orphanage of the Sisters of Charity.\n\nThe next morning, after a daybreak mass at the cathedral, one of the\nparty breakfasted with the archbishop, who afterward showed her his\npalace and gardens, which are very fine. In the latter grew the\nlargest citrons she had ever seen, very nearly equalling the gigantic\noranges at Jaffa. Adjoining his garden-wall is a convent of\nBenedictine nuns, which was likewise visited. The good-natured prefect\nthen insisted on taking the whole party in his carriages to the\nFranciscan convent of St. Lucia outside the town. There is an\ninteresting Norman church attached to it, raised over the site of the\nsaint's martyrdom; and a granite column is shown as that to which she\nwas fastened on the occasion. Her tomb is cut in the rock at the back\nof the altar, underneath which is a fine statue of the saint by\nBernini.\n\nFrom this spot a narrow lane, traversing vineyards fenced by stone\nwalls, leads to the convent of Sta. Maria di Ges\u00f9, in front of which\nis a fine stone {704} cross. Passing by an aqueduct in very tolerable\npreservation, and by a succession of old tombs cut in the cliff, our\nparty arrived at the Capuchin convent--a fortified building, with\nfosse and drawbridge and machicolated battlements. A little gate at\nthe side led them into the Latomie, or quarries, from whence the stone\nwas taken to build the city. Here is one of the most beautiful spots\nin the neighborhood of Syracuse. It is a vast pit, about a hundred\nfeet in depth; and of many acres in extent, planted with oranges,\ncitrons, pomegranates, figs, and cypresses, with an undergrowth of\nroses, arums, acanthus, ferns, and creepers of every kind, and overrun\nwith ivy and wild vine. The whole is walled in by lofty gray cliffs\nhung with creepers; and from the midst of this wilderness of beautiful\nand almost rank vegetation rise two tall insulated masses of rock,\nwith an ancient flight of steps cut in the side of one of them, but\nnow inaccessible. The cliffs are hollowed into vast halls or caverns,\nin one of which the prefect told our travellers that he had given a\n_f\u00eate_ to Prince Alfred on his first visit to Syracuse. The kind old\nmonk who had been their escort brought them fruit, bread, and wine in\nthis deliciously cool retreat, and sat a long time talking of the Holy\nLand, where he had been, and which he was delighted to find was\nequally well known and appreciated by his guests. Here and there,\nembedded in the rocks, are traces of ancient sepultures; and one or\ntwo Protestant epitaphs on the cliffs prove that the quarries have,\neven in late days, been used for purposes of burial. Leaving this\nbeautiful spot with great regret, and acceding to the request of the\ngood old monk that they would first pray with him for a few minutes in\nthe church for a blessing on the Holy Land Mission, our travellers\nvisited one or two more of the antiquities in the neighborhood,\nincluding the recently excavated baths of Diana, full of beautiful\nmarbles and mosaics; the sepulchral road, the perpendicular sides of\nwhich are lined, with niches for cinerary urns; the tombs of\nArchimedes and Timoleon, and other interesting remains of Greek and\nRoman times; after which they returned once more to the city and to\nthe museum, where the collection of natural history had yet to be\nseen, which contains everything most interesting of the kind in\nSicily, and also the library. The latter contains priceless treasures,\nof which the most remarkable are--a rare copy of the gospel of St.\nJohn, of the twelfth century; a Koran on paper, of 1199, brought from\nEgypt by Lord Nelson, and given by him to the Cavalier Landolina, who\nwas the real founder of the library; a very fine block-book, a replica\nof one of those in the Wilton library; and many beautifully\nilluminated martyrologies and missals.\n\nNothing can be kinder or more hospitable than the residents of\nSyracuse. The visit of our travellers was necessarily too limited in\npoint of time to enable them to profit by it; but every one offered\ntheir carriage and horses, and put their palaces, not figuratively,\nbut actually _\u00e0 leur disposition_. There are still some beautiful\nmedieval palaces in the town, especially the Palazzo Montalto, with\nits pointed windows and dog-tooth mouldings. It bears also some\ncurious Gothic inscriptions, like the houses at Avila, and with the\ndate 1397.\n\nA charming boating excursion was made by one or two of the party from\nSyracuse to the fountain of Cyane, up the river Anapus, the only spot\nin Europe where the papyrus still grows wild. Nothing remains of the\ntemple of Jupiter Olympus, which one visits by the way, but two broken\ncolumns. But there is a lovely sketch a little further on of a ruined\nbridge, with a date-palm overhanging the stream, and a foreground of\nmagnificent tangled vegetation of reeds, sugar-cane, acanthus, iris,\nand every kind of aquatic plants, and which the slow progress of one's\nboat through the weeds enables one fully to enjoy. The Anapus {705}\nleads into the Cyane, which is a far clearer stream, but very narrow.\nHere the papyrus grows luxuriantly among flags and castor-oil plants.\nIt was sent from Egypt by Ptolemy to King Hieron II., and has\nflourished ever since. Struggling up the narrow stream and through the\nchoking mass of vegetation, which threatened to  close the passage\naltogether, our travellers' boat at last arrived at a beautiful\ncircular basin, fringed with papyrus and purple iris; the water, very\ndeep, was clear as crystal, and swarming with fish. This was known in\nold times as the famous \"dark-blue spring,\" converted  by heathen\nmythology into a nymph; and an annual festival was  held  here in\nhonor of Ceres. Now it is utterly deserted, save by  an  occasional\ntraveller  or sportsman seeking food for  his   gun from   the\nmultitude  of   snipes and wild fowl which resort to  its  banks and\nmake their nests in its undisturbed arid reedy shores.  That same\nevening our travellers returned to Catania, charmed  with  their\nexpedition, and full of gratitude for all the kindness which had been\nshowered upon them.\n\nThe following morning found  one of   the party very early at the\nconvent of her old friends the Benedictines, where the superior\nreceived her with his usual fatherly kindness, and presented her, as a\nsurprise, with the deed   of   affiliation   to   their   order, which\nhe had obtained for her from Monte Casino;  together with   a picture\nof the saint and the miraculous medal or cross of St. Benedict, with\nits mysterious letters, _C.S.S.M.L._ (Crux sacra sit mihi lux), a\nmedal always given by St. Vincent de Paul to his Sisters of  Charity,\nas  a  defence in the many perils of their daily lives. Once more the\ntraveller heard that glorious music, which, beautiful at all times, is\nso especially thrilling at the benediction   service.    The organ\nbegins with a low, sweet, wailing sound, which those beautiful and\ncultivated voices respond:  and then  bursts into thunder, expressing,\nas  far as mortal instrument can, the glorious majesty of God. It was\nthe feast of St. Monica--that saint so dear to every widowed mother's\nheart; and the fact, in connection with the English stranger, had not\nbeen forgotten by the kind abbate, who came up and whispered to her as\nshe knelt before mass: \"My child, the prayers and communions of the\ncommunity this day will be offered up for _you_, that you may follow\nin the steps of St. Monica, and finally reap her reward.\"\n\nReturning at seven to the hotel, the whole  party  started  once  more\nfor Nicolosi, on   their way to  undertake the more formidable ascent\nof AEtna. Arriving, after a four hours' drive, at the house of their\nold friend Professor Gemmellaro, they found he had kindly made every\narrangement for their start; and after about an hour's delay in\nsettling the pack-saddles, packing up provisions for the night, and\narranging everything with the guides, they mounted their mules and\nbegan the ascent. For some miles they passed through a tract of lava,\nsprinkled here and there with broom and heather, till they reached a\ncattle-shed, called Casa di Rinazzi, where they came to a picturesque\nwood of dwarf oak looking like the outskirts of an English park. From\nthence to Casa del Bosco the road is both easy and pleasant, and our\ntravellers began to think that the difficulties of the ascent (to\npeople who had crossed, as they had done, the Lebanon in deep snow)\nwould be comparatively trifling. They soon, however, discovered their\nmistake. At the Casa del Bosco they stopped to rest their mules and\nmake some tea, while the guides advised them to put on as much\nadditional clothing as they could for the coming cold. The peasants\nwere at work round them collecting the snow in reservoirs close to the\ncavern called the Grotta delle Capre--that snow so invaluable to the\ndwellers in the plain, and the sole substitute for ice to the\ninhabitants of Catania.\n\n{706}\n\nBut here the real toil of the ascent begins. It is only nine miles\nfrom hence to the summit; but those nine miles are terribly severe,\nnot only from their steepness, but from the nature of the ground,\ncomposed of a black loose ash, interspersed with sharply pointed lava\nrocks, on which you tread and stumble, and seem to recede two steps\nfor every one you take. As you ascend higher the snow conceals the\ninequalities of the ground, but does not make them the less fatiguing.\nThe cold, too, increases every instant, and our travellers regretted\nthat they had not followed their guides' advice and brought both\noverstockings and gloves. After toiling up in this manner for two\nhours, they came to a pile of lava which marks the distance halfway\nbetween the Casa del Bosco and the Casa Inglese. The snow here\nincreased in depth--the rarefaction of the air became painfully\nintense; while the clouds of sulphur from the eruption, which still\ncontinued on the opposite side of the mountain, driven in their faces\nby the wind, made some of the party so sick that they could scarcely\nproceed. The cold, too, became well-nigh intolerable. The mule of one\nof the ladies sank in a snowdrift, rolled and fell some way down the\nprecipice, compelling her to continue the journey on foot; but her\nfeet and hands were so numbed and so nearly on the verge of being\nfrostbitten, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could go on.\nAt last the Casa Inglese was reached. It is a low stone house, built\non what is called the Piano del Lago, a small ledge of frozen water,\n10,000 feet above the sea. In spite of the orders of the professor, it\nwas still half full of snow when they arrived; and this had to be\ncleared out, and made into what the children call \"snow men,\" before\nthe frozen travellers could enter and endeavor to make a fire with the\nwood they had brought with them. The guides cautioned those who were\nstill on their mules to descend very gently, as, in the semi-frozen\nstate they were in, the least, jerk or slip might occasion a broken\nlimb. One of the party was lifted off her horse at last and laid on\nsome rugs by the fire, which for a long time resisted all efforts to\nlight; and then her limbs had to be rubbed with snow to restore some\nkind of animation. When this object was attained, the overpowering\nsmoke--for there was no chimney or fireplace--made the remedy almost\nworse than the disease. All this time they had been well-nigh deafened\nby the detonations from the mountain, which, at regular intervals,\nsounded like artillery practice on a large scale. Everything they had\nbrought with them was frozen, including the milk they had got at\nNicolosi, and of which they were obliged to break the bottle before\nthey could melt any for their tea. After a time, the younger portion\nof the travellers lay down to rest on some straw arranged in wooden\nshelves or layers round the inner room, one at the top of the other,\nafter the manner of pears and apples in a kitchen-garden house in\nEngland. A French geologist and two other professors had joined their\nparty, and of course had no other place to go to; but the appearance\nof the company, roosting in this way on the shelves, was comical in\nthe extreme.\n\nAt three o'clock, however, every one rose, and commenced the ascent of\nthe cone, so as to reach the top by sunrise. The distance is short,\nbut intensely steep; it is like going up the side of a house; and the\ndifficulty is heightened by the loose ashes in which you sink at every\nstep, and the hot fumes of sulphurous vapor which pour out of the\nsides of the cone. Only a portion of our travellers persevered to the\ntop; the others being reluctantly compelled by faintness and violent\nsickness to retrace their steps. On reaching the crater, they at first\nsaw nothing but a deep yawning chasm, full of smoke, which kept\npouring out in their faces. The eruption, which one of the party had\n{707} seen in perfection two months before, was some miles off, and\nhad burst out of a new crater on the Taormina side of the mountain.\nBut with the dawning light the whole magnificent scene was revealed to\nthem. It has been so admirably and accurately described by Mr.\nGladstone, that any attempt at a fresh description could be but a poor\nrepetition of his words. Sufficient, then, is it to say that the view\nat sunrise repaid all the sufferings of the ascent. AEtna, unlike\nother mountains, stands alone, rising straight from the plain, with no\nrivals to dispute her height, or intercept any portion of the glorious\nview below. The whole of Sicily is stretched out at your feet, the\nhills below looking like the raised parts of a map for the blind. Not\nonly is the panorama unequalled in magnificence, but there are\natmospherical phenomena in it which belong to AEtna alone. As the sun\nrises over the Calabrian coast, a perfect and distinct image of the\ncone is reflected--as on the sheet of a magic-lantern--on the horizon\nbelow, gradually sinking lower and lower as the sun becomes brighter,\nand finally disappearing altogether. As it was early in the season,\nthe snow extended over the whole of the so-called desert region, while\nthe wood below seemed to encircle the mountain as with a green belt,\nwhich added to the beautiful effect of the whole. Tired and exhausted,\nand yet delighted, our travellers descended the cone, and rejoined\ntheir companions at the Casa Inglese, who had been compelled to\ncontent themselves with seeing the sun rise from a green hillock just\nbelow the house. They determined on their way home to diverge a little\nfrom the straight route, in order to visit the Val del Bove, that\nweird and ghost-like chasm which had struck them so much when looking\ndown upon it from the height of the cone. Floundering in the snow,\nwhich was a good deal deeper on that side of the mountain, their mules\ncontinually sinking and struggling up again, breaking their\nsaddle-girths in the effort, and consequently landing their riders\ncontinually on the soft snow, the party arrived at last on the edge of\nthis magnificent amphitheatre. It is of vast size, enclosed by\nprecipices 3,000 feet in height, and filled with gigantic rocks, of\nwonderfully strange and fantastic shapes, standing out separately,\nlike beasts--hence its name. The perfect silence of the spot reminds\none of some Egyptian city of the dead. Smoke, explosion, dripping ice,\nor rushing torrents characterize the other extinct craters in this\nwonderful mountain; but in this one all is still and silent as the\ngrave. It is stern as the curse of Kehama, and as if the lava had been\ncast up in these wonderful shapes in some extraordinary convulsion of\nnature, and then had been petrified as it rose. Our travellers\nlingered long, looking over the edge of the precipice, vainly wishing\nto be able to descend into the enchanted valley, and at last\nreluctantly turned their muels' heads in the direction of Nicolosi.\nThe descent was intensely fatiguing, from the continual jerking and\nslipping of their beasts; and they arrived more dead than alive at the\nkind professor's house, after being more than eight hours in the\nsaddle. A few hours later found them once more in the burning sunshine\nof Catania, where the thermometer in the shade, was 86\u00b0, while it had\nbeen 27\u00b0 on the mountain, a difference in one day of 59\u00b0 degrees of\ntemperature. But no difficulties should discourage the traveller from\nattempting the ascent of AEtna, which is worth coming the whole way\nfrom England for itself alone. A few days later saw our party on the\ndeck of the Vatican steamer, _en route_ for Naples, carrying away with\nthem recollections of enjoyment and kindness such as will ever\nassociate piety in their minds with pleasant thoughts and grateful\nmemories.\n\n------------\n\n{708}\n\nFrom The Dublin University Magazine.\n\nTHE FIRST SIEGE  OF LIMERICK.\n\n\nJAMES'S FAREWELL.\n\nThe fight at the Boyne was over; the English, Dutch, Danish, and\nFrench allies resting, or preparing to rest, as well as the ground\nnear the Pass of Duleek would allow, and their defeated but not\ndispirited foemen marching wearily in the summer night toward Dublin.\nJames accompanied by Sarsfield's horse was already far in the van, and\nin due time he reached the castle. We can scarcely fancy a more false\nor uncomfortable position than that in which James now stood, when,\ncalling together his council, the lord mayor, and other notables, he\naddressed them for the last time. An ill-disposed historian might have\ninvented this speech for him if no memory of the one really delivered\nhad survived. \"My dear and loyal Irish subjects, I believe I ought not\nto have risked the disastrous battle of yesterday against the advice\nof my judicious officers. After the fighting was determined on, I\nunhappily did much to discourage the undisciplined fellows who so well\nexhibited their loyalty and bravery at the Boyne. We are beaten, I am\nsorry to say, and I am getting away as fast as I can to place hundreds\nof miles between myself and the cannons and muskets of my callous\nrelative. Make as good terms, my poor people, with William as he will\ngrant you. I. can do no more for you than leave you my blessing, to\nwhich you are heartily welcome. Adieu!\"\n\nThere is an ill-natured tradition still afloat that in his greeting to\nLady Tyrconnell he alluded to the agility of the Irish in running away\nfrom the field, and was in return complimented by that lady for having\noutstripped such very fleet runners. The anecdote bears every mark of\na lie about it. The orderly retreat at the Boyne was nothing like a\ndastardly flight, and James's disposition would have been worse than\nhis ill-wishers have ever represented it, had he cracked that bitter\njest on his loyal supporters. We prefer the following sketch of the\nfinal interview from the pen of a writer whose Williamite leanings,\nthough strong, are regulated by calm judgment and generous feelings:\n\n  \"In the cold grey of the winter's morning it were hard to imagine a\n  drearier or less inviting spectacle than this group of loyalists\n  presented. While they were waiting thus, James, a man of punctuality\n  to the last, was employed in paying and discharging his menial\n  servants, previously to his taking final leave of his Irish capital.\n  At last however the door opened, and James followed by two or three\n  gentlemen and officers, including Colonel Luttrell who kept garrison\n  as governor of the city, entered the apartment. . . . There was that\n  in the fallen condition of the king, in the very magnitude of his\n  misfortunes, which lent a mournful dignity to his presence, and\n  which in spite of the petulance which occasionally broke from him,\n  impressed the few disappointed, and well-nigh ruined followers of\n  his cause who stood before him with feelings of melancholy respect.\n\n \"'Gentlemen,' said the king after a brief pause, 'it hath pleased the\n Almighty Disposer of events to give the victory to our enemies. . . .\n The enemy will be in possession of this city at least before many\n days are passed. . . . Matters being so, we must needs shift for\n ourselves as best we may. Above all we do command you, we do implore\n of you, gentlemen, in your several stations, and principally you,\n Colonel Luttrell, as governor of this our city, to prevent all undue\n severities, all angry reprisals, all violences .... upon the\n suspected within its walls. We do earnestly intreat of you all to\n remember that this is our city, and they our subjects; protect it and\n them as long as it shall seem wise to occupy this town for us. This\n is our last command, our parting request.'\"\n\n{709}\n\nThe poor king was overcome during his speech by the part his own\ndaughters were acting in the bitter drama then in progress. However,\nthat does not excuse the reference to the want of capacity or courage\nwhich he was pleased to discover among his Irish supporters. For from\nthe beginning they appeared more interested in his success than he did\nhimself.\n\n\nWILLIAM IN DUBLIN.\n\nBut the speech came to an end, and the king departed, and conflicting\nand varying hopes and fears agitated the citizens, as the Irish troops\nmarched in with drums beating and colors flying, and again quitted the\ncity, and proceeded to Limerick, and so on till the arrival of the\nDuke of Ormond and the Dutch guards on Thursday.\n\nThe king rode in from the camp at Finglass on the next Sunday,\nattended divine service in St. Patrick's cathedral, and returned to\nthe camp in time for dinner. On the 7th of the month he issued a\nproclamation from which a few extracts are here presented:\n\n  \"WILLIAM, R.\n\n  \"As it hath pleased Almighty God to bless our arms in this kingdom\n  with a late victory, . . . . we hold it reasonable to think of\n  mercy, and to have compassion on those whom we judge to have been\n  seduced. Wherefore we do hereby declare, we shall take into our\n  royal protection all poor labourers, common souldiers, country\n  farmers, plough-men, and cottiers whatsoever: as also all citizens,\n  trades-men, towns-men, and artificers, who either remained at home,\n  or having fled from their dwellings, shall return by the first of\n  August. . . We do also promise to secure them in their goods, their\n  stocks of' cattel, and all their chattels personal whatever, willing\n  and requiring them to come in, . . and to preserve the harvest of\n  grass and corn for the supply of the winter.\"\n\nThose who held from Protestant landlords were to pay their rent as\nusual, but tenants of Roman Catholics should hand their money to\ncommissioners appointed to receive it. The term REBELS is applied in\nthe proclamation to all in arms for King James, a proof that privy\ncouncillors dating from the royal camp at Finglass, 7th July, 1690,\nwere determined to hold the adherents of James sternly to their\nconstitutional position.\n\nDevoted partisan as was our chaplain,  [Footnote 200] he was sometimes\nblessed with kindly feelings toward his master's foes. He thus\ncontinues after copying the proclamation:\n\n  \"This declaration was published in the camp two days after, and had\n  it been punctually observed according to the intent of it, we had\n  had fewer enemies at this day by at least 20,000. For though the\n  king was punctual in his observance of it, some officers and\n  soldiers were apt to neglect the king's honour, and the honour of\n  our country and religion, when it stood in competition with their\n  own profit and advantage.\"\n\n    [Footnote 200: Rev. George Story, chaplain in King William's army.]\n\n\nDOUGLAS'S SLOW JOURNEY TO ATHLONE.\n\nOn the 9th of July, William divided his forces, sending one portion\nunder General L. G. Douglas to force the pass at Athlone, himself\nconducting the rest toward Limerick. Douglas did not tire his soldiers\nwith rapid marches. The first night they bivouacked at Chapel\n_Issard_, which place a citizen of Dublin will reach easily on foot in\nan hour. The second night they encamped at _Manouth_ (May-nooth?), but\nhere we must quote our historian.\n\n  \"Friday we encamped at _Glencurry_ (Clon-curry?) about five miles\n  further, and we had not got this length till we begun to plunder,\n  though the general gave strict orders to the contrary. Saturday the\n  12th, we marched to _Glenard_ (Clonard) bridge, and here we staid\n  all Sunday. The soldiers went abroad and took several things from\n  the Irish, who had staid upon the king's declaration, and frequent\n  complaints came already to the general'; but plundering went on\n  still, especially among the northern men who are very dexterous at\n  that sport. . . At _Mullingar_ several of the Irish came in for\n  protections, though when they had them they were of little force to\n  secure their goods or themselves.\".\n\n{710}\n\nGeneral Douglas and his soldiers arrived before Athlone, which our\nauthority locates fifty miles north of Dublin, though it happens to be\nnearly due west, on the 17th, having marched out of Chapelizod on the\n9th (six and a quarter miles per day). Not a whit fatigued or daunted,\nthey summoned stout old Colonel Grace to surrender. Story says he\nfired a pistol at the herald, to show the value he set on his request.\nWe must pronounce the old warrior a recreant, unless the charge was\nmere powder, or the muzzle pointed upward, which we opine was the\ncase. Colonel Grace expressed at the same time his determination to\neat his old boots rather than capitulate; hence the application of\n_Boot-eater_ to stout defenders of fortresses. So besiegers and\nbesieged fired guns long and short, wide and small bores, at each\nother till the 25th, when General Douglas, hearing that Sarsfield was\ncoming to the relief of the place, raised the siege, and marched\nsouthward to meet the main army near Limerick. Mr. Story says that\nabout three or four hundred men were lost between Dublin and Limerick,\nof which number thirty only were slain before Athlone, say three men\nand three quarters of a man each day. Very indifferent gunners were\nthose behind the walls of Athlone if this statement be true, Our\nobservant author makes curious mistakes in topographical matters at\ntimes. In this portion of' his narrative he mentions the Shannon as\nfalling into the sea beyond Knoc Patrick. Every child exercised on the\nmap of Ireland, is able to lay finger on Cnoc-Patrick in Mayo, seventy\nmiles or so north of the Shannon's mouth.\n\nAfter laying the deaths of the three or four hundred men missing to\nsickness, hard marching, six and a quarter miles per diem, surprises\nby Rapparees, and sundry other disadvantages, he cracks a gentle joke\nby way of cheering up his reader's spirits. \"W e killed,\" says he,\n\"and took prisoners a great many thousands, but more of' these had had\nfour feet than two.\" Having brought this division of the army safe\nthrough the \"Golden Vale,\" let us see what the other portion under the\nimmediate attention of the king were about.\n\n\nHOW WILLIAM ENFORCED DISCIPLINE:\n\nOn the 9th of the month, William encamped at Crumlin, and the next\nnight between the Ness  [Footnote 201] and Rathcoole. It was well for\nthe inhabitants of the line of march that the king commanded in\nperson.\n\n  [Footnote 201: Naas was anciently the seat of the kings of North\n  Leinster. The word means a fair or a commemoration. Rathcoole\n  implies a lonely fortress.]\n\n  \"Little hapned remarkable except the king's great care to keep the\n  souldiers from plundering, and every night it was given out in\n  orders that on pain of death no man should go beyond the line in the\n  camp, or take violently to the least value from Protestant or\n  Papist. The 11th the army marched to _Kill-Kullen_, Bridge, the king\n  this morning passing by the _Ness_ saw a souldier robbing a poor\n  woman, which enraged his majesty so much, that he beat him with his\n  cane, and gave orders that he and several others guilty of the like\n  disobedience should be executed on the Monday following. People were\n  so wicked as (to) put a bad construction on this action of the\n  king's, but it had so good an effect upon that part of the army,\n  that the country was secured from any violence done by the souldiers\n  during that whole march. Two of the sufferers were _Iniskillin_\n  dragoons.\"\n\nHad General Douglas acted thus the worthy chaplain would not have had\nto record so much cruelty and injustice inflicted upon the harmless\ncountry people.\n\nStory takes occasion, on Colonel Eppingar's proceeding with a party of\n1,000 horse and dragoons  [Footnote 202] to Wexford, to inform his\nEnglish readers about the people in the south of the county.\n\n    [Footnote 202: In 1660, Marshal Brissae, fancying or feigning\n    dragons to be in the habit of spouting fire out of their mouths,\n    get the muzzles of short muskets adorned with the effigies of\n    these monsters, and therewith armed some troops of horse. The\n    early dragoons discharged the duties of infantry and cavalry. The\n    Scots Grays formed in 1683 were the earliest British dragoons.]\n\n  \"Hereabouts were the first English planted in Ireland. They were a\n  colony of west-countrymen, and retain their old English tone and\n  customs to this day. I am credibly informed that every day about one\n  or two o'clock in summer, they go to bed, the whole country round;\n  nay, the very hens fly up and the sheep go to fold as orderly as it\n  were night.\"  [Footnote 203]\n\n    [Footnote 203: The people of \"the barony\" are the descendants of a\n    Flemish colony who had settled in Wales at the invitation of Henry\n    I. Beans were the favorite crop, and dry bean-stalks furnished\n    their chief fuel. If the gossip of the inhabitants of the northern\n    part of the county could be credited, the barony of Forth formerly\n    furnished priests for all Ireland.]\n\n{711}\n\nGood Mr. Story was as fond of a bit of picturesque or romantic hearsay\nas Herodotus himself. The well-to-do farmers really indulged in a\nsiesta, but as to the degeneracy of manners among the hens and sheep\nwe are altogether incredulous. Some time before the _Ninety-Eight_,\nhousehold and village councils were held for a month in a townland of\nthe barony to decide whether a farmer, to whom a legacy had been left\nin Dublin, should relinquish his right to it, or encounter the risks\nof the journey to the city. At last it was decided that prayers were\nto be solemnly offered up for his safety in all the neighboring\nchurches and chapels, and then let him in God's name brave the perils\nof the way.\n\nA good deal of irresolution prevailed at this time in William's\nproceedings. Ill news came rife across the water, and at one time he\nretraced his route even as far as Chapelizod with the intention of\ncrossing to England. There, however, he received tidings which\nreassured him, and he returned to the camp at Golden Bridge, which he\nreached on the 2d of August. On the 8th General Douglas arrived, and\non the 9th the united forces approached the Irish stronghold.\n\n\nINTERIOR OF THE IRISH COUNCILS.\n\nThe Irish and French chiefs who had collected to Limerick after the\nday at the Boyne were far from being of the same opinions or\naspirations. According to Colonel O'Kelly, Tyrconnell desired nothing\nmore than to give up Limerick and all the other garrisons to King\nWilliam, and Count de Lauzun was more anxious to get back to that\ncentre of delights, the city of Paris, than co-operate in the defence\nof their present hold, which, he said, required only a smart discharge\nof roasted apples to be made listen to terms.\n\n\nTHE PARLEY BEFORE THE FIGHT.\n\nLimerick, now apparently devoted to destruction, consisted of an\nisland within two arms of the Shannon, and a smaller area outside\ncalled the Irish-town, both portions being connected by Ball's-bridge.\nKing's Island was and is connected with the Clare side of the river by\n'I'homond-bridge, and contains a legacy left by King John in the shape\nof a castle. William's people set to work forming batteries and\ntrenches as well as the balls coming from the ramparts of' Irish-town\nwould allow them, and the moment they were ready they proceeded to\nexchange iron and leaden compliments with the folk behind the\nparapets.\n\nHostilities, however, did not really begin till some civil\ncommunications had taken place on both sides. A herald-trumpeter,\nblowing his instrument and displaying his white flag, entered the city\nwith a polite request to the authorities to surrender the place.\nMonsieur Boiselieu, chief in command, calling the Duke of Berwick and\nMajor-General Sarsfield to council, indited a politely expressed\nletter to Sir Robert Southwell, secretary of state, in which was\nimplied some wonder at the request, and a determination on his part,\nand that of his officers and soldiers, to gain the good opinion of the\nPrince of Orange by defending the city against his forces while\ndefence was feasible. On the return of the trumpeter firing began, the\nking inspecting the hot business from Cromwell's fort.\n\nStory says that a Frenchman, escaping into the city the day the enemy\nsat down before it, gave accurate information to Sarsfield of the\ncomplete economy of the English camp, and of a battering-train, tin\nboats, wagons of biscuits; etc., approaching William's camp from\nDublin. {712} Part of the sequel is given in his own words:\n\n  \"Monday the 11th in the morning, came one _Manus O'Brien_ a\n  substantial country gentleman to the camp, and gave notice that\n  _Sarsfield_ in the night had passed the river with a body of horse,\n  and designed something extraordinary. . . . . The messenger that\n  brought the news was not much taken notice of at first, most people\n  looking on it as a dream. A great officer however called him aside,\n  and after some indifferent questions, askt him about a prey of\n  cattel in such a place, which the gentleman complained of\n  afterwards, saying he was sorry to see general officers mind cattel\n  more than the king's honour. But after he met with some acquaintance\n  he was brought to the king, who, to prevent the worst, gave orders\n  that a party of five hundred horse should be made ready, and march\n  to meet the guns. . . . Where the fault lay, I am no competent\n  judge, but it certainly was one or two of the clock in the morning\n  before the party marched, which they then did very softly till about\n  an hour after they saw------\"\n\nWhat shall be told farther on.\n\nSARSFIELD'S GREAT FEAT.\n\n  \"From Limerick that day bould Sarsfield dashed away,\n  Until he came to Cullen where their artillery lay;\n  The Lord cleared up the firmament, the moon and stars shone bright,\n  And for the Battle of the Boyne be had revenge that night.\"\n\nPoor John Banim inserted these stirring lines in his romance of the\nBoyne Water as belonging to an old ballad; we suspect them to have\nbeen his own composition. Whoever might have given Sarsfield\ninformation--a rapparee was as likely as the Frenchman mentioned by\nthe chaplain--he crossed Thomond-bridge at the head of five hundred\nhorse on Sunday night as soon as it was sufficiently dark, and the\nparty moved up as noiselessly as they could along the western bank of\nthe Shannon to Killaloe, or _Killalow_, as Rev. Mr. Story spells it.\nThere they crossed the river and penetrated among the Tipperary\nmountains, over which the Keeper and the \"Mother of Mountains\" towered\nin pride. Among the hills they spent the rest of the night and the\nwhole of the next day, being kept aware of the movements of the convoy\nwhich meantime was working its slow way along the Cashel road. Toward\nevening Sarsfield and a few who were most in his confidence, lying\namong the dry grass and fern of the hill-pass since called\nLacken-na-Gapple (_Lagan-na-Capal_, \"Hollow of the Horses\"), were\ninspecting the last stage of the convoy. At that hour the train had\npassed the village of Cullen, and were about taking their rest on and\nabout the road leading up to the grassy platform on which stood the\nold fortalice of Ballyneedy. This was about five miles from the\nmountain pass where the Jacobite general was on the watch. He waited\nas patiently as he could till the sun had sunk some time behind the\nGalteigh mountains, and the watch-fires began to glimmer from the\nencampment.\n\nThe watch-word that night among the wearied men and their sentinels\nwas SARSFIELD, an ill-omened coincidence. How the party conspiring\ntheir destruction found it out is not so very apparent; but when the\nofficers were asleep in the waste castle, and the soldiers by their\nwagons, Sarsfield's men sang out the password to the sentinel placed\nin advance of the village, to the sentinels in the village, and to the\nsentinels immediately in advance of the unconscious groups. There the\ncommander thundered out \"Sarsfield is the word, and Sarsfield is the\nman.\" Deafening shouts came from the rushing horsemen, and of the\nawakened slumberers some were slain gallantly resisting, a few\nescaped, and a few others got quarter. The spoils consisted or eight\npieces of heavy battering-cannon, five mortars with their carriages, a\nhundred and fifty-three wagons of ammunition, twelve carts loaded with\nbiscuit, eighteen tin boats for the passage of rivers, and all the\ncart and cavalry horses.\n\nThe commander, wisely judging that troops were at the moment marching\nfrom Limerick to interrupt his plans, had the cannons charged to the\nmouth and set in the earth, muzzle downward. {713} These he surrounded\nwith the wagons and their contents, and skifully laid trains of powder\nwere not neglected. The successful party then withdrawing to a safe\ndistance--they needed a wide berth, taking the quantity of powder into\naccount--set fire at once to the lines of powder, and at one and the\nsame moment all the contents of the great guns and the\nammunition-carts were ignited. There was an intolerable blaze, a roar\nand its reverberations; accompanied by a blowing up in the air of\npieces of metal and blazing wood, and the combined effect was sublime\nand terrible beyond conception. The darkest recesses of the mountain\nglens were lighted up as in the summer noon, and the shock was felt\nfor many miles in every direction. Sir John Lanier, who was hastening\nwhen too late to protect the convoy, saw the blaze and heard the\nterrible explosion at several miles distance, and comprehended the\nterrible disaster in a moment. The concussion was perceptible even in\nWilliam's camp at a distance of about thirteen miles, and it is\nprobable that the general who had \"_askt_\" Manus O'Brien about the\nprey of cartel, felt (to use a provincialism) very lewd of himself.\nSir John Lanier directed his squadron of five hundred horse to the\nleft to intercept the Irish party, but it was not his fortune to meet\nwith them, and Sarsfield recrossed the Shannon without the loss of a\nman.\n\nThe Rev. Mr. Story relates that no one was made prisoner at Ballyneedy\n\"only a lieutenant of Colonel Earle's, who being sick in a house hard\nby, was stripped and brought to Sarsfield, who used him very civilly.\"\n\nWhile the Irish chief is snatching a short relaxation after his\nsuccessful sortie, and all within the walls are filled with a\nmomentary joy for the signal benefit, let us introduce a slight sketch\nof the career of the brave Earl of Lucan, whose memory is still held\nin love and veneration by the great mass of the Irish people, and of\nwhom no disrespectful word is ever pronounced by the descendants of\nthe brave men against whom he often waged battle.\n\n\nSARSFIELD'S CAREER.\n\nThe first of the name known in Ireland was Thomas Sarsfield,\nstandard-bearer to King Henry II. In the reign of Charles I., Patrick,\nthe then representative of the family, married Anne, daughter of\nRuaighr\u00e9 (Roger) O'Moore, and their children were William and the\nsubject of our sketch Patrick, who succeeded to the estate on the\ndeath of his brother. \"He had received his education in one of the\nFrench military colleges, and saw some early campaigns in the armies\nof Louis XIV. His first commission was that of ensign in the regiment\nof Monmouth in France, after which he obtained a lieutenancy in the\nRoyal Guards of England.\" He commanded for James in one of those\nskirmishes which took place with William's Dutch troops on their march\nfrom Torquay. At the commencement of the Irish campaigns his estates\nproduced \u00a32,000 annual revenue, so that it did not inconvenience him\nmuch to raise a. company of horse. We shall not here touch on his\nachievements during the war in Ireland, as these have found, or will\nnaturally find their places in the course of our narrative. On\narriving in Paris after the treaty of Limerick, \"he was received with\nkindness and distinction by the ex-king of England and Louis XIV.\"\n\n  \"The former appointed him colonel of his body guards, and his most\n  Christian majesty bestowed on him the rank of lieutenant-general in\n  the French armies. He might have obtained a marshal's staff had his\n  life been spared. He fought under Luxembourg at Steenkirk in 1692, .\n  . . . and on the 29th of July, 1693, a little more than one year and\n  a half after his voluntary banishment from his own country, he was\n  killed in the command of a division at the great battle of Landen.\n  It was a soldier's death on a glorious and memorable field.\n\n{714}\n\n  \"There are few names more worthy to be inscribed in the roll of\n  honour than that of Patrick Sarsfield, who may be quoted as a type\n  of loyalty and patriotic devotion. In the annals of Irish history he\n  stands as a parallel to Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard in\n  those of France, and may be equally accounted 'Sans peur et sans\n  reproche,' the fearless and irreproachable knight; in his public\n  actions firm and consistent; in his private character amiable and\n  unblemished. . . . (At the end of the war) William III. would gladly\n  have won his services, and offered to confirm him in his rank and\n  property; but he listened to no overtures, and left his native\n  country attended by thousands of that gallant body, who, under the\n  title of the Irish Brigade, filled the continent of Europe with\n  their renown.\"  [Footnote 204]\n\n    [Footnote 204: \"Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, a Biography;\"\n    Dublin University Magazine for November, 1853; the writer, John\n    William Cole, Esq., formerly captain in the Royal Fusiliers. Mary,\n    sister of the earl, was married to Colonel Rossiter, County\n    Wexford, and to a lineal descendant of theirs, the gentleman just\n    mentioned, we are indebted for the only life of Sarsfield yet\n    given to the world. He could find but scant materials, though it\n    is supposed they might be made available if the living\n    representative of an old family of the Pale would take the trouble\n    of a search among the archives of his house. Mary Sarsfield's\n    great granddaughter was the wife of Lieutenant (afterward colonel)\n    James Cockburn, who was on the personal staff of General Wolfe on\n    the memorable day at Quebec. His portrait (to the right of General\n    Moncton's) was introduced by West into his picture of the \"Death\n    of Wolfe.\" He afterward commanded the Thirty-fifth in the American\n    war of Independence. Colonel Cockburn's daughter, Margaret,\n    married Thomas Cole, Esq., of Callan, in the county of Kilkenny,\n    major in the King's Fencibles. Our authority the issue of this\n    marriage could not resist the martial impulses of his race; so he\n    smelled powder along with Rev. R. Gleig at Washington and New\n    Orleans and elsewhere. Since he laid aside the \"spurtle blade and\n    dog-skin wallet,\" he has usefully employed his leisure hours in\n    literary composition of a healthful character. We suspect the\n    papers in the University Magazine on ancient military tactics\n    illustrated by plans of battles to be his. Among his other\n    productions are biographies of General Vallancey, Tyrone Power,\n    and other Irish theatrical celebrities.]\n\nIn his Military Memoirs of the Irish Nation, Mathew O'Connor speaks\nthus of his military qualifications:\n\n  \"As a partisan and for a desultory warfare, he possessed admirable\n  qualifications; brave, patient, vigilant, rapid, indefatigable,\n  ardent, adventurous, and enterprising; the foremost in encounter,\n  the last in retreat. He harassed his enemy by sudden, unexpected,\n  and generally irresistible attacks, inspiring his troops with the\n  same ardour and contempt of danger with which his own soul was\n  animated. . . . No general was ever more beloved by his troops.\"\n\n\nA SIEGE INCIDENT OR TWO.\n\nWhatever William might have felt on being made acquainted with the\nloss of his cannon and ammunition, he said very little on the subject.\nHe was one of those whose fixed purpose is not to be set aside for\ndefeat or check. With his battering-train augmented by two great guns\nand a mortar from Waterford, he continued to pound the walls day after\nday. The trenches were relieved at midnight till the following unlucky\nmistake occurred, all the particulars of which are not very\nintelligible to civilians:\n\n  \"Monday 18th August at night the trenches were relieved by\n  Lieut.-General Douglas, My Lord _Sydney_, and Count _Nassau_, as\n  major-generals, and Brigadeer _Stuart_. We made our approaches\n  towards the fort outside the wall, and Lieut.-General _Douglas's_\n  and Brigadeer _Stuart's_ regiments were posted towards the right. It\n  was dark when they went on, and they did not perceive the enemy to\n  be so near them as they really were. [What brought the enemy outside\n  their walls?] for there was at that time scarce twenty yards\n  distance between them. They were ordered to lye down upon their arms\n  which they did, and a great part, both of the officers and soldiers,\n  fell asleep. The enemy perceived this, and attacked them, which\n  presently put them into a confusion, and several of them gave\n  ground, but presently recovered themselves and fired, but did not\n  know at what. The _Danes_ to the left took our own men for the enemy\n  sallying, and so fired upon them; they believed the Danes to be the\n  Irish; and so returned the compliment. The Irish fired upon both,\n  and they at one another. This confusion lasted nigh two hours, in\n  which several men were killed; nor did the king or any body else\n  know what to make of it. At last our men found their mistake, and\n  the Irish were beat in, crying 'quarter' and 'murder' as they used\n  to do. After this his majesty ordered the trenches to be relieved in\n  the day, and our men marched always in and out in the very face of\n  their cannon.\"\n\nIf truth lies in a well, it is a pity she should make choice of a\nmuddy one, where her contours and lineaments are so admirably\nconfused. Hear another version by John Banim, the novelist, from what,\nif any, authority we know not:\n\n  \"While day after day the battering, at this one point continued, the\n  garrison made a midnight sortie upon the besiegers. Taken by\n  surprise, and thrown into such confusion as to be unable to discern\n  friend from foe, they attacked each other, and the Irish {715}\n  having retreated unperceived, so continued until the morning light\n  showed them their mistake and the shocking havoc that resulted from\n  it.\"\n\nOur chaplain did not much relish that classic and severe style of\ncomposition which critics assigned to a great historical work.\nMoreover he was ever as ready as Homer to introduce a gossiping or\ntraditional episode, and repose his pen from the dry or terrible\ndetails of the main course of events.\n\nOn the 19th of the month King William had another providential escape.\nHe was riding slowly up toward Cromwell's fort, when, as he was\nentering a gap, an officer stayed him about some business. Within a\nsecond or two after the pause of the horse's feet, a cannon-ball swept\nthrough the spot where he and his horse would have been but for the\ninterruption.\n\nAll this time the people within the walls were in ill-condition, their\ndiet consisting of beans, or very coarse bread, and the enemy's\nmortars throwing bombs and carcasses among them with little\ninterruption. These things disturbed them much, as Mr. Story says, for\nthey had not seen the like before. The round or oval iron carcasses\nwhich flashed forth through it's holes a fierce and inextinguishable\nfire for some eight or ten minutes was nearly as terrible as the bomb.\nStill they doggedly held on, and made no complaint; Sarsfield's energy\nand hopeful spirits kept up their courage. The chaplain relates with a\nsort of remorseful feeling how his party and himself enjoyed the\nburning of a part of the town one night by the bombs and red-hot\nballs, \"which made me reflect upon our profession of soldiery not to\nbe overcharged with good nature.\"\n\n\nHOW LIMERICK AS ASSAILED AND DEFENDED.\n\nBy the 27th of the month, a twelve yards breach being made in the wall\nof Irishtown, and William looking on from Cromwell's fort, the\ngrenadiers, supported on either side by Dutch, Danes, and\nBrandenburghers, on hearing a signal of three cannon-shots, sprang out\nof their trenches, and cheering loudly, dashed forward to the glacis.\n[Footnote 205] They were hotly received from the covered way, whose\noccupants mounting the banquette, and resting their muskets on the\nedge of the glacis, poured a shower of balls among them; and the guns\non the ramparts, great and small, volleying fast and fiercely, made\nwide lanes among the brave fellows. However, the guns from Cromwell's\nfort, enfilading the ramparts, soon silenced the engines of death\nstationed there, and the grenadiers, undaunted by the thinning of\ntheir ranks, gained the glacis, sprang into the covered way, and after\na terrible struggle forced the defenders from that post, from their\ntrenches in the ditch, and over the breach into the city.\n\n  [Footnote 205: For the behoof of young renders not conversant with\n  the outworks of besieged towns, a few explanatory words are given.\n  Outside the strong walls is a wide and deep, dry ditch. The sloping\n  side from which the wall rises is the scarp, the opposite slope is\n  the counterscarp, its upper line meeting with the platform called\n  the covered way. This covered way is about thirty feet wide, its\n  outward boundary being the face of the glacis or sloping plane, this\n  last so situated that men marching along it to attack the fortress\n  are in the direct range of the guns. The level of the glacis is\n  higher than that of the covered way by seven or eight feet. The\n  defenders standing on a small terrace called the banquette at the\n  base of the glacis, and resting their muskets on its edge, can fire\n  on the advancing foe.]\n\nThe guns on the ramparts to the right of the breach being silenced,\nthe firing from the Danes and Dutch on the flanks of the storming\nparty did considerable damage to those on the ramparts and in the\nditch, but the guns of a fort constructed in King's Island opened on\nthe foreigners, killed many, and afforded some relief to the\ndefenders. While these were mowing each other down at a distance, the\ngrenadiers, driving their opponents across the breach, cheered\nlustily, and flung in their hand-grenades, whose bursting and\ndestructive iron shower were ill calculated to recall the\nself-possession of the fugitives. But the pikes and bayonets of their\nfollows in shelter, now levelled full at their breasts, were {716} as\nmuch to be dreaded as what they expected from behind. Over the breach\nand inward dashed Lord Drogheda's grenadiers, but a battery snugly\nplaced in front of the yawning breach on stones, timber, earth, and\nother stuff, all at once belched out a storm of grape upon them, and\nafter struggling for some time, a second discharge sent them back over\nthe ruins and into the ditch.\n\nBut no dastard feeling was to be found among the survivors.\nRe-enforced by new comrades who had yet done nothing, they returned\nonce more to the assault, flung their grenades, and cleared the\ntumbled masses of lime and stone. Undaunted by the havoc made among\nthem by a fresh discharge, they rushed on the battery, effectually\nsilenced it, and now looked on the capture of the town as certain. But\nhere they were met by fresh and untired foes, who being kept to that\nmoment in inaction by Sarsfield, now rushed on from either side, and a\ndreadful struggle commenced, the badly armed defenders showering\nvolleys of stones where more effective weapons were not at command,\nthe mere townsmen and their wives and daughters mingling fiercely in\nthe desperate fray. Those who had pushed on the furthest were slain to\na man, neither asking nor receiving quarter, and the others, after\neffecting everything in the power of energy and dauntless courage,\nwere for the second time driven forth from the rescued city.\n\n  \"From the walls and every place (we quote our chaplain) they so\n  pestered us on the counterscarp (properly the covered way), that\n  after nigh three hours resisting bullets, stones (broken bottles\n  from the very women who boldly stood in the breach, and were nearer\n  our men than their own), and whatever ways could be thought on to\n  destroy us, our ammunition being spent, it was judged safest to\n  return to our trenches. When the work was at the hottest, the\n  _Brandenburgh_ regiment, who behaved themselves very well, were got\n  upon the black battery, where the enemie's powder hapned to take\n  fire, and blew up a great many of them, the men, faggots, stones,\n  and whatnot, flying into the air with a most terrible noise.\"\n\nIn some Jacobite memoirs mention is made of a sortie made by Sarsfield\nand his driving the wearied assaulters to their camp, and their\nrescuing many of the enemy from an hospital which had taken fire. The\nexploit is overlooked by the chaplain, who thus concludes his short\naccount of the day:\n\n  \"The king stood nigh _Cromwell's_ fort all the time, and the\n  business being over, he went to his camp very much concerned, as\n  indeed was the whole army, for you might have seen a mixture of\n  anger and sorrow in every bodie's countenance.\"\n\nWilliam thus disappointed of bringing the Irish issue to a conclusion,\nand his presence being much needed in England, drew off his forces,\nand he himself made little delay till he set sail from Waterford to\nmake matters in London comfortable, and keep a sharp lookout on the\nunfriendly proceedings of his bitter foeman, Louis XIV.\n\nIn September Count Solmes, who was left in command after William's\ndeparture, went to England, and Ginckell succeeded to his office. A\nbetter choice could not have been made; he established his\nhead-quarters at Kilkenny.\n\n\nTYRCONNELL'S POLICY.\n\nTyrconnell, who all along was no better than a drag on his party, who\ndesired peace in order to secure his own estates, and who was accused\nof holding secret correspondence with William, sailed to France soon\nafter the siege of Limerick. Previous to his departure he appointed\nthe young Duke of Berwick commander-in-chief; giving him twelve\ncouncillors to aid him with their advice. Some of these were men after\nTyrconnell's own heart, such as in our own days are called\n_Cawtholics_ by their own party. Sarsfield happened to be among them,\nbecause, if he were not, Tyrconnell's arrangements would have been\nlittle regarded by the men of heart and head among the loyalists.\nCount O'Kelly declares that Tyrconnell's reasons for repairing to the\npresence of Kings Louis and James were to nullify tile {717} effect\nthat the gallant defence of Limerick might have made upon their minds.\nHe would so twist and remould circumstances as to show that there was\nnot a shadow of hope for ultimate success. James appears to have long\nentertained the notion of recovering England by losing Ireland, hence\nhis enduring patronage of Tyrconnell. Berwick was influenced, of\ncourse, by what he knew were the cherished wishes of his father and\nhis father's favorite, and by his inaction, and want of cordial\nco-operation with Sarsfield and the others, who, like him, were in\nearnest, did all that in him lay to make General Ginckell's task easy.\nOn more than one occasion the Irish party were about deposing the\nyoung duke, but he managed by a show of compliance to still retain his\npower.\n\nIn September of this year the brave soldier but faithless adherent,\nLord Churchill, afterward Duke of Marborough, took Cork, which the\nDuke of Berwick had previously advised the brave M. Elligot to burn,\nand then retire to Kerry, as its defence seemed hopeless. He rather\nchose to hold it out for five days. The Duke of Grafton, a natural son\nof Charles II., and who bequeathed his name to the Bond street of\nDublin, commanding the navy, perished at the siege, fighting against\nhis uncle's supporters. Marlborough next marched against Kinsale,\nwhich he entered without opposition, but the new fort commanded by Sir\nEdmund Scott held out for twenty days.\n\n\nTHE RAPPAREES: UNCOMFORTABLE WINTER QUARTERS, 1690.\n\nThose patriotic and troublesome light-armed irregulars, the rapparees,\ncontinued during the decline and fall of the year 1690 to do the\nEnglish in Leinster and Munster much mischief by unexpectedly visiting\nplaces supplied with provisions, either cattle or corn, and carrying\noff all they could seize. So General Ginckell finding himself\nstraitened, conceived the idea of effecting a settlement in Kerry,\nfrom which Limerick obtained much provender. With this object he\ndirected Lieutenant-General Douglas to march on Sligo, and take it if\npossible, at all events to move down the west bank of the Shannon, and\nco-operate with Colonel Richard Brewer, then at Mullingar, in attempts\nto pass the river at Jamestown and Lanesboro' above, and Banagher\nbelow Athlone. While the attention of King James's generals would be\ndrawn to these proceedings in the north and east, Major-General Tettau\nwould quietly proceed from Cork into Kerry, and take possession of\nthat ancient \"kingdom,\" seconded in his expedition if necessary by\nforces from Clonmel under the brave Ginckell himself. The advance was\nreally made, and skirmishes and attacks of forts ensued, and after\nall, the English forces were withdrawn, leaving matters pretty much as\nbefore, except the damage mutually inflicted. Some desultory\nencounters took place on the east bank of the Shannon between portions\nof the hostile forces, and the rapparees improved every opportunity of\ndespoiling the English foe, and collecting munitions into their boggy\nor hilly retreats. There are sufficient materials for a dozen romances\nin the adventures of Maccabe, Grace, O'Higgins, O'Callaghan,\nO'Kavanagh, the White Sergeant, Galloping Hogan. The last-named worthy\nindeed figures in the two standard romances of the Jacobite wars which\nwe are happy to possess. It may be supposed that the deeds of these\nheroes smelt unsavorily in the nostrils of our chaplain, who thus\ndescanted both in sorrow and anger on their proceedings. He prefaced\nhis remarks with an expression of Lord Baltimore to King James I.,\nnamely, that \"the Irish were a wicked people, and had been as wickedly\ndealt withal,\" and conscientiously adds, \"I make no application of the\nexpression to ourselves, the most people that have been in that\ncountry know how to do it.\"\n\n{718}\n\nOne expedition of some moment was made by Colonel Foulkes into an\nisland in the Bog of Allen. This was connected by two toghers or\ncauseways to two points on the dry land, one of them being furnished\nwith twelve trenches. These the brave colonel, who brought three\nfield-pieces along with him, was obliged to fill up one after the\nother. When he arrived he found Colonel Piper, who had approached by\nthe other causeway. The rapparee garrison had all carefully retreated\ninto the woods when they became aware of their danger, leaving, as Mr.\nStory says, \"only some little things for the invaders.\"\n\nOf course no quarter was ever extended to the poor rapparees. However,\nthe usual forbearance was exhibited by the regular forces on both\nsides toward each other. Opposite Lanesboro, on the other side of the\nShannon, were posted three regiments of Irish, with the duty of\nwatching the English on the east bank, during some days in December;\nand (in Mr. Story's words) \"then little hapned of moment only some\nsmall firings, and sometimes they made truces, Colonel _Clifford_ and\nthe other Irish officers drinking healths over to our men, and those\non the other side returning the compliment.\"\n\nIt never entered the mind of the warlike chaplain to throw a halo of\ninterest round one of his rapparee chiefs, though some were perhaps\nmore worthy of the name of hero than Redmond O'Hanlon or Rob Roy. They\nwere contemporaries of his, and were directing their chief energies to\nbring his master's rule in Ireland to an end. So it was against nature\nthat he could see in them anything but \"thieves, robbers, tories, and\nbogg-trotters.\"\n\nThe most distinguished of the heads of these free companies was\nAnthony O'Carroll, named _Fadh_ from his great height. After the first\nsiege of Limerick he fixed his head-quarters at Nenagh, and\n_discomforted_ the English and their allies from that period to the\nbeginning of the second siege. Though he or any of his followers if\ntaken prisoners would be hung according to the laws of war, without\nmercy, he observed a different demeanor to his captives. Those who had\nmoney ransomed themselves; others were kept as prisoners. When he\nfound himself crowded by his foes after the day at Aughrim, he set\nfire to the town, and brought his garrison of 500 men safe to Limerick\nMr. Story says that he was able to collect 2,000 men to his banner at\nany moment while he ruled at Nenagh.\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS.\n\nSERMONS PREACHED AT THE CHURCH OF\nST. PAUL, THE APOSTLE, NEW YORK,\nduring the years 1865 and 1866. 12mo,\npp. 440. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.\n\nThe new volume of Sermons by the Paulist Fathers, which Mr. Kehoe has\njust issued in a very neat and tasteful shape, derives a special\ninterest from the fact that it contains several of the hitherto\nunpublished discourses of the Rev. Francis A. Baker. In the earnest,\nvigorous, affectionate sermons on Penance, on the miracle of Pardon,\non the power of the Holy Ghost as exemplified in good Christians, and\non the duty of Thankfulness, it is easy to recognize the impulses of\nthat beautiful soul which has now gone to its reward. We have spoken\nbefore of the characteristics of Father Baker's preaching. Here is an\nextract, taken at random from the first of the four discourses which\nwe have mentioned:\n\n  \"Do you know, my brethren, what it is that consoles the priest in\n  his labors in the confessional? Why does he shut himself in that\n  dark closet for hours? Ah! I will tell you, Like Elias in the cave\n  of Horeb, he is watching for the manifestation of God; and as the\n  prophet found the power of God, not in {719} the tempest or the\n  earthquake, but in the still small voice, so the priest finds the\n  greatest work of God, the most beautiful, that which consoles him\n  for every sacrifice; not in the works of nature, not in sensible\n  things, however great; but in the still small voice of the\n  trembling, self-accusing soul, that has really come to shake off the\n  slavery of sin, and to claim once more, through the blood of Christ,\n  the glorious liberty of the children of God. Beautiful is the earth\n  and sky, and glorious is the jewelled city of God; but if I may say\n  what I think, I do not believe in all God's universe there is a work\n  so stupendous, so grand, so beautiful, as the conversion of a\n  sinner.\n\n  \"Well, then, does St. Augustine say, that to convert a sinner is a\n  greater work than to create heaven and earth. Well do the saints cry\n  out, Glory and empire for ever to Jesus Christ, who has loved us and\n  washed us from our sins in his own blood! Well do the angels in\n  heaven rejoice over one sinner that does penance. It is a thing for\n  heaven and earth to wonder at. But, my brethren, it does not speak\n  well for us that we think so little of it. It shows that we have\n  very imperfect ideas of the evil of sin, a very inadequate\n  remembrance of what Christ has done and suffered for us, a very\n  insufficient conception of the conversion that is required of us. It\n  seems to me that some men imagine that God pardons sin in much the\n  same way that a good-natured parent overlooks the slight offences of\n  a child who owns his fault. Whereas, in fact, God is a holy God, who\n  tries the reins and hearts, who demands of us, as the condition of\n  preserving his favor, that we love him with all our mind and\n  strength and heart. When I see a man who has recently been to\n  confession, and who has had grievous sins to confess; when I see him\n  no more thoughtful than before, no more watchful over himself, no\n  more grateful to God; when I see him forget all about it, and take\n  it as a matter of course, I fear that he has come away as he went;\n  that no angel has smiled on his penance, no saint rejoiced over it;\n  that no droop of the precious Blood has fallen on his heart. Surely\n  if he had been pardoned he would think more of it. Let it not be so\n  with us, my brethren. Have we been forgiven a deadly sin, then from\n  reprobates and castaways we have become children of God. How sweet\n  it is to receive any grace from God! To look on the sky and earth,\n  and think that he has made it, to look on ourselves and think that\n  we have come from his hands, fills us with delight.\n\n  \"But to have sinned and to be pardoned, to have sinned and to be\n  washed in the precious Blood, and then to belong to the family of\n  God. To have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the powers of the\n  world to come. To have the love of God, and the peace of God, once\n  more to renew these dark and stubborn hearts. Where is our gratitude\n  for favors such as those? Magdalene hath loved much because she was\n  much forgiven. When is our love and our zeal proportionate to the\n  pardon which we have received from God? Go, pardoned sinner--sin no\n  more. Go, and ponder deeply the graces yon have received. Go, and by\n  your life show what great things he has done for you. Once in\n  darkness, but now light in the Lord, walk as children of light,\n  living with St. Paul in the faith of the Son of God, who hath loved\n  you and given himself for you.\"\n\nThe same fervent spirit and the same vein of practical exhortation\nwhich we see so admirably combined in the passages which we have\ncited, are conspicuous in many other pages from the anonymous hands\nwhich have contributed to the authorship of this volume. The Paulist\nFathers have little to do in their book with controversy; and not a\ngreat deal with dogma, except in so far as it has a direct practical\nrelation to the duties of every-day life. They seem, in this\ncollection of sermons, to care more for exhorting than expounding;\nmore for arousing sinners to the comprehension and performance of what\nthe church requires of them, than for setting forth the church's\nsacred attributes. As discourses addressed to ordinary congregations,\nmade up of people of the common run who are burdened with the common\nimperfections of average humanity, we know of few specimens of pulpit\nliterature which we rate higher. And they have also the great and\nunfortunately rather rare merit of being very impressive and effective\nwhen read in the retirement of the closet.\n\n   J. R. G. H.\n\n\nLYDIA, A TALE OF THE SECOND CENTURY.\n\nTranslated from the German of Hermann Geiger, of Munich. 12mo, pp.\n275. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey. 1867.\n\nWe are inclined to believe that the now world-renowned tales of\nFabiola and Callista have prompted the composition of this beautiful\nstory. The heroine is a young Christian of Smyrna, named Seraphica,\nwho is cast into prison and condemned to death for her faith. A\nterrible earthquake, most powerfully depicted by the author, sunders\nthe walls of her prison, and she is liberated; but learning that her\n{720} mother was carried off to Athens as a slave, she follows her\nthither. The captain of the vessel in which she embarks seizes her and\nmakes a present of her as a slave to a wealthy Athenian lady named\nMetella, who names her Lydia from the place of her birth. In the\nservice of this lady, who is a pious heathen, the Christian slave\npasses several years, exhibiting in her life many traits of that\nheroic patience, humility, love of suffering, and divine charity which\nwere inspired by her holy faith; and which is beautifully contrasted\nwith the pure, natural virtue of her heathen mistress.\n\nHer Christian patience is rewarded at last by the conversion of\nMetella and her son. Freed from slavery, she goes to Rome to seek her\nmother, who she finds has in the mean time suffered martyrdom, and\nreturns to Metella to become her bosom friend and companion.\n\nWe could scarcely wish anything added to the plot of this charming\ntale, but the impression made upon us during its perusal was that the\ndifferent descriptions, scenes, and tableaux were wanting in a proper\nconnecting link, being presented to us rather, as it would appear, for\ntheir own sake, than as necessarily united with, or dependent upon,\nthe life and fortunes of the characters of the story. The translator\nhas fallen into a common fault from a desire to be too literal; the\nintermingling of the historical present with the past. We have not\nobserved it in any instance without feeling that it detracted very\nmuch from the force and beauty of the description. The volume does the\nenterprising publisher the highest credit, its typography and binding\nlacking in nothing that we could desire for elegance and taste. We\npredict and wish for it a wide circulation.\n\n\nHISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD.\nBy Jean Mac\u00e9. Translated from the French by Mr. Alfred Gatty.\nNew-York: American News Company, 121 Nassau-street.\n\nThis is a very popular work on the branch of physiology which relates\nto the organs and processes of nutrition. It is written in a pleasing,\nlively style, and with the express purpose of being readable by\nintelligent children. Excepting the absurd notion that the globules of\nthe blood are animalculae, and the grovelling definition of the body\nas a digestive tube served by organs, we see nothing worthy of censure\nin the book, which, otherwise, imparts valuable information respecting\nthe merely physical facts of animal life.\n\n\nGoodrich's PICTORIAL HISTORIES OF\nGREECE AND THE UNITED STATES,\nand\nCHILD'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.\nNew editions. Philadelphia: Butler & Co. 1867.\n\nThese new and improved editions of very popular and well-written\nhistories are very suitable for elementary instruction. We have\nexamined the history of Greece with some attention, and find it an\nexcellent epitome. The illustrations are remarkably good.\n\n\nLAWRENCE KEHOE, New-York, has in press, and will soon publish, Lady\nHerbert's new work, which has just appeared in London, entitled Three\nPhases of Christian Love--namely, Life of St. Monica, Life of\nVictorine de Galard, Life of Venerable Mere Devos.\n\n\nBOOKS RECEIVED.\n\nFrom AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, New York. The New Gospel of Peace,\naccording to St. Benjamin. 1 vol, 12mo, pp. 343; price $2. Alderman\nRooney at the Cable Banquet. Pamphlet illustrated; price 50 cts. Olive\nLogan's Christmas Story. Pamphlet; price 50 cts.\n\nFrom LEE & Shepard, Boston, Mass. Oliver Optic's Magazine for Boys and\nGirls. No. 1, pp. 12; price 5 cts.\n\nFrom the OFFICE OF THE AVE MARIA, Notre Dame, Indiana. The Ave Maria\nAlmanac for 1867. Illustrated, pp. 32; price 20 cts.\n\nFrom HURD & HOUGHTON New York. The Riverside Magazine for Young\nPeople. No. 1, pp. 48; price 25 cts. Lalla Rookh, by Thomas Moore. 1\nvol. 12mo, pp. 332. Illustrated; price $1.50.\n\nFrom P. O'SHEA, New York. The Rosa Mystica; or, Mary of Nazareth, the\nLily of the House of David. By Marie Josephine. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 290;\nprice $2. Spirit of St. Francis de Sales. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 372; price\n$2. The Manual of the Immaculate Conception, a collection of prayers\nfor general use. Compiled from authentic sources. Published with\napprobation of the Most Rev. J. McCloskey, D.D., pp. 1122.\n\nFrom John Murphy & Co., Baltimore. The Southern Poems of the War.\nCollected and arranged by Miss Emily V. Mason. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 456;\nprice $1.50. Good Thoughts for Priest and People; or, Short\nMeditations for every Day in the Year, etc., etc. By Rev. Theodore\nNoethen, pastor of Holy Cross, Albany, N. Y. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 383;\nprice $2.\n\nFrom KELLY & PIET, Baltimore, Md. Sermons Delivered during the Second\nPlenary Council of Baltimore, October, 1866. And Pastoral Letter of\nthe Hierarchy of the United States, together with the Papal Rescript\nand Letters of Convocation. A complete list of dignitaries and\nofficers of the Council; and an introductory notice, with plates. 1\nvol. 12mo, pp. 244; price $3.\n\nFrom BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York and Cincinnati. School Recreations;\nor, The Catholic Teacher's Companion. Compiled for the use of Catholic\nSchools, with approbation of Archbishop Purcell. l vol 12mo, pp. 94.\n\n----------\n\n{721}\n\n\nTHE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\nVOL. IV., NO. 24.--MARCH, 1867.\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE CATHOLIC CEREMONIAL.\n\nBY REV. M. O'CONNOR, S. J.\n\nOutside the Catholic Church there is a general opinion that we\nCatholics make all devotion to consist in the performance of a certain\nroutine of ceremonies, and are entire strangers to what is called\nvital religion. These ceremonies to which we are supposed to attach\nsuch excessive, or rather such superstitious value, are looked on by\nthose outside the church as an unnecessary and worse than useless\ndisplay, or as an empty pageant. Our love of them is set down as one\nof the damning ingredients in that bug-bear which they have conjured\nup, and designated by the name of \"Popery.\" We, on the contrary, look\nupon our ceremonial as one of the most beautiful things in the church,\none of those that most clearly mark the finger of God, and operate\nmost efficaciously in the work of true vital religion.\n\nThe point, therefore, is a most important one, and well deserving our\nmost serious consideration. To understand it rightly, let us consider\nthe principles on which ceremonial is based, and its\npractical-working.\n\nIt has been admitted by all nations, that worship is due to the deity;\nthat worship needs an external and a public expression. Not only the\npeople of God under the old and new dispensations have admitted this,\nbut the Turk and the Pagan of every shade have admitted and acted on\nit. Many have erred egregiously, and have had recourse to disgusting\nand execrable\u00b7 means to put it in practice; but the feeling itself is\nuniversal, and, therefore, may be enumerated among the first\npromptings of reason.\n\nIts necessity is based on our relation to God; and on our own nature.\nGod, as in himself infinitely perfect, as our creator, our ruler, and\nprovider is entitled to our acknowledgment of his perfections and of\nhis dominion over us, to thanks for benefits conferred, to\nsupplication for their continuance. We owe him this duty not merely as\nbeings having souls, but as that which we are--beings, having a body\nand soul--as men. The feelings of the soul, especially if earnest,\ncannot be pent up in it. They need expression. When strong and earnest\nthey flow over into the body, they express themselves in bodily\naction. Man, as such, acts with the body and the soul. Moreover, we\nowe God worship not merely as individuals, {722} but as society. God\nmade society and all that gives it charms. He is the author of the\nbonds that hold it together; he gave us those faculties that force us\ninto it; the wants that in it alone are satisfied; and the powers that\ncontribute to their satisfaction. Society, as well as the individual\nman, is one of those beautiful and bountiful works that call forth our\nadmiration and demand our gratitude. Society can recognize and thank\nits author only by external and common public worship. The internal\nfeeling needs something to lean on, as it were, to give itself\nstrength and almost to give itself an existence. The internal act, is,\nof course, the soul of true worship, but, like the soul itself of man,\nit needs a body in which it may become incarnate to fill the end of\nits being. Without this it has neither life nor power. It needs this\nto give itself intensity.\n\nThe external act becomes as it were a depository in which the soul\nlays what is produced at one moment, while it is adding more and more.\nAs the iron receives in deposit the powers of each of the circles of\nthe magnetic wire that turn and turn again around it, and is ready to\ndischarge their combined force at any moment, so the external act\ncatches as it were the fire of the internal emotion, holds it until\nthat of another is added, and enables the soul to seize again the\npower of those that have vanished and resume its work with redoubled\nvigor. Thus going on from faith to faith, from worship to worship,\nfrom virtue to virtue, all these rise higher and higher, strike their\nroots deeper and deeper, until the internal feeling becomes\nintensified and strong and as worthy of the great object to which it\nis directed as it can be in a mere creature.\n\nThe ceremonial is nothing else but this external expression of inward\nworship. It is an expression that gives it consistency and strength.\nIt intensifies and preserves it. It transmits it from one to another,\nand to succeeding generations. In it society expresses itself. The\nindividual man has his own organs of expression. The organ of the\nChristian body is the minister of the church. Through him she acts as\na body; she expresses herself as a unit. On this account she very\nproperly regulates minutely, how he shall discharge this duty. This\ngives his actions a meaning and a value over and above, and to some\ndegree independent of, the value they possess, as expressions of his\nown individual devotion.\n\nWorship does not consist, properly speaking, in receiving instruction.\nThis is, of course, a good thing, but it is only a means to an end. It\nis like the ladder to ascend, or the scaffolding used in the erection\nof a building. To receive it with respect and other dispositions due\nto the word of God, may imply faith in him, and submission to him;\nbut, properly speaking, in as far as it is mere instruction or\ninformation, it is not worship. Worship is our submission to God, a\nperformance of the duty we owe him. As far as instruction shows us\nhow, and leads us to do this in a proper manner, it is good, but in\nitself--as a mere expansion of the mind, or the storing of it with\nknowledge, it is not worship. In paying worship, we must act, not\nmerely be acted upon; we must do, not merely hear. For this, the\nceremonial affords most useful aid; not, of course, as far as it is a\nmechanical movement, which if it stop there would be useless, but\ninasmuch as it is the instrument of the inmost soul. Light and\ninstruction must precede to give it significance, but when life has\nthus been breathed into it, it becomes itself an action, a practice of\nvirtue, a discharge of the highest virtues, which are those that have\nGod himself for their immediate object.\n\nThis ceremonial consists of the words that are used, and the acts that\nare performed. Words, said or sung, are a part of it, but only a part.\nMany acts often express the feelings more effectually. These are\nsometimes {723} more or less natural; at other times they may be said\nto be conventional. But though arbitrary as words themselves, when\nthey receive a determined meaning, they become capable of effectually\nand powerfully expressing the internal feelings of the individual and\nof society. Kneeling or standing erect, raising up or clasping the\nhands or striking the breast, an uplifted glance to heaven or a\nreverent bowing of the head, will express adoration, reverence,\nsorrow, or supplication as well and often better than words. When you\nwalk in a procession with torch in hand, accompanying the blessed\nsacrament, or to honor some other mystery of religion, you are\nprofessing your faith in it as effectually, and impressing that faith\nin your soul, perhaps, more deeply than when you recite the creed,\njust as the citizen expresses forcibly his political principles by\nanalogous acts. These, of course in particular cases, may be acts of\nhypocrisy or hollow pageant, just as words may be a lie or an empty\nsound, but this takes nothing from their intrinsic appropriateness.\nNay, acts of this kind would seem to draw the soul into what is\nintended to accompany them and be expressed by them more powerfully\nthan words.\n\nSome of the acts of this worship have, in themselves, a power and\nefficacy apart from any impression they may produce on the beholder.\nSuch is the case in all the sacraments. The sacred rite, duly\nperformed may be compared to the spark, which, however powerless of\nitself, when falling on the proper material, awakens a great power of\nnature, that will rend mountains, and hurl into shapeless masses, the\nproudest works of man. The sacred rite has been chosen by omnipotence,\nas his agent and instrument, and its power has only the limits which\nomnipotence has been pleased to assign. It is the same thing in the\ncelebration of mass. The words of Christ, pronounced by his minister,\neffect a great change. For he who first took bread and said, \"This is\nmy body,\" and by his infinite power made true what he said, addressing\nhis apostles, added. \"Do this\"--yes, even this, great as it is--\"in\ncommemoration of me.\" And they \"do\" it, and by doing it, \"show forth\nhis death until he come.\" The effect follows by the power of God, no\nmatter who is present, no matter who is instructed or edified, even\nthough no heart beat more in unison than did the hearts of the Jews,\nwho stood by while the great offering was made on Calvary. But other\nparts of the ceremonial, which, though not of equal importance, occupy\nmore time, realize their end only when they express our feelings of\nreverence, or give them strength and light. Many are directed to aid\nthe priest alone, in the proper performance of his high duties. Many,\nwhile they have this object also, are likewise directed to instruct,\nand become expressions of the devotion of the people. The ceremonial,\ntherefore, first of all makes provision for the priest. It is\nimportant for himself and for the people that he be a worthy minister\nof Christ; that he discharge the duty of offering up the holy\nsacrifice with all the reverence, the humility, the fervor which so\ngreat an act demands. The ceremonies become a means of his doing this.\nIn performing them properly he exercises all these virtues. The church\nmakes him descend to the foot of the altar, and there acknowledging\nhimself a sinner before God and the heavenly court, express by words\nand acts his sorrow, demand pardon before venturing to ascend the\naltar on which is to be laid the holy of holies. He then ascends with\ntrembling step, and having again silently prayed for forgiveness, he\nintones the noble hymn,\"_Gloria in Excelsis Deo_.\" Whether the voices\nof the choir take up its thrilling notes and make the vault resound\nwith a call to give glory to God on high or he continue it in a\nsubdued tone, every word he utters, every motion he is called on to\nmake, enables him to express more and more {724} earnestly his desire\nfor God's honor, his homage to Christ, \"alone holy, alone Lord, alone\nmost high.\"\n\nPrepared by this introduction and having admonished the people to turn\nto God, he pours out in simple but touching words his supplications\nfor our various wants. He then reads choice extracts from the sacred\nvolume conveying the most important teachings of our holy religion. I\nwill not stop to describe to you the ceremonies at the offertory, nor\nspeak of the sublime \"Preface\" preparatory to the most sacred part of\nthe sacrifice. Having prayed for all conditions of the church, having\nappealed to the blessed in heaven with whom the church on earth is in\ncommunion, he approaches the solemn act of consecration. Every word he\nutters, every glance, every motion, is directed to fill him with awe,\nwith reverence, to express a demand, an act of homage, of gratitude or\nof invocation; and when the sacred words are pronounced, and he stands\nbefore the incarnate God truly present, though not visible to corporal\neyes, with profound inclination he expresses his adoration, while the\nvictim is raised up, that all present may, like him, kneel down and\nadore. And so all through the holy sacrifice.\n\nWhile these lessons are taught and put in practice by the priest, the\npeople, before whom they are performed, learn from them to cherish\nsimilar dispositions, and to unite their spirit in the expression of\nhis devotion. It is the same thing with all the ceremonies, which,\nlike those alluded to, are expressive of the feelings we should\nentertain for God. They frequently express them more forcibly than\nwords could. Even ordinary feelings often become too strong for\nlanguage and seek expression in some action. The fond mother would\nfind words too tame to express the love she bears her child. She hugs\nit to her bosom, and impresses warm kisses on its face. We meet a\nlong-lost friend. Words would not express all we feel. We clasp him in\nour arms, and press him to our heart. The model of repentance, the\nprodigal, when he meets his father, forgets a part of the discourse he\nhad resolved to pronounce, and folded in his father's arms, expresses\nhis sorrow more forcibly in silent tears and heart breaking sobs, and\nis forgiven. Even anger, which cannot find an adequate expression in\nthe most impassioned language, seeks to manifest itself in the\nuplifted clenched fist, if it cannot gain its object by striking a\nblow. Do not tell me, then, that all this action in the church\nceremonial is mummery. It is often a higher expression of devotion\nthan words would afford.\n\nIf yon wish to test this, look at a devout congregation of Catholics\nkneeling before the altar. The organ that had lifted up their hearts\nwhen singing the \"Glory to God in the highest\" is silent, or a few low\nnotes are heard that make the silence of the congregation more\nsensible. No voice, scarcely a breath, is heard, when the priest,\nhaving raised his eyes to heaven, is now inclined over the sacred\nelements. Thousands are kneeling around in awe. A slight stroke of the\nbell announces that the act is done. The priest prostrates himself in\nsilent adoration, and then elevates the consecrated host. Every head\nis bowed in the presence of a God. Will anyone who has witnessed that\nscene, who has tried to enter into the feelings of that congregation,\nplease tell me the words, or write out the speech, that would have\nexpressed so powerfully their reverence, their adoration, their\ngratitude, and their love? Yes, ceremonies are a noble expression of\nour highest feelings. They are even more; for they intensify them,\nembalm them, and preserve them from evaporating. They communicate them\nand spread them abroad, and transmit them from generation to\ngeneration.\n\nAll this is a consequence of human nature, and this is so true that it\nis made an objection to our system. It is said that we build too much\non human nature. But if worship be made for man it must accord with\nhis nature {725}--not, indeed, with that which is corrupt in it, but\nwith his nature as it came from God. Now, this need, this power, this\nefficacy of the expression of feeling by outward ceremony, is no\neffect of the fall: it is in the very nature of man. Hence we have\nrecourse to it in everything else. What is the shake of the hand when\nwe meet a friend, or the salute, or the banquet to which we invite\nhim, but a ceremony to express friendship or esteem? Look at our\nprocessions and various political demonstrations. What are they but\nceremonies in which political or other feelings seek expression--an\nexpression which we know will strengthen them, deepen them,\ncommunicate them to others by creating and giving force to what may be\ncalled a contagions influence? What are our national and party airs;\nour national and party festivals, but expressions of a similar\ncharacter looking forward to similar results?\n\nIn these things, as I said in the beginning, the feelings of the soul\nseek an embodiment, that will give them consistency and duration.\n\nNo matter what the external manifestation be, even though it be merely\nconventional, when it expresses a feeling, it becomes an instrument\nfor all these purposes. It becomes, as it were, a permanent part of a\nstructure, to which another stone is added as often as the act is\nrepeated, until the building grows up in solid beauty that defies the\nravages of time. This is the case with our political or social\nsentiments, because it grows out of our very nature. Why then should\nit not be the case, or rather is it not evidently the case, with those\nalso which are connected with religion? These external rites not only\nexpress and intensify the interior feelings, but let philosophers\nexplain it as they may, they become as it were a depository in which\nthey may be laid by to be recalled almost at pleasure, nay, even to be\ndrawn out by others who wish to acquire them.\n\nLook at that piece of bunting hanging from a flag-staff and flying\nbefore the breeze. What is it? A first glance will tell you that it is\na piece of stuff purchased for a trifle a few days ago from the\nmerchant, on whose shelves it lay unnoticed and uncared for, except as\nfar as it was capable of producing some day a few dollars for its\nowner. But now it has received a new destiny. It bears the national\nsymbols, and it is the flag of the country. And, oh! what a change has\ntaken place! It recalls the glories of the past, the hopes of the\nfuture; it is the symbol of the majesty of the nation. The patriot\nheart warms in beholding it; the warrior-breast is bared to do it\nhonor. Through a hail of fire he stands by it or bears it on, and will\nsee unmoved a thousand of his companions strewed o'er the battle-field\nwhile this yet floats before the breeze. And, when victory has crowned\nhis efforts, he salutes it as the genius that nerved his right arm\nduring the contest. Though torn almost to tatters, he bedews it with\nhis tears of joy. It is his pride in life. He looks forward to descend\nin honor into the grave wrapped in its folds.\n\nWherever that flag is raised, one glance leads us to behold the genius\nof our country standing up before us with all her claims to our\ndevotion and our love. Let it receive but the slightest insult, and a\nthrill vibrates throughout the land, every heart is wounded, every\nhand is ready to be raised in its defence. Yet it is, after all, but a\npiece of bunting, worth so many cents per yard. But by becoming a\nsymbol, by being the object of a rite, it has become the depositary of\nthe enthusiasm of the nation. It is made capable of evoking this, of\nquickening and communicating it, whenever it is unfurled.\n\nLook at our national airs: what are they? The scientific musician will\nfind little in them that is soul-stirring; but the feelings of our\nfathers are deposited in them. They were the tunes in which we\nexpressed our gladness in days of triumph, by which we were aroused on\nthe national holiday, in which we sung our joy on all {726} important\noccasions. Our love of home, of kindred, of fatherland, has been\nembalmed in them; and when they fall on our ears, all these dear and\nstirring feelings, as if buried in their notes, are sent forth, now\nunlocked, and again take possession of our souls. They thus arouse the\nwarrior and the patriot, calling out all the feelings that cluster\naround what is most dear.\n\nThe Swiss soldier in foreign lands was so vividly recalled to the\nmemories of home, by the airs to which he listened in childhood, and\nthe recollection of his native mountains, and the associations revived\nby them, had such power, that a special disease, called\n\"home-sickness\" was frequently the result. As this proved fatal to\nmany, the playing or singing of such tunes was forbidden in Swiss\nregiments in foreign service. And who does not know the stirring\neffect produced on certain occasions, when Yankee Doodle or Patrick's\nDay has been struck up, no matter what musical professors may say of\ntheir artistic merits.\n\nIn a similar manner our feelings of devotion are consigned to some\nhomely religious tune. They are first expressed in it. They cling\naround it. They become identified with it. They are recalled vividly\nwhen we hear it again. They all come back in their original freshness,\nwith accumulated force. They are transmitted to others, and thus we\ninherit the treasure of the devotional feeling of preceding\ngenerations.\n\nThough _our_ being supplied with music by great artists, who are\nconstantly changing, if not improving their compositions, deprives us\nin a great measure of the advantages that might arise from this\nsource, we can feel it at times, in what is allowed to retain this\ntraditional force. Who is there that does not feel the devotion so\noften experienced in assisting at the benediction of the blessed\nsacrament, or on other occasions renewed by the tones of the Tantum\nErgo or other familiar tunes, when the performers do not destroy, or\nat least smother the old airs by their exquisiteness? Where the songs\nof the church are in more general use, the intonation of the Miserere\nor the Stabat Mater or the Pange Lingua and many other tunes is like\nthe opening up of a flood-gate, through which feelings of devotion\nrush as it were in a torrent and take possession of a whole\ncongregation.\n\nWhat is said of songs may be applied to other rites. The feelings of\nthe past are deposited in them; they express them, they arouse them,\nthey communicate them. This occurs, though they may be chosen\narbitrarily. What more arbitrary, generally speaking, than the meaning\nattached to words? The word \"home,\" for example, for all that is in\nthe sound, might as well have been adapted to signify anything else of\nthe most different character. Yet now having received a definite\nmeaning, it recalls uniformly a whole definite series of ideas and\nfeelings. So it is with a rite--say that of anointing with oil, that\nof sprinkling with water, burning incense, the use of candles, or the\nmaking of the sign of the cross. Many rites were established primarily\nfor this purpose, others had their origin in necessity or convenience\nor usage; but the church, anxious to make even these things a source\nof edification and an instrument of devotion, gave them a meaning,\nattached to them a lesson which they reproduce forever after. Even\nthose which have a certain intrinsic fitness to signify what they are\nestablished for, derive their chief efficacy in this respect from\ntheir having been chosen for the purpose, or having gradually received\na social meaning, well understood in the Christian family. These have\nthe additional advantage of speaking out, as it were, a whole\ninstruction at a glance. The moment you look at one of these acts, a\nlesson is presented which could scarcely be communicated in many\nwords, and in performing them the heart says more, and that more\nsimply and more effectually, than it could in a long discourse.\n\n{727}\n\nI have referred to the flag of the country; of its being raised, and\nhow a look at it, or a salute, powerfully expresses at once the most\nimportant emotions and lively enthusiasm. Well, we do the same through\nthe Christian's glorious standard, which is the sacred symbol of the\ncross. Be it of wood or of the most precious metal--be it the\nproduction of the most unskilful or the most cunning workman--it is\nfor us the symbol of man's redemption, and around it cluster our most\ntender feelings of veneration and love. It is placed over our altars,\nover our churches; it hangs in our rooms; where Catholic feelings can\nsave it from insult, it is raised up in the highways, and is made to\nmeet our eyes wherever we turn. We impress its form on our persons\nwhenever we call on God in prayer, whenever we find ourselves exposed\nto temptation or danger. In that one act the faith, the hope, the love\nof the church for Christ and Christ crucified, are all expressed. All\nthese feelings are imbedded in it. All are called out again whenever\nthat sign is made. What we have heard of him from the pulpit, what we\nhave read in our private study, what has occurred, to our own minds in\nmeditation, is all brought before us with the accompanying sentiments\nand feelings as soon as that sacred symbol presents itself to our\neyes. All are a wakened, are revived, and seized again at its glance.\nNo wonder, then, that the Catholic loves the cross; that he loves to\nprostrate himself in adoration before it; that he looks to it when he\nseeks consolation in suffering, support in affliction, light in his\ndifficulties, purity of spirit in his joys. Do not tell me that it is\nof lifeless wood or of metal, that it is but the work of the\ncraftsman, Oh! this is like stopping the soldier in battle, to direct\nhis attention to the price per yard of his flag, or to the name and\naddress of the store where it was bought, while he is advancing\nenthusiastically under its inspiration against his country's foes.\nYes; who does not know that it is of wood or metal? but to me it is\nthe symbol of my Saviour's love. As such, I love it; as such all my\nmost sacred feelings cling around it: I impress kisses on it; I bathe\nit with my tears. And when, on Good Friday, the priest after bringing\nbefore us the whole scene of Calvary, having led us, in the service,\nto look on the death of Christ' as the great turning-point in the\nworld's history, having shown us the woes of the past that were there\nto find a remedy, and the blessings for the future that were thence to\nspring forth, holds up the crucifix before the prostrate multitude,\nand sings out, in a solemn tone, \"Ecce lignum Crucis,\" \"Behold the\nwood of the cross on which did hang the salvation of the world,\" will\nwe not all send up our whole souls in the deacon's answer, crying out,\nwith him, \"Venite adoremus,\" \"Come, let us adore\"? And when the priest\nlooses his shoes, and on bare feet approaches the sacred symbol of\nredemption, that he may kneel down and kiss it with fondness, on the\nanniversary of the day on which the tragic scene was enacted; who is\nthere that will not vie with him in kneeling and pressing the sacred\nsymbol to his lips?\n\nThe same thing can be applied in different degrees to the various\nrites throughout the year, when succeeding festivals bring before us\nthe other great mysteries of religion, or when we are called on to\nexpress the ordinary feelings of Christian devotion. He who has\nstudied the simple devotions of the rosary, or the way of the cross,\nwill be astonished at the mine of devotion, of enlightened piety\ncontained in them, and at the treasures that are drawn from them by\nfaithful souls, simple and unpretending as they are, and puerile as\nthey appear to the self-sufficient.\n\nBut these acts and exercises intended to express and nourish our\nChristian feelings, can only be appreciated where there is faith. It\nis only into {728} hearts animated by faith that they can enter. It is\nonly in such they can be aroused. A certain amount of instruction is\neven necessary to understand the conventional meaning of many. This\ninstruction and training is received by the Catholic almost with his\nmother's milk. As he learns the meaning of words, which is still more\narbitrary, and acquires a practical skill in the use of language,\nnotwithstanding its complicated laws, so he learns the meaning of the\nceremonial, and is initiated into its use. With clasped hands the\nchild kneels before the crucifix, and imprints kisses on it. Little by\nlittle he learns the history of him whose figure is nailed to that\ncross, and knowledge grows in him with reverence and love. He goes to\nthe church, and is struck with what he beholds. He catches reverence\nfrom those around, and infuses it into his own imitation of their mode\nof acting. As he learns more and more of what is there done, this\nreverence becomes more and more enlightened, and he grows up a devout\nand enlightened Christian, performing the acts expressive of worship\nwith the same ease and intelligence with which he uses the ordinary\nexpressions of social life. The looker-on who is without faith or\ninstruction, who has no sympathy, and wishes to have no sympathy, with\nhim, thinks his acts a mummery, if he do not give them a harsher name.\nSuch a person may be compared to one who has no ear for music, to whom\nthe enthusiasm of those who are aroused by a beautiful composition is\nincomprehensible; or to one who listens to an eloquent discourse in a\ntongue which he does not, and cares not to understand; or he is like\nMichol, who laughs at David dancing before the ark, because she has no\nsympathy with his jubilant gratitude. The Catholic ceremonial is made\nfor Catholics. If it enable them to express and strengthen their\nreverence, it answers its purpose. Those who have no such feelings to\nbe awakened cannot be surprised if it strike them without producing\nemotion. The ceremonial is useful, not only as an expression of\nfeeling, it is eminently instructive and educational, if I may use the\nexpression, by instilling and developing both the knowledge and the\ndevotion it is intended to express. While it teaches, it leads to act\nin accordance with the teaching; properly performed it is itself such\naction. It thus instils truth into the mind, and shapes the heart in\naccordance with it, which is the highest aim of the best education.\n\nSome are pleased to look upon the mass of our people as very ignorant\nin matters of religion. If by this it be meant to say, that all are\nnot experts in quoting texts of scripture; that they know nothing of\nmany controversies that appear of great importance to our separated\nbrethren; that they do not understand the meaning of many phrases that\nhave become households words amongst them, though, sometimes, I fear,\npassing round without any very, definite meaning, I am willing to\nacknowledge the charge. But if it be meant to say that they are\nignorant of those great facts and truths of religion which it is\nnecessary or important for men to know, I repudiate it most solemnly.\nNay, I contend that there is a better knowledge of these amongst many\nor most Catholics who can neither read nor write, if they have only\nfollowed in the paths where the church led them, than amongst many of\nour opponents who are considered learned theologians; and this they\nowe chiefly to this very ceremonial of which I am treating. They may\nknow nothing of Greek particles, or of many other things good enough\nand useful in their place, but which God has not required anyone to\nlearn; but they know that the incarnate God died for the salvation of\nman. They know the mystery of the Trinity, which is implied in that of\nthe incarnation. They know the sinful character of man, their need of\nsuch a Redeemer. They are led to thank him, to love him, to {729} obey\nhim. They know his sufferings, one by one; they are familiar with his\nthorns and his nails; they have pondered over his wounds and mangled\nflesh; they penetrate into the side pierced for their love. He who\nknows even this much is not ignorant. Yet all this, and, much more, is\nfamiliar to every one accustomed to look with faith on the crucifix.\nHe sees in the face of the crucified One patience, resignation,\ncompassion for sinners, love even for his enemies. He sees the\nconsequences of sin, and he beholds their remedy. Looking on this, the\nCatholic finds support in his trials or afflictions and moderation in\nhis joy. Show me the volume he could ponder over and learn as much.\nAll that he heard at his mother's knee and from the preacher's lips is\nbrought before him in a single glance at his crucifix. All is brought\nup again when he makes the sign of the cross. Yet the cross, so\nfraught with instruction and moving appeals, is that which is\npresented to him a thousand times in the rites of the church, inasmuch\nas it is the great pervading principle that must animate all his\ndevotion and all his actions. It is brought before him, not in a cold\nway, merely teaching him a lesson. He is taught to know and to\nbelieve; he is led to adore and to confide; he is brought to invoke\nthrough it all the graces of which he stands in need. All this is done\nevery time that he makes the sign of the cross, pronouncing the\nblessed words, \"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the\nHoly Ghost.\"\n\nWhile many of your learned expounders of scripture are comparing text\nwith text on these subjects, trying to remove, but scarcely removing\nthe doubts which they know to exist among their hearers, which they\nfeel, perhaps, rising up in their own breasts, or what is worse while\nthey are proposing theories in a Christian pulpit which make nought\nthe cross of Christ and the mystery of redemption as ever taught in\nthe Christian family, the poor Catholic, on whom they look with\ncontempt, is making his starting point what others are but trying to\nprove, and while signing himself with the cross, believing, adoring,\npenetrating into the depths of the love of the incarnate God, and\nendeavoring to shape his own soul into conformity with its teachings.\nAnd you call him ignorant. Indeed, a pure though simple faith, among\nthese people enables them to see the great truths of religion with a\nclearness that supplies frequently an apt reply to difficulties that\nseem very embarrassing to their opponents.\n\nYet, this is the first lesson that the Catholic child learns at his\nmother's knee, As he goes on, he learns more and more of God's works\nof mercy toward man, of his institutions for our salvation and our\nsanctification, and all he learns he sees reproduced in a glance in\nthe ceremonial of the church, which speaks to him in accents more and\nmore eloquent, as his knowledge expands and his heart is brought more\nfully into conformity with God's holy teachings. In the liturgy and\nthe various other rites of the church, she has enshrined all the great\ndogmas of religion. There she teaches them, there she keeps them\nbeyond the reach of the innovator. The priest himself, the bishop, and\nthe pope, there see them inculcated, and from thence, as from a rich\ntreasury, draw them out to present them to the faithful. This teaching\nby rites in use from the beginning of the church, addresses itself to\nall with power, for in it they find the teaching of the saints and the\nsages of by-gone ages, and feel themselves breathing the same\natmosphere with them. The martyrs, who bore testimony to their faith\nwith their blood, the apostolic men, who by their preaching, their\nlabors, and their prayers, brought nations to the knowledge of Christ,\nthe holy confessors and virgins, who, in frail vessels, showed forth\nhis power in every age, practised these same rites, and were therefore\nanimated by the same faith. The church, throughout the whole world,\nuses them, and therefore believes as we do. What {730} more powerful\nfor bringing home to each one the faith of the universal, everlasting\nchurch!\n\nThere is great security for the faith of a Catholic in his receiving\nit through the teaching of a pastor in communion with the church of\nthe whole world, and sanctioned by its highest authority; but I would\nventure to say that there is something even more solemn in this voice\nof the ceremonial, which is a voice of the living and the dead--of\nthe church of the Catacombs, and of the church of this day--throughout\nthe world. With all the force which this gives, leaning as the church\ndoes upon Christ, who died to sanctify her in truth, we are taught the\ngreat dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation; of the death and\nresurrection of Jesus Christ; the plan and means of the redemption,\nthe need in which we stand of divine grace, and the means of obtaining\nit. We are taught the character of the great Christian oblation, the\nnature and effects of the sacraments, as well as the dispositions they\nrequire, and the duties they impose.\n\nFar be it from me to undervalue the oral teaching of the ministry.\nThat found in the ceremonial presupposes it, and is based on it. Both\nare, as they should be, combined in the ministrations of the church;\nbut the ceremonial fixes the oral teaching. It gives the Christian\nsystem a body, as it were, in which it enables it to prolong its life\nbeyond the moments of the passing voice. When once embodied in a rite,\nthe impressions of oral instruction, which otherwise so easily pass\naway, live for ever. They are seized in their whole entirety at a\nglance; they are brought down to the comprehension of the lowest; they\nare put forth with a majesty that the highest may admire. Men are\ntaught there, and, what is most important they are led to act on the\nteaching, and thus conform their hearts as well as their minds, to the\nholy dogmas of faith, which is the best and most useful way of\nimparting Christian instruction. But I will be told that this\nteaching, however useful for those who understand it, is lost for the\ngreat mass of the people, as the language used is a dead one, which\nfew understand. But, in the first place, it is not lost, even though\nthe clergy alone should understand it. Is it not an important thing\nthat the clergy themselves should have something to keep alive\npowerfully, amongst them the one, universal and everlasting faith?\nWill not all the faithful find strength in their strength, and light\nin their light? If they are kept right, the truth spread abroad by\nthem will easily he preserved pure among the masses of the people.\nAlmost all heresies--be it said to our shame--either had their source\nin the sanctuary, or could not have succeeded if they had not found\nsupport there. And is it not a great thing that he who would become a\nprevaricator, must first brand himself as unfaithful, must cease to\nminister today, all he did yesterday, and thus give public notice, as\nit were, that he seeks to devour the flock which he had undertaken to\nfeed; that instead of keeping the deposit which was the first duty of\nhis office, as dispenser of the mysteries of God, he is substituting\nsome new-fangled theory of his own, palming it off as an institution\nof heaven? Luther can establish a new system only by ceasing to say\nmass. The church of Cranmer is not at ease until it has formed for\nitself a new liturgy. The Greeks and other orientals by preserving\ntheir ancient rites and ceremonies, have preserved almost all their\nancient dogmas, and to re-enter the church have little else to do but\nto submit to the authority of its supreme pastor. But apart from this,\nthe ceremonial itself speaks to all the people in a language which all\nunderstand. The rites are themselves a language easily learned, and\nspeaking with silent eloquence to men of every tongue. They are to\nsome extent what the learned have been so long looking for, a\nuniversal language. In fact, when the priest raises up the host, the\nIrishman and the German, the Greek and the Armenian, see the presence\nof Christ {731} preached to them, and they kneel down and adore. When\nthe water is poured on the head of the child that is baptized, men of\nevery clime know that the regenerating rite is being performed. The\nrite once properly explained ever after expresses to them better than\nany combination of words, the internal change that is effected in the\nsoul. Then, it must be remembered that the main thing in the public\nservice is what is _done_, not what is _said_. Every moderately\ninstructed Catholic is fully aware of what there takes place, and with\nthis knowledge he can assist, not only devoutly but intelligently,\nthough he may not understand or even hear one word.\n\nThe great source of mistake, in this connection, with our separated\nbrethren, arises from the fact that they go to church merely to hear\ninstruction, or to have words put into their mouths, in which to\naddress Almighty God. The Catholic also often goes for instruction,\nand this he receives in the language which he understands. But he goes\nfor what is even more important--he goes to take a part in the great\nact that is performed in God's holy temple. He knows the nature and\nends of this, and the dispositions required of him, and as I said\nbefore, he can perform his part though he may not even hear, much less\nunderstand one word that is pronounced. I will suppose a case of the\nsurrender of a large army. The vanquished soldiers march to the place\nappointed. They lay down their arms, they lower their flag. The\nvictorious general, with his warriors, stands, by and receives them. A\nspeech perhaps is made. But all who are present take an intelligent\npart in the Proceedings, though many may not hear one word that is\nuttered. So it is with the great action at mass. I will not have\nrecourse to the common reply, that all that the priest says at the\naltar is translated and published; that any one who desires may read\nand know for himself; for though the fact be true, it is not the true\nsolution of the difficulty. I have no hesitation in saying that in\nassisting at the most solemn part of the celebration of the divine\nmysteries, it is best not to attend to the particular prayers recited\nby the priest, whether one hear them or not whether he be or be not\ncapable of understanding them. It is better to assist with an\nenlightened faith in the action that is performed, and then give full\nplay to such sentiments as this faith will awaken in each individual\nsoul. This is evidently the view of the church. For this reason, after\nthe offertory, that is, when the most important portion begins, the\npriest is made to recite almost all his part of the liturgy in a low\ntone, so that those present cannot hear him even if they be capable of\nunderstanding what he says. Among the Greeks a curtain is drawn across\nthe sanctuary, so that they cannot even see him, but merely know by\nsome signals, if I may so call them, given from time to time, in what\npart of the sacred act he is engaged.\n\nThe church, by, this evidently tells us, that by an assistance in\nfaith, each one yielding to the promptings of his own devotion will\nderive more profit than by following the priest's words. Indeed, the\nparts of the priest and people in this sacred act are so essentially\ndifferent, that it is scarcely to be expected that the same prayers\nshould be best for both. While the church has minutely arranged the\nrites and prayers used by him who offers the sacrifice, she is\nsatisfied with awakening the faith and enlightening the devotion of\nothers who assist: and then leaving it to their enlightened faith what\neach shall say to God on such occasions. She acts like the master of\nthe house, who prepares the banquet, where each guest finds abundance\nof everything agreeable to the palate, and nourishing to the body.\nWith great care he has prescribed the parts of those who are occupied\nin preparing or serving it up, so that all present may receive\nsubstantial proofs of his interest; but when, this is done, he {732}\nleaves the invited to partake of what is prepared, as their own tastes\nwill prompt. It is thus that the Catholic system, which is accused of\ntying men down to a performance of mere routine, is that which really\ngives more scope to individual liberty in public worship, while public\ndecorum and dignity are effectually secured by an established ritual.\nWith your extempore prayers, he who utters them has indeed full scope\nfor his feeling and his fancy, but he is liable also to their\nvagaries, and his hearers are at his mercy. As he weeps or rejoices,\nall must weep or rejoice, or he becomes to them a hindrance. Their\nhearts move or try to move, not as the spirit, but as the leader\nwilleth, and not unfrequently may he lend them into paths from which\ntheir instincts will recoil. They, whose whole time is engaged in\nfollowing a prescribed liturgy, must ever go on in the same groove.\nWhatever be the feelings or the wants or the temper of mind of each\nindividual habitually or at the moment, the same unchanging road is\nchalked out for all. What they hear may be beautiful, but it may be\nfar from being the best suited for many at that moment. Hence disgust\nor cold indifference is sure to follow, of which beautiful forms may\nbe only a pompous covering. Amongst Catholics on the other hand, while\nthe church to secure order and truth and public decorum, has carefully\nregulated every word and act of the priest, and presents in the\ncelebration of the divine mysteries the most powerful incentive to\nfaith and devotion in all its bearings, she leaves each one else who\nis present to assist as his own wants and dispositions may prompt.\n\nThe ingenious zeal of pious men has provided helps for all in manuals\nof various kinds, and each one will select what he finds best suited\nfor himself. He will use it or interrupt its use, or drop it\naltogether as experience will show him to be most useful in his own\ncase. When it is not done through apathy or listlessness, he may find\nit better to dispense with them all, being satisfied with a look, with\nvivid faith, and such other interior acts as a faithful soul will soon\nlearn to perform with alacrity. Knowing what he himself is, and who is\nbefore him, he will not be at a loss what to say. At one time he will\nweep over his sins; at another he will give thanks to God; at another\nhe will lay open his wants, or ask pardon for his transgressions.\nWhere can he do any of these things more effectually than in the\npresence of him who died for our sins, and to procure for us every\nblessing.\n\nAnd many, in fact, thus assist in silent prayer, but with more\nintelligent and true devotion, though they neither use a book nor hear\na word, than others who are pondering over most beautiful manuals.\n\nThe danger of cold formality from the steady use of prescribed forms,\nand nothing else, is so thoroughly realized by the church, and this\nfear is so fully justified by her experience that the priest himself\nis warned over and over against it. The remedy that is given him, is\nthe practice of what might be called private individual prayer. All\nspiritual writers tell him that if he be not fond of this, if\nespecially he be not careful to renew his spirit by it, in immediate\npreparation for the exercise of his sacred functions, they will\ndegenerate into mere formalism. With this private preparation he will\nprepare and carry into them a proper spirit and will then find them a\nheavenly manna, having every sweet taste; without this, he will be but\nas the conduit pipe, carrying to others the refreshing waters, but\nretaining himself' none of the effects of their invigorating powers.\n\nThese remarks apply to the most sacred and most important part of' the\nmass. If the church do not wish us even to hear them, much less\nrequire us to understand them, if she be right in believing that we\nmay thus assist most advantageously, it is a matter of no consequence\nwhat language the priest uses in addressing the Almighty {733} God,\nfor he understands him, and that is enough. The rites he performs give\nall the instruction of admonition that is useful at that moment, and\nthis instruction does not disturb our individual devotion. On the\ncontrary, whatever turn it may take, it enlivens, supports, and\ndirects it.\n\nAs to the first parts of the mass, to which these remarks are not so\napplicable, the \"Gospels,\" which vary at every festival, are required\nto be read at least on festivals in their own language, and explained\nby each pastor to his people. The \"Collects,\" are known to be all\nsubstantially supplications for grace, to which, therefore, we may\nheartily answer, _Amen_, though we do not understand each word. Little\nelse remains but the \"Kyrie,\" the \"Gloria,\" and the \"Credo,\" and these\nlike the \"Pater Noster,\" and a few other things sung by the priest,\nmight be easily learned, so as to be understood by any diligent\nperson. Indeed, I may say it is the wish of the church that all should\nlearn them. She would be glad that all would take a part in singing\nthem, as the people do in many countries. The study of Latin required\nfor this is not much; for all that I have referred to might be\ncontained in two or three pages, and is not beyond the reach of\nanyone, not even of those who cannot read. Many such learn it by\nheart, and understand what they have learned. Doing so would be but a\nlight task in view of the many advantages gained. All might then join\nin the public chants of the church and be gainers in spiritual life,\neven if they did not discourse equally elegant music; or, if our\napathy compels the church to let our parts be discharged, as it were,\nby deputies in the choir, we would assist and join in the beautiful\nsentiments which are expressed, and not merely sit inactive to receive\nthe sweet impressions of their melodies.\n\nBut though this would better accord with the spirit of the church, if\nthese parts also through our own apathy are unintelligible, the\nintrinsic character of the act for which we are preparing will suggest\npious sentiments that will enable us to pass the time with substantial\nprofit to our souls.\n\nBut, be it that there is some little disadvantage in having the mass\nin a dead language, what I have said, I think, abundantly proves at\nleast that it is not very great. Look, on the other hand, at the\nimmense advantages gained by keeping it uniform and without change,\nwhich implies keeping it in the language in which it was first\nestablished. By this, uniformity and steadiness is secured in the\nfaith. The faith of every nation embalmed, as I said before, in the\nliturgy, is before the eyes of the universal church; it is transmitted\nuntarnished from generation to generation. This uniform and steady\nliturgy becomes as an anchor to which every church is moored. As long\nas it clings to this, it is safe. And can anyone who knows the value\nof faith, of that faith for which legions of martyrs shed their blood,\ndeem the little loss that is sustained, if any, by our Latin liturgy,\nnot well compensated by the stability of faith which it secures. For\nthis reason, though the world in the apostolic days was even more\ndivided in language than it is now, yet in those times, as we know\nfrom all antiquity, the liturgy was celebrated only in three\nlanguages--the three languages of the cross. These are, the Hebrew,\nin its cognate dialects, which are but branches of the one Semitic\ntongue, as a homage to the ancient dispensation; the Greek, which was\nthe language of the civilization of that age, and that adopted in the\nNew Testament; and the Latin, which was the language of the people\nwhose capital was to be the seat of the government of the Church of\nthe New Dispensation. In these three languages was written the\ninscription over the bloody sacrifice on Calvary; in these, and in no\nothers from the beginning, was the unbloody one offered to God by the\nchurch. No others having been adopted was a clear proof that in the\napostolic {734} view it was not deemed necessary that all should\nunderstand the language used in the sacred mysteries; and, when even\nthese ceased to be popular languages anywhere, what had always been\nthe condition of the great number became the condition of all.\n\nIn after ages a few exceptions, and only a few, were permitted or\nrather tolerated. The liturgy was allowed to be celebrated in one\nother language in Asia, the Armenian; in two in Africa, the Coptic and\nthe Ethiopic; and in one in Europe, the Slavonic. No others were used.\nBut these were exceptional cases--they occurred at a later period, and\nunder peculiar circumstances, showing rather the sufferance than the\ngenuine spirit of the church, while she cordially adopted from the\nbeginning, and ever clung to the three languages of the cross.\n\nIt is both beautiful and useful to the Catholic to assist at the\ndivine offices in the same language, and in the main, with the same\nrites, in which they have been performed for eighteen hundred years.\nThey seem like the voice of the martyrs, the confessors, the saints\nwho have lived through these eighteen centuries. They echo their faith\nand their devotion. We feel that in them we are breathing the life of\na church now and ever spread throughout the whole world, everywhere\noffering to God one sacrifice of praise.\n\nA dignitary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country has\nlately written an angry letter against those of his brethren who are\ncalled \"Ritualists,\" because they are anxious to introduce into their\nchurch many Catholic, or, as he calls them, \"Romish\" ceremonies. His\nground of complaint is that behind these ceremonies stand the\ndoctrines of the Catholic Church. \"Their course,\" he says, \"means\nreturn to what the reformation cast out with indignation.\" \"It means\nRomanism in all its strength and substance,\" and he enumerates the\nvarious doctrines which it implies, which he considers abominations. I\ndo not wish to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which his remarks\nare justifiable in their application to the parties against whom he\nwrites; but he is certainly right in believing that behind the\nCatholic ritual stands Catholic doctrine, which is nothing else but\nChristian doctrine; and as the reformation \"cast out\" many of the\nrites in use in the Christian family from the beginning, with them it\n\"cast out\" a great portion of the Christian dogma. The good man's\ncharge will only make those who preserve the dogma see more clearly\nthe value of the rites in which it is enshrined, and cling more\ntenaciously to dogmas thus shown to be coeval with Christianity.\n\nEvery rite has thus a lesson, and becomes an act of devotion. The\ncross above our churches and our altars, continually reappearing in\nall our ceremonies, impresses on us the incarnation, death, and\natonement of Christ crucified, as the great central point of all\nreligion. To this we are constantly brought back in every prayer which\nconcludes by asking what we demand, through Jesus Christ, the familiar\nclosing of which, the \"_per omnia saecula saeculorum_,\" known to every\nchild, calls forth from all, the heartfelt _Amen_! To this, and to\nwhat should accompany it, the Catholic is constantly directed by the\nceremonial. The church bell, signed with the cross, and anointed with\noil, which is a symbol of Christ, swings in the tower, and as his\nmessenger, calls us in his name to his house--now, ringing out with\njoy, when some great mystery is to be commemorated--now, in deep\nsolemn notes, to pray for one of his departed members. Three times\nevery day it summons us to the recital of the Angelus, in which we\ncommemorate the great mystery of the incarnation, and invoke the\nmerits of the Saviour's death, and ask the benefit of his\nresurrection. If we enter the {735} church, the font at the door, from\nwhich we take a drop of blessed water to sprinkle our foreheads, is\nitself a sermon on the purity with which we should approach, and bids\nus cleanse our souls before we come near to him in prayer. The burning\nlamp speaks to us of him who is the light of the world, now dwelling\non the altar, as well as of the constant fire of devotion, and pure\nadoration, due to the present God. The priest whom you see at the\naltar, clad in those quaint old vestments, tells you at a glance that\nyou are in the presence of a worship that has come down from the\nremotest ages. The burning lights on the altar, which have now become\nan emblem of gladness, speak to you of the catacombs, in which our\nfathers took refuge, and preserved for us the sacred deposit, at the\ncost of property, of liberty, and of life.\n\nLike old heirlooms, with their quaint old forms and their several\nindentations, these vestments and rites tell at the same time of their\nreal antiquity and of the many vicissitudes through which they have\npassed. They are not like those imitations of the antique in use\namongst some of our friends got up by studying ancient drawings and\ndescriptions, having all the inconvenience without anything of the\nvenerable character of what is truly ancient. With us they are\ninherited through uninterrupted use from the beginning. Whatever\nchanges have occurred in minor details, only render them more\nvenerable, for if on the one hand we are brought back to ancient days,\nthese are marks of the many ages through which they have passed.\nEverything in the rites of the church is fraught with instruction,\nwith devotion. It enables you to know, and what is better, to\npractice--for while it teaches, it leads you to love and adore. Do you\nwish to know the efficacy of that ceremonial? Look at those who have\nbeen nursed under its training. See the all-pervading influence of\nreligion, that exists among them. Long and powerful discourses may\nmake men skilful talkers and ardent partisans. Those who have been\nreared under a divinely inspired ritual have religion deeply engraven\non their hearts. It takes possession and enters into the whole nature\nof the man; and even when he gives way to the allurements of iniquity,\nit retains its hold on him. This may indeed make him appear, and be,\nan inconsistent object of pity or of scorn. But, happy inconsistency!\nFor if he will not be consistent in good, far better that he be\ninconsistent or not consistent in evil. He would otherwise become a\nmonster. The links by which he is yet bound to what is good, may one\nday draw him within the pale of that mercy to which no sinner appealed\nin vain, before which no sinner is too great to be pardoned.\n\nTo the Catholic, in every position, the ceremonial is light and\nnourishment--a plentiful source of vigor and life.\n\n----------\n\n{736}\n\nFrom Le Correspondant.\n\nMADAME DE SWETCHINE.\n\nBY REV. FATHER LACORDAIRE.\n\n\nMany times already have I rendered to illustrious Catholics who have\ndied in our day, a funeral and a pious homage. In turn, General\nDrouot, Daniel O'Connell, and Frederic Ozanam have heard my voice\nabove their tomb, a voice far below that which their glory merited,\nbut which, nevertheless, holds from a sincere admiration the right to\npraise them. To-day, after these familiar names for which praise can\ndo nothing, I pronounce another name, a name which may appear almost\nunknown, perhaps even that of a foreigner, which, however, belongs to\nthe nation of the great minds of our age. A superior writer, Madame de\nSwetchine published nothing; a conversationalist of the first order,\nthe fame of her salon never penetrated beyond that circle which,\nthough not public, is more than privacy; a woman of antique faith and\nof active piety, she neither founded nor presided over any orders; and\nyet, for more than forty years she swayed an empire, to which the\nCount de Maistre submitted, before which Madame de Sta\u00ebl inclined, and\nwhich retained around her, even to her last days, admirers accustomed\nto act on public opinion, but still more accustomed to enlighten their\nown by hers. To the Count de Maistre succeeded M. de Bonald. The Abb\u00e9\nFrayssinous, M. Cuvier, to these M. de Montalembert, the Count de\nFalloux, Prince Albert de Broglie, and many others, a younger\ngeneration, but not less submissive to the ascendency of a soul where\nvirtue served genius.\n\nWhy should we be silent? Why not tell the living what they have lost\nin the dead? While a man lives, modesty should guard all his actions,\nand friendship itself should be restrained by it; but death has this\nof admirable; that it restores to memory as to judgment all its\nliberty. In taking away those from whom it strikes the double rock of\nweakness and envy, it permits those who have seen to lift the veil,\nthose who have received to acknowledge the benefit, those who have\nloved to pour forth their affection. Even the obscurity of merit adds\nto the desire of making it known; and if this merit was illustrious,\nbeing all hidden, it is almost a religious duty to draw it forth from\nthe tomb, and to render it before men the honor it has before God. So\nI hope I shall be pardoned these few pages; but did I not, yet I\nshould still write them. I owe them to a friendship which began in the\nshadows and perils of my youth, and which since, through all the\nvicissitudes of a quarter of a century, never ceased to open to me\nperspectives of honor so difficult to recognize in the confused and\nagitated times when faith itself is troubled by earthly events, and\nseeks a route worthy of its mission.\n\nMadame Sophie Jeanne de Swetchine was born in Russia, on the 4th\nDecember, 1782. Her family name was Soymonoff. She had a sister who\nmarried the Prince de Gagarin, a former Russian ambassador at Rome;\nshe herself was united at the age of seventeen to General de\nSwetchine, Military Governor of St. Petersburg. She belonged by birth\nto the Greek religion, but her education had abandoned her to the\nscepticism of the eighteenth century, and {737} according to the\nnatural course of things, she would have died an unbeliever or a\nschismatic in the depth of some half-oriental estate. God willed it\notherwise, and hence arises from the first the lively interest\nattached to her life. For a Christian, a soul's predestination, and\nthe mysterious ways by which God conducts it to its end without\ninfringing its liberty, are a spectacle that has above all others an\ninexhaustible charm. The secrets of grace and free will, so intimate\nin our own hearts, are less enlightened in a history which is not our\nown; and the communion of saints which makes us all, believing and\nloving, one in a single light and a single goodness, gives us, in the\naccount of a difficult conversion, the feeling of a conquest in which\nwe ourselves have shared.\n\nThe young Sophie de Soymonoff was then a Greek and an unbeliever. She\nhad been beguiled from her birth by the illusions of rationalism, and\nthe snares of the most singular fortune which error ever had; for the\nGreek religion has this trait solely its own, that it presents a much\nrestricted and very firm negation to the true faith, under an\nauthority cut loose from its base; yet which, however, preserves all\nthe rest with a profound respect for antiquity. In seeing this exact\nepiscopal succession, this unaltered symbol, this inviolable\ndiscipline, these sacraments which Rome herself recognizes, we ask if\nan error, respecting so long and so well the limits which it traced\nwhen it first arose, does not seem like those rocks which an irruption\nhas thrown from their foundations and which remain immovable under the\neye and the action of ages? Whilst in the West, Protestantism is\nunable to create either dogmas or discipline or hierarchy, and floats\nas a wandering cloud from mind to mind, the East, on the contrary,\nsees produced the fixity of error. Here dissolution, there\npetrifaction; and between the two the truth which is immutable without\nbeing inert, progressive without being subject to change. However\nsurprising may be this contrast, it is not difficult to account for\nit, if we consider, on the one hand, the difference of nature between\nthe eastern man and the western; and on the other, the diversity of\nthe political destiny assigned them. The eastern man contemplates and\nadores, while his rival, less happy in contemplation, is more so in\nacting. Thus the one has created generous institutions, under which he\nhas from age to age extended his empire, while the other has passed\nfrom servitude to servitude, incapable of seating himself in the shade\nof a regular authority, and of developing in a free atmosphere either\nthe evil or the good which, he has conceived. Hence in Europe error\ntakes a character of life which conducts it to its most extreme\nlogical consequences, at the same time that it wears at Constantinople\na character of death, which leaves it what it was, by impotence, not\nby virtue.\n\nNevertheless, it is easy for a vulgar intelligence to be deceived,\nespecially where family and national traditions give to error the\nreflex of patriotism, and when an absolute government, the jealous\nguardian of a religion of which it is the head, suffers no emanations\nof the truth to reach the soul. Sophie de Soymonoff was born a\nprisoner in an empire of seventy millions of souls. She was six\nhundred leagues from St. Peter's, and a thousand years from the true\nfaith. But, however vigilant despotism may be, however thick its\ndungeon walls, God remains ever near, and he draws therefrom, when he\nwills, the instruments which his Providence uses to preserve for man\nthe share which he assigns him in all his works. At an age when Madame\nde Swetchine could not yet sound either the poverty of the Greek\nschism or the abyss of unbelief, a man of God came to her. He was not\na priest, but an ambassador of a king despoiled of the greater part of\nhis possessions, shut up in an island of the Mediterranean, and who,\nin sending to St. Petersburg a {738} representative of his\nmisfortunes, thought not that he sent there a _charg\u00e9 d'affaires_ of\ndivine grace, marked with the seal of the elect. Count Joseph de\nMaistre, tor he it was, detested with all his soul the two Colossuses\nof his day, the French revolution and the French empire, because in\nthe one he saw the oppression of European nationalities; and the\nother, because he thought he saw it imprinted forever with an\nanti-Christian spirit. But he loved France, because, though it was the\nseat of the revolution and of the empire, he discerned there an\nindestructible faith, the faith of Clovis, of Charlemagne, and of St.\nLouis, and I know not what predestination that ravished his judgment,\nand rendered him the prophet of that very country which he esteemed so\nculpable and yet so great. Born in Savoy, in the country of St.\nFrancis de Sales, and of Jean Jacques Rousseau, he was French like\nthem in his genius, but even more so by his faith and his heart, which\nhad but two pulsations, one for the church, the other for France;\ngenerous mortal who silenced his antipathies by his convictions, in\nwhom blindness did not extinguish the light, and who, like\nPhiloctetes, wounded by the arrows of Hercules, could be separated\nfrom Greece, neither in his accusations nor in his affections. Madame\nde Swetchine soon met this extraordinary man in the saloons of St.\nPetersburg, and it was the first great event of her life. A positive\nspirit, but amiable, as his posthumous correspondence proves, M. de\nMaistre loved conversation. He did not love it as a throne from which\nhis genius could display its brilliancy, but as a free and delicate\ninterchange of thoughts, in which grace unites with intelligence,\ntaste with boldness, freedom with reserve, bringing together in an\nhour all times and all gifts; and forming a bond of union between men\nwho are pleased with sentiments of kindness and esteem. Generous focus\nof cultivated minds of all countries, conversation is the last asylum\nof human liberty. It speaks when the tribune is silent; it supplies\nthe place of books when books are not to be had; it gives currency to\nthoughts which despotism persecutes; finally, it warms, and agitates;\nit moves, and is, where it can live, the principle and the\nall-powerful echo of public opinion. It is not astonishing then that\ngreat men find in it a pleasure which is for them like the\naccomplishment of a duty. So long as society converses it is safe.\n\nIt did not look much as if the Count de Maistre could find at St.\nPetersburg an aliment for this noble want of his heart. The Russian is\nendowed with facility of expression, a quickness of apprehension, and\nit is no flattery disrobed of justice which has named him the\nFrenchman of the North. But he is closed up as soon as he comes into\nthe world; deprived of all political liberty, he has not even in his\nreligion room for his breast to expand, and the Christ he adores\nappears to him only under the sceptre of his masters and behind their\nimplacable majesty. A fortress encloses at St. Petersburg the temple\nwhere sleep the Czars, and, once dead, their people cannot even freely\nvisit their ashes. Fear, suspicion, doubt, all the shades of\ninquietude dwell in the Russian, and are translated on his brow by a\ncalm which nothing destroys, on his lips by a reserve which nothing\ndissipates. To converse it is necessary to be open; and to open one's\nself, one must possess his life, his goods, his honor, his liberty.\nWhen therefore the Count de Maistre entered St. Petersburg, he might\nsay that he entered the capital of silence, and that his genius would\nbe there only a monologue.\n\nHe was deceived. I knew Madame de Swetchine only during the last\ntwenty-five years of her life; and she was fifty when I first rested\nmy eyes on her benevolent countenance. Doubtless age had ripened her\nart of thinking and speaking, but it is impossible that she should not\nhave had something of it in that young outburst which early announced\nto others, and to herself, the treasure which was carried in her\nbosom. Certain it is that M. de Maistre had soon discovered it. In\n{739} the midst of that society of great lords and diplomatists, he\ndiscovered a young woman who bore in her language the marks of\nsuperiority, and whose conversation, springing from a source still\npurer than the mind, touched with remarkable tact the frontiers of\nliberty, without ever passing beyond them. Confidence is an\nirrepressible want of our poor heart; it cannot live alone; it opens\nitself unconsciously, and when life's experience has revealed the\nperil of abandoning it to itself, it becomes wiser but no fonder of\nreserve, and counts it a supreme happiness to meet with security in\nthe intercourse of society. Less happy, however, than the greater part\nof men, the man of genius has need also of a certain elevation in the\nminds that come in contact with his own; and, though the crowd has its\ncharm and its power, were it only in hearing him who rules, yet it is\nin the shock of two intelligences, each worthy of the other, that\nconversation has its highest flight, and reaches the last fibres of\nour being, and reveals to it the eternal pleasure of minds speaking\nwith minds. Demosthenes discoursing before the Athenians, Cicero\npleading in the Forum or the Senate of Rome, did not make, as perhaps\nsome may think, a monologue: the multitude responded, and their\neloquence was the fruit of a great soul heard by a great people. There\nis no solitary eloquence, and every orator has a double genius, his\nown and that of the age that hears him.\n\nMadame de Sta\u00ebl, who was the first conversationalist of her time, said\nshe was unhappy because of the universal mediocrity, and yet she\nconversed at Paris among the people the most prompt in the world to\nspeak, and the most confiding: what would she have said at St.\nPetersburg? M. de Maistre was there, but he was there with a\nFrenchwoman, born in Russia, who would one day, recognizing the\nmistake of her birth, live and die in her true country, the country of\nan incorruptible faith, and of a liberty which had only an eclipse,\nbecause conversation has always sustained it. Louis XIV. conversed at\nMarseilles without suspecting that conversation would kill his\ndespotism. In the East, the destined seat of absolute power, the\nprince does not converse; he gives his order, and is silent.\n\nIt is impossible for two souls to meet each other in a conversation\nwhich mutually pleases them, without having religion, sooner or later,\nenter into their discourse. Religion is the interior vestment of the\nsoul. There are some who tear this vestment to tatters; there are\nothers who soil it; but there are a few who despoil themselves of it\nall save some shred, and this shred, such as it is, is sufficient to\nprevent them from appearing absolutely destitute of divinity. Madame\nde Swetchine was an unbeliever, and, she had behind her, and beyond\nher unbelief, the Greek schism. The Count de Maistre was a Catholic,\nnot only by faith, but by direct mental intuition. He was at that\npoint where a man can say, so obvious was the truth to him: I believe\nnot, I see. What were the talks of these two souls on a subject in\nregard to which they had nothing in common, except their genius? What\ndid they say from 1803 to 1810, from the day when they met for the\nfirst time, to that on which one of them bent before the other, owned\nherself vanquished, and, on the bosom of friendship, sighed the last\nsigh of error? Doubtless God alone knows. God alone knows the\nstratagems which suspended for seven years the efficacy of an\neloquence sustained by divine grace, and disputed with it, step by\nstep, the victim and the victory. However, two immortal books of the\nCount de Maistre: Soir\u00e9es de Saint Petersbourg, and the book Du Pape,\nmay give us the secret of that controversy lost to the memory of man,\nbut which we shall one day find in that of God.\n\nIt is manifest that the wife of the Governor of St. Petersburg opposed\nfrom the first to the ambassador of Sardinia all the negations of the\neighteenth century, those shadows which Voltaire had invested with all\n{740} the transparency of his mocking spirit, and around which Jean\nJacques Rousseau had thrown the poetry of his melancholy imagination.\nDoubt, which in all men is a profound abyss, is still more so in the\nheart of woman. Nature cannot be denied with impunity, and the nature\nof woman is to believe, for it is her vocation to love. Happily Madame\nde Swetchine was strong and sincere; she could follow with her mind's\neye her friend's thought, and penetrate, little by little, as she\nbecame accustomed to it, into those regions of truth where mockery had\nnot left even a trace, and where imagination raised not a single\ncloud. Laughter ceases as we ascend nearer to God, and so also do\ntears without cause; the intellect becomes serious, and the heart\ncontented.\n\nWhen the Count de Maistre had dispelled the phantoms, did Madame de\nSwetchine see at a glance the whole reality of Christianity, or did\nthe Greek Church interpose itself, as a half-light between a doubt\nwhich was no more, and a faith which was not yet? In considering the\nslowness of her progress it is natural to believe, and the Count de\nMaistre's correspondence confirms it, that the neophyte took the\nlongest route, and that she did not give herself up to any sudden\nillumination. It was then the book Du Pape which succeeded to the\nSoir\u00e9es de Saint Petersbourg. M. de Maistre had dictated it with one\neye on Russia and the other on France. Not that there was any relation\nbetween the two countries in the point of view of religion. France,\nsince God had made her the eldest daughter of the church, had not been\nfor a single day a traitor to the sacred unity of her mother; and from\nthe battle-fields of Tolbiac to the scaffolds of the Reign of Terror,\nshe held herself faithful on the only and immovable rock where God had\nsealed in this world the mystery of truth. But if is true that she was\nwithdrawn from the public law of Europe, which during several\ncenturies had accorded a political supremacy to the Roman pontiff and\nthat she had derived from this sort of resistance, I know not what of\npersonal independence, which without detracting from her theological\nsubmission, had given her in certain matters a more apparent reserve.\nYet if Louis XIV. had not taken it into his head to establish as a\nmaxim what was only a national instinct, regulated by a profound\nfaith, the sentiments of France would never have assumed in the eyes\nof Christendom the doubtful coloring which after the ruins of the\nrevolution struck the genius of the Count de Maistre and inspired him\nwith the book, Du Pape. He saw in Russia the immense fall of the Greek\nChurch, caused by this single point of infidelity to St. Peter, and\nwithout fearing for France what no one feared for her, he erected to\nthe papacy that beautiful and proud, statue, which posterity will ever\nregard with honor, even though they should accuse the artist of having\nknown the past less well than the future.\n\n_Thou art Peter, and on this rock I build my church, and the gates of\nhell shall not prevail against it_. These simple words, regarded in\nthe gospel and in history, taught Madame de Swetchine that the Greek\nChurch, although preserving the traditions of episcopal authority, was\ndetached from the centre of unity, and consequently from the throne\nitself of life. After this it was easy to recognize its effects in the\nspiritual miseries she had under her eyes. The clergy are not the\nwhole church; they are only a portion of it. The church is the\nassemblage of all souls who know God, and do not consciously reject\neither the words he has given the world, or the authority which he has\nfounded to preserve and propagate his words and his grace. Though a\nvisible body in the faithful exteriorly marked with his seal, she yet\nembraces under the eyes of God, who penetrates and judges all\nconsciences, a multitude unknown to herself, in whom invincible\nignorance {741} creates good faith, and who live unknowingly the truth\nof which she is the depositary. This is the church. As to the clergy,\nall is said in these words of our Lord ascending to heaven: _Go and\nteach all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to keep my\ncommandments._ The clergy are the apostolate of the church; they are\nthe venerated summit of faith, the army of souls called by God to\nspread the only law which is infallible, the only force which conquers\nthe flesh, the only unction which gives humility. \"_Who hears you\nhears me_,\" our Lord has said: \"_who despises you despises me_.\" All\nmay and must befall the clergy, hate, exile, torture, death; there is\nbut one thing which they cannot and should not merit, contempt. When\nChrist suffered in the judgment hall under the blows of the vilest\nexecutioners, when he bore his cross from Jerusalem to Calvary, when\nhe was raised on it in the face of the whole world, there was against\nhim from heaven to earth, from Satan to man, a hate deeper and broader\nthan the ocean. But respect survived; and Pilate in washing his hands,\nthe centurion in beholding the cross, the virgins in weeping, the sun\nin hiding its light, were the revelations of a conscience greater than\nthe punishment, and which held the astonished universe in expectation\nand awe. Now, by a judgment of God, which is the chastisement of a\nfault of centuries, the Greek clergy are despised. They are despised\nnot only by the unbeliever but by the believer; they are despised by\nthe penitent whose confessions they hear, by the purified Christians\nto whom they give the body and blood of their God. This contempt is\nstriking and universal; the pope or Greek priest bears it on his\nforehead as an avenging sign, and even the kiss of the Czar confirms\nand enlarges it.\n\nPlaced between this spectacle and the vision of the Count de Maistre,\nthe whole light came to Madame de Swetchine, and then commenced for\nher the second struggle, the struggle of the truth against the holiest\naffections of the heart. Truth is, no doubt, the great country of the\nmind; it is father, mother, brother, sister, and native land; but man\nhas on earth another family and another country, the better he is the\nmore he loves them, and virtue; in so far as it is human, makes them\nthe cherished centre of all that is good, amiable, and generous. To\nthese ties already so strong, religion adds its divine influence, and\nfrom the same table to the same altar man leads his happiness, and\nthere attaches by a single chain time and eternity. What a blow is\nthat when some day, by an evidence which leaves no possible retreat,\nthe daughter shall see God standing between her and her mother,\nbetween her and her husband, between her and her native country, and\nthere shall be said to her in the same voice which Abraham heard: \"_Go\nout from, thy land and thy kindred, and from the house of thy father,\nand come to the land which I shall show thee_.\" There are some, it is\ntrue, who think this voice should never be heard, but for three\nthousand years, since Abraham, it has commanded and been obeyed. God\nis stronger than man, and man is great enough to sacrifice to truth\nmore than himself.\n\nMadame de Swetchine had not only to fear the rending of her heart, she\nhad before her an intolerance which the opposition of our century had\nonly irritated. The Emperor Nicholas did not yet reign, but the\nconversion of a Russian soul to the Catholic Church was none the less\nan act of high treason, which exposed her to the severities of the\nmorrow, if she escaped the inattention of the evening. After having\nendured this stormy situation for six or seven years, Madame de\nSwetchine turned her eyes toward France, and obtained from the Emperor\nAlexander, a generous prince, himself agitated by an unknown\ninspiration, the permission to live there. France received her in 1818\nat the age of thirty-four, in the plenitude of her faculties ripened\nby a long intercourse with men and events.\n\n{742}\n\nIt is not without a purpose that God draws to himself' a creature\ncondemned to error by all the ties of family and country, and\ntransports her far away to a foreign capital in the midst of a new\npeople. Much less so is it when this grace falls on a choice\nintelligence, placed in the first ranks of society, and who unites in\nherself all the gifts of nature, and all those of the world. Paris\nsince 1750 had been the centre of the European mind. It had by half a\ncentury's crusade against Christ, drawn the nations from those old\ncertainties to which they owed their existence. An unheard of\nrevolution had been the chastisement of this fault, a chastisement so\nmuch the more remarkable, as France had invoked just principles,\nconformed to its ancient traditions, and as it was the defect of a\nsuperior light to restrain herself, that she had traversed everything\nwith a devastating impetuosity. She had remained faithful only to her\nsword, and still after twenty-five years of victory, worthy of her\nhappiest days, she had just succumbed by excess in the battlefield,\nand twice the foreigner had soiled with his presence that superb city,\nthe mistress, by the ascendency of her intelligence, of the modern\nworld. It was there on the day after its reverses, that Providence\nconducted Madame de Swetchine. The question was to know if France,\naware of the need she had of God to reconstruct her, would hear the\nvoice of her misfortunes; if recalled to her ancient kings, and\nreconciled in her old temples, she would, consent to be again\nChristian in order to give her liberty the sanction of the faith which\nhad always guided and always served her.\n\nFew minds in either camp discerned this relation of Christianity with\nthe institutions of a liberally governed people. The example of\nEngland, where the church had always supported the commons, said but\nlittle to the publicists who were the most charmed with her\nParliament. Madame de Swetchine herself had had in the author of\nConsiderations sur la France, a master who saw plainly the vices of\nthe French revolution, but who without betraying civil and political\nliberty, did not well comprehend, perhaps, either all its necessity or\nall its future. Happily she had lived under absolute power; she had\nhad under her eyes for nearly forty years a Christian Church in a\nservile land, and this lesson could not be lost on a mind as true as\nhers. The evils of liberty are great among a people who do not know\nhow to measure it, who at every moment refuse it by jealousy, or go\nbeyond it through inexperience. But these evils, great as they may be,\nbelong to the apprenticeship of liberty and not to its essence; they\nstill leave it daylight, space, and life, a resource for the feeble, a\nhope for the vanquished, and above all the sacred emulation of good\nagainst evil. Under despotism good and evil sleep on the same pillow;\nsouls are invaded by a dull degeneracy because they have no longer a\nstruggle to sustain, and Christianity itself, a protected victim,\nexpiates in unspeakable humiliations the benefits of its peace. Madame\nde Swetchine saw this. Her great heart was full of this when she\nentered Paris, and amid the roar of tempests she knelt, for the first\ntime in her life, at altars combated, but esteemed. It is necessary to\nhave suffered for liberty of faith to know its price. It is necessary\nto have passed under the gibbets of schism, to be able fully to know\nwhat it is to breathe the atmosphere of truth. How often have I seen\nMadame de Swetchine's eyes fill with tears at the thought that she was\nin a Catholic country! How often has she been inwardly moved at seeing\na good priest, a good religious, a good brother of the Christian\nSchools, in a word, our Lord's image on a sincere brow or in a\nvirtuous life! Ah! this it is which here we never lose. We {743} can\ndishonor I know not how many human and even divine things; but in the\nshipwreck Christ remains visible to us in many who worthily love and\nserve him.\n\nThe life of Madame de Swetchine during the forty years she passed in\nour midst was one continual thanksgiving. More than once under a reign\nof persecution, like that of the Emperor Nicholas, she had fears for\nthe security of her sojourn in France. Once, notwithstanding her great\nage, she believed it necessary not to leave it to the zeal even of her\nmost tried friends, and rushed to St. Petersburg to implore the\nforgetfulness of the Czar. God still saved her. She had acquired such\na prestige, that it might be said that she represented at Paris the\nhonor and intelligence of Russia, and this, it is probable, was what,\nin the most difficult times, saved her from being recalled.\n\nThis dependence which she still had on her country, because her\nestates there might be held to answer for her personal conduct,\nimposed on her an extreme prudence in a saloon which was frequented by\nher compatriots and by men of all ranks and all opinions. But this\nreserve, which she had acquired as a habit in her own country,\ndetracted nothing from the grace and sincerity of her discourse;\nwhether she was silent or whether she expressed her thoughts,\naccording to the degree of confidence inspired by those present, she\nnever betrayed it; and in her silence even, she seized things on the\nside which remained accessible, and gave them clearness enough, to\ninstruct without displeasing. An exquisite naturalness covered her\nspeech, though tact and unexpectedness were its most usual\ncharacteristics. When she met Madame de Sta\u00ebl for the first time, each\nknew the other without being told; and happening to be placed at\nopposite corners of a large hall, they observed each other with\ncuriosity. Madame de Sta\u00ebl, accustomed to homage, waited for Madame de\nSwetchine to come to her. Seeing she did not, she all at once crossed\nthe long space which separated them, stopped before her, and said in a\nlively and caressing tone: \"Do you know, Madame, that I am much hurt\nby your coldness toward me?\" \"Madame,\" was the reply, \"it is for the\nking to salute first.\" This remark can give some idea of the ingenuous\nand submissive style of Madame de Swetchine's conversation. Different\nfrom Madame de Sta\u00ebl, who disserted rather than conversed, Madame de\nSwetchine raised her voice but slightly, and had no accent of\ndomination; she waited her time without impatience, without caring for\nsuccess, always more happy to please than ambitious to dazzle. An\ninexhaustible interest in those whom she had once loved, gave to her\nintimacy a sweet and maternal character. Her genius was approached as\na focus of light, no doubt, but with a filial disposition which\nendeared its brilliancy, which was the fruit of a goodness as manifest\nas was her intellectual superiority. Introduced into the highest\nFrench society by the Duchesse de Duras and the Marquise de Montcalm,\nsisters of the Duc de Richelieu, she was not long in making felt\naround her that attraction which is produced in society by\nacknowledged eminence of character. What she had been when young at\nSt. Petersburg in her husband's salons, she was in the heart of\nFrance; but what at St. Petersburg was only a conquest of suffrages\nand of admiration, became at Paris an apostolate.\n\nWhen a soul passes to God's side, that is to say, to the side of\nChristianity, the only expression here below of the divine life, she\ncan find nowhere else the principles and motives of her actions. All\nin her proceeds from the sacred height and returns to it, Madame de\nSwetchine lived in the world, but was not of it; she was held to it\nonly by its good--only to make her protest for God, and to serve him;\nan admirable office in which the world assumes all its grandeur; in\nwhich fallen under the strokes of a mind that {744} knows what it is\nworth, it arises and occupies with him every instant of thought and\nevery vibration of the heart. He who is disabused by the simple\nexperience of life, despises the world, while he who is disabused by\nlight from on High esteems it. Being then no longer in the world for\nthe world, Madame de Swetchine was more than ever there for God; she\nfollowed his course with all-powerful interest, attentive to seize\nwhatever might remove or approach her to the principle of all life. M.\nde Maistre was no more. A different school from his was forming;\nMadame de Swetchine saw unfold its first germs, and she surrounded\nwith her counsels and her affection the young representatives of an\nidea which her recollections, perhaps, would have repulsed, but which\nthe freedom of her mind rendered her capable of judging, for this was\nthe character as the temper of her genius. In a time of intellectual\ndependence, in which parties bore away everything in their train,\nMadame de Swetchine made no engagement, and submitted to no\nattraction; she isolated every question from the noise around her, and\nplaced it in the silence of eternity. Thus was one sure after having\nheard all that was said, to encounter on crossing her threshold\nsomething which had not been heard, an original view of the truth; and\neven when she was mistaken, a proof that her thought did not belong to\nherself alone, because she sought it in God.\n\nIt was after the failure of L' Avenir that I first saw her. I\napproached the borders of her soul as a seaweed broken by the waves,\nand I remember yet, after twenty-five years, how she placed her light\nand strength at the service of a young man unknown to her. Her\ncounsels sustained me both against despondeney and exaltation. One day\nwhen she thought she noticed in my words a doubt or lassitude, she\nsaid to me with a singular accent, the simple words: \"Take care.\" She\nwas wonderful in discovering the point to which one inclined, and\nwhere it was necessary to bear assistance. The measure of her thought\nwas so perfect, the freedom of her judgment so remarkable, that I was\nlong in comprehending to whom and to what she was devoted. Where in\nothers I should have known in advance what was to be said, here I was\nalmost always ignorant, and nowhere did I feel myself more out of the\nworld. This charm from above was not diffused over me alone. Other\nminds, my predecessors or my contemporaries, felt its action, and it\nis impossible to say for how many souls this single soul was a lamp.\nNot only the day, at fixed hours, not only the evening until midnight,\nbut at almost every moment, confidence sought her with an importunity\nwhich was never complained of. Thus was formed around a foreigner I\nknow not what country, which was of all times and of all lands, for it\nwas the truth which was its ground, its atmosphere, its light, and its\nmotion.\n\nNature, it is evident, could not suffice of itself to feed this\ninexhaustible conversation. It was nourished by an assiduous reading\nof all that was remarkable which appeared in Europe. No book, as no\nman, escaped her ardent curiosity. After the example of the Count de\nMaistre, who inspired the taste, Madame de Swetchine pencil-marked\nevery page which struck her, and in her first leisure hour between two\nconversations she engraved on a light leaf of brass the thought which\nhad illumined hers. She added her own reflections with the rapidity of\na first glance, and this triple commerce with books, men, and herself,\nwhich was never interrupted, gave to her intelligence a spring which\nwas never exhausted. What, however, in the midst of the contradictions\nof her century were the principles which guided her, and of which she\nshed around her the unfailing clearness? In recalling my recollections\nof her, I should say they were Our Lord the life of heaven and earth;\nthe Catholic Church, the only society of the mind, because it alone\npossesses the foundation of faith and the {745} inspiration of\ncharity; Rome, the centre of the world, because she is the centre of\nthe church; the human family progressive on a basis that does not\nchange; civil and political liberty, the daughter of Christianity;\ncommerce, industry, science, all grand things, but under things\ngrander still, honor and justice; all man's toil powerless to diminish\npoverty without virtue; France, a people loved by God--its revolution\na vengeance and a mercy, a germ under ruins; philosophy, as old as\nman, the vestibule of Christianity when not as yet enlightened by\nfaith, and its crown when faith has transformed it; reason, the inborn\nlight whence philosophy proceeds, and which Christianity perfects; the\nfuture, an uncertain abyss, but in which God is ever found; error, a\ncrime sometimes, a weakness oftener; tolerance, an homage to the\ntruth, a proof of faith; force, which is next to impotency; authority,\nan ascendency which has its source in antiquity and in right;\nproperty, the union of man with the earth by labor, the first liberty\nof the world, without which no other subsists; liberty the guaranty of\nright against whatever is not right. These, if my memory is faithful,\nare the sound which at every hour and under every touch was given\nforth by that harmonious lyre which we now hear no more. A constant\nsimplicity in an equal elevation, a goodness which came from Christ,\ngave to her doctrines, apart from their merit as truth, a personal\ninfluence. In hearing her this double charm might be resisted, but she\ncould not be hated or despised; she could not but be loved, and\ninspire the desire to become better. Happy mouth, which for forty\nyears made not an enemy to God, but which poured into a multitude of\nwounded or languishing hearts the germ of the resurrection and the\nrapture of life.\n\nYet, perhaps I deceive those who read me. They may persuade themselves\nthat the friend of the Count de Maistre and of so many eminent\nChristians won their friendship only by the merit of a superior\nintelligence. That would be much, but in Madame de Swetchine it was\nnot all. Intellect, when it comes from God, is inseparable from\ncharity. Madame de Swetchine loved the poor. Like Frederic Ozanam,\nanother blessing of Providence that we have lost, she knew how to\nforget science in presence of misfortune, and her lips, accustomed to\nthings profound, had only divine things in the face of suffering and\ndeath. In entering her dwelling this might not be believed. Pictures\nby the great masters, dazzling candelabras, precious vases, books\nenclosed under crystals richly encased, flowers and drapery, all\nsuggested the idea of costly magnificence hardly compatible with the\nsecret love of the unfortunate. But, as I have said, Madame de\nSwetchine had in all things, even in duty, a point of view which was\nher own. Persuaded that she owed it to her family and to her country,\nto represent them worthily in the capital of a great people, she had\nthe art of being simple in the midst of a splendor which she\nconsidered necessary, and to find economy in unseen privations. Long\nbefore her death, for example, she had no carriage. She walked with\nscrupulous exactness to the offices of St. Thomas of Aquina, her\nparish church, although she had a private chapel, and though her age\nas well as her infirmities would permit her to remain at home or go\nout only in a carriage.\n\nOne day her secret escaped her, Troubled, I imagine by something she\nhad read, or some discourse which I had made her, she asked me with a\nkind of anxiety if I believed that in giving a sixth part of her\nincome to the poor, she accomplished the precept of almsgiving.\nAnother time, when some early vegetables were served at her table, at\nwhich I appeared surprised: \"What would you?\" she said to me; \"there\nare people who raise these for us; would it not be ungrateful for\nthose who can, not to recompense them for their labor?\" This remark\nopened to me a new order of ideas. I understood that riches should not\nbe {746} used simply to support those who cannot gain their own living\nwhether from want of strength or want of work, but that they should\nalso, according to their amount, be used to protect all the honest\ndevelopments of human toil. It is thus that in the beautiful days of\nVenice, Genoa, Florence, and of Pisa, so many Christian merchants\nraised immortal monuments to their country, and that at Rome so many\ncardinals have built palaces. Magnificence is a virtue, says St.\nThomas Aquinas, when it is regulated by reason, and very different\nfrom luxury, which is vanity and ruin.\n\nAt Madame de Swetchine's house was seen a mute, whom she had adopted\nas if in return for the gift of speech, which she had received in so\neminent a degree. It was her custom to associate the care of the poor\nwith the happy events of her life. Each of them recalled a happiness\nwhich he represented. She visited them on fixed days; she herself\ncarried them assistance, and above fill the light of her presence.\nThis intercourse kept alive in her the memory of the man, so quick to\nbe effaced from those who have not the memory of God. She continued it\neven to the last days of her life; and when already the breath was\nuncertain and trembling on her lips, she asked for accounts of her\npoor. I saw, when we were seated around the sad couch of this\nbeautiful light, her dear mute watching from an adjoining chamber, a\nvigilant sentinel of a life which had given her so much of itself, and\nwhich was fading away between friendship remaining faithful, and\npoverty remaining grateful.\n\nShall I speak, after the poor, of that beloved chapel, where the\nformer unbeliever of St. Petersburg opened her heart before the God of\nher maturity? It was there, above all, that she lived, and there that\nshe had gathered into a narrow space all that taste and riches could\ndo to express and satisfy her love. Charming and pious sanctuary! you\ncould not contain many souls, but there was one which sufficed to fill\nyou, and which you filled also. Now you are no more. Death has\ndespoiled the seats where so many friends came to pray; where prayer\nwas so sweet, and peace so profound. We shall see you no more, nor\nyour images, nor your precious stones, nor the tabernacle where at the\nside of the Lord reposed the virtue all entire of our friend. You had\nher last thought; it was of you she murmured at the moment eternity\nseized and carried her before God. Can I, then, better end than with\nyou? For whom should I still ask a remembrance, a tear, an admiration?\n\nFor several years Madame de Swetchine had had preludes of her end. The\nconsequences of a fall had left on her face a serious hurt which at\nintervals and without warning, rendered speaking very painful. This\npain did not arrest the rapture of her communications. She remained\nwhat she had ever been, the mistress of herself, and occupied with\nall, winning hearts as in the days of her youth, when the Count de\nMaistre sent her his portrait with these words, written by his own\nhand:\n\n  \"Docile \u00e0 l'appel plein de gr\u00e2ce\n    De l'amiti\u00e9 qui vous attend,\n  Volez, image, et prenez place\n    O\u00f9 l'original se plait tant.\"\n\nHappier than this great man who saw only the first dawning of Sophie\nde Soymonoff, we have enjoyed her perfect day; he formed her for us,\nand happier herself than her master, she could, by the clearness of a\ntempered reason, bring to her age a judgment in which hope surpassed\nfear, and which best indicated the true route to minds desirous of\nknowing and serving it. But at last we had to lose her. Every star\nbelow fades, every treasure vanishes, every soul is recalled. God did\nnot spare his servant the agonies of death, but he left her to\nsurmount them the influence which she had acquired over all things by\nseventy-five years of combat. Seated in her parlor to the last hour,\nshe continued to receive those whom she loved, to speak {747} to them\nof themselves, and of the future, to foresee all, and to animate all.\nHer reclining figure raised itself to smile, she kept the accent and\nthe thread of her thought, and her eyes with their serenity still\nbrightened the touching scene in which we disputed for her with God. A\nlast shock took her from us on the 10th September, 1857, at six\no'clock in the morning, having a few days before received the viaticum\nand the unction of eternal life.\n\nAlas! dear and illustrious lady. I cannot attach to your name the\nglory of those Roman women whom St. Jerome has immortalized, and yet\nyou were of their race: you were of the race of those women who\nfollowed Christ through all the stations of his pilgrimage, who\nwatched him as he died, who embalmed him in his tomb, and who were the\nfirst to salute him on the morning of his resurrection. You believed\nall and saw all. Born in schism, brought up in unbelief, God sent you\nto open your eyes, one of the rarest minds of this century; his hand\ntouched your eyelids, and the sight which your country refused you,\ncame to you from foreign skies. A Christian, you aspired to the\nliberty of Christ; conquered for, God through the language of France,\nyou wished to live under the French speech, and quitting a country you\nalways loved, you came among us with the modesty of a disciple and of\nan exile. But you brought us more than we gave you. The light of your\nsoul illumined the land which received you, and for forty years you\nwere for us the sweetest echo of the gospel, and the surest road to\nhonor. No failure annoyed you, no success ensnared you; you were ever\nthe same, because truth and justice do not change. Ah! doubtless your\nmission was to do us good in our pale West, but you had another\nmission, I believe; you were near us as an advance guard of the\nconversion of the East. Daughter of Greece! God wished to show us in\nyour person, as he already had in several of your compatriots, what\nwill, one day, be that old church of our first fathers in the faith,\nwhen, brought back from a fatal separation, she shall receive from the\nmight of St. Peter that emission of unity which she formerly sent us\nfrom Jerusalem and Antioch, and of which we guard for her with\nfidelity the precious deposit. Yes, we trust the love which you\npreserved for your country; trust the presentiments of your\nEvangelist, the great Count de Maistre; trust in the long hopes of the\nLatin Church, and its constant respect for Christian Greece. Yes,\nsooner or later, the East will bend before the West, as a brother\nbefore a brother. St. Sophia will hear resound again in the two\nlanguages the symbol which has not ceased to unite us. Liberty of\nconscience, acquired by the human race, will no longer permit error to\nguard itself by persecution. Veils will fall; the obscure victims of\npolitical fear shake off their chains; all minds from one end of\nEurope to the other will follow the inclination of nature and grace;\nand if there remain, as there must, unbelievers and Protestants, at\nleast there will remain no longer a nation crucified for error. In\nthose days, dear and noble friend whom we have lost, and live here to\nweep--in those days, you will raise a little your cold stone at\nMontmartre, you will breathe an instant the air in which you lived,\nand recognizing at once the balm of your first and of your second\ncountry, you will bless God who called you before others, and to whom\nyou responded with that faith without stain which enlightened us\nourselves, and by that unconquerable hope which sustained us against\nall the failures of a century so fruitful in lapses and abortions.\n\n--------\n\n{748}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE CRY.\n\n  I sail on an ocean at midnight.\n    With darkness above and below;\n  And never a star in the heaven\n    To pilot me where I would go.\n\n  Fierce tempests that roar in the midnight,\n    The tempests both cruel and strong,\n  Are driving me hither and thither;\n    What wonder if I should go wrong?\n\n  Many thousands of others are sailing,\n    Like me, o'er this tempest-vexed sea,\n  All bound for the very same haven,\n    All bound to the same land with me.\n\n  But some to the leftward are sailing.\n    Whilst others they steer to the right;\n  I oft hear the voice of the captains\n    Who hail me aloud through the night.\n\n  Each one, though so diversely sailing,\n    Calls out to me, \"You are astray!\n  For this is the course you should steer by\n    To enter the kingdom of day.\n\n  \"See, yonder the light shineth clearly,\n    Right full on the way that we go.\"\n  But which is the right and the true way,\n    Oh! tell me, for how can I know.\n\n  I look where they're pointing before them,\n    But never a star do I see;\n  Where they tell me the beacon is shining\n    Is nothing but darkness to me.\n\n  My soul is athirst with its longing\n    To rest on the beautiful shore.\n  Where is felt not the surge of the billows.\n    Where the tempest is heard nevermore:\n\n{749}\n\n  Where the gardens of amaranth blossom,\n    And meadows of green asphodel\n  Fill the air with a fragrance immortal;\n    Where the satisfied voyagers dwell\n\n  Who have passed o'er this ocean before me,\n    And rest with the holy of old,\n  In the city whose walls are of jasper.\n    And roofs of the finest of gold.\n\n  O Lord of the wonderful city!\n    O King of the kingdom of day!\n  Let the light of thy truth shine out clearly\n    To pilot me safe on my way!\n\n\nTHE ANSWER.\n\n  I hear thee, my child, in the darkness;\n    I know where thou wishest to be:\n  But why in a pilotless vessel\n    Didst venture alone on this sea?\n\n  Thy way is in doubt and in darkness.\n    Because thou dost voyage alone,\n  Rejecting the old Ship of safety.\n    To choose a frail bark of thine own.\n\n  That vessel is sailing beside thee.\n    Its course the great Pilot controls.\n  The tempest will ne'er overcome it--\n    It never will wreck on the shoals.\n\n  Who sail in this old Ship of safety,\n    Know nothing of doubt or of strife.\n  How can they with him who commands it--\n    The Way, and the Truth, and the Life?\n\n  And all through the mist and the darkness\n    Faith shows a mysterious way,\n  O'er which sails the good ship of Peter\n    Straight on to the kingdom of day!\n\nA.Y.\n\n--------\n\n{750}\n\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE GODFREY FAMILY; OR, QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nDEATH OF MRS. GODFREY.\n\nA missive soon brought M. Bertolot to the trio. He came as secretly as\npossible, and departed in the same way; not so secretly, however, as\nto prevent his visit being shortly made known to Alfred Brookbank,\nwho, with the view of making a final breach between Sir Philip and his\nwife, had set spies to watch the movements of the party. He discovered\nfrom the jealousy of the neighbors the intimacy at the Irish cottage,\nand surmised the attraction which produced these visits, but could\nmake no use of this surmise until his agent recognized in M. Bertolot\nthe French priest who had accompanied the countess to England. The\nsecrecy of the visit told its purport. Alfred now informed Sir Philip,\nas if he had just made the discovery, that Annie had been in Eugene's\ncompany all the time she had been away; that Catholics were their only\nsociety, and that a priest visited them in secret, adding that there\ncould be no rational doubt that Lady Conway and her mother were both\nCatholics.\n\nSir Philip's indignation was excessive. Without taking time to\nconsider the matter at all, he ordered his carriage and drove\npost-haste to Estcourt Hall, to which place the family were now\nsummoned in consequence of the increasing weakness of Mrs. Godfrey.\n\nMrs. Godfrey had been brought there by short stages, and had arrived\nthe night before. Mr. Godfrey and Hester were there to meet her, and\nto Hester's great joy she was once more pressed lovingly to her\nmother's heart, who was more than happy to see her children united\nagain in affection. Adelaide was hourly expected; and when Sir Philip\nmade his appearance he was supposed to come in obedience to a similar\nsummons. Mr. Godfrey received him; but Sir Philip's agitation was such\nthat he made no answer to the customary greeting. He looked round the\nroom, and seeing they were alone, he said in a choking voice:\n\n\"Is Lady Conway here?\"\n\n\"She is; she arrived last night.\"\n\n\"And her brother Eugene?\"\n\n\"Is here also.\"\n\n\"And have they been together all this time? O Mr. Godfrey, how you\nhave deceived me!\"\n\nMr. Godfrey was puzzled. He was constitutionally timid, and certainly\nwas just now in no mood for quarrelling; so he said quietly: \"Why, has\nany harm come of it?\"\n\n\"Harm! What can be greater harm than that Annie and her mother should\nboth of them be papists?\"\n\n\"Is it that which frightens you? Be composed, my dear friend; put such\nthoughts from your mind; Annie has too much sense for that. And my\npoor wife, she has been a little weak in the head lately, it is true,\nbut she is not given that way in the least degree; besides, I greatly\nfear she cannot live long; her strength is less than I could have\nimagined. Come, and see her.\"\n\nBut Sir Philip was absorbed in one idea. \"I tell you,\" said he, \"that\nthe mischief is already done; that your wife and mine have both been\non their knees to a priest, and that the secrets of both families are\nalready on the way to Rome.\"\n\n\"Impossible!\" said Mr. Godfrey.\n\n{751}\n\n\"Try,\" said Sir Philip; \"ask the question; if they dare deny it, I\nwill produce the proofs.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey laid his hand on the bell-rope. A servant appeared.\n\"Request Mr. Eugene to come to me immediately.\" The man bowed and\ndisappeared. Eugene soon entered. The door was carefully closed. Sir\nPhilip could scarcely keep himself from springing on him; but Mr.\nGodfrey stood between them, and said in a hollow voice: \"Eugene,\nanswer without circumlocution or disguise, say yes or no, are your\nmother and sister Annie Catholics?\"\n\n\"They are.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey pointed to the door; he could not speak. Eugene left the\nroom. The two strong men trembled with impotent rage.\n\n\"A curse has fallen upon the house,\" muttered Mr. Godfrey at length,\nas he paced the room. \"Who could have dreamed of this?\"\n\n\"Mr. Godfrey,\" said Sir Philip, in tones of thunder, \"you will tell\nyour daughter that she never again will enter my doors. Prepare what\nsettlements you please, send them to my lawyer; anything in reason I\nwill consent to, but see her again I will not.\"\n\nHe quitted the house, nor did he ever see his injured wife again.\n\nScarcely had Sir Philip's carriage driven away when another drove up,\ncontaining Adelaide, the young Dowager Duchess of Durimont. She\nentered the house in a scarcely less agitated state than Sir Philip\nhad left it in; but her excitement proceeded altogether from a\ndifferent cause. Among Adelaide's numerous faults, want of affection\nfor her mother certainly did not form one. On the contrary, she was\naccustomed not only to love but to reverence her mother as a very\nsuperior woman. Through the sunshine of youth, while enjoying the\nwarmth of a mother's fondness and protection, Adelaide's affections\nhad strengthened without that sentimentality of expression which Mrs.\nGodfrey would have taught her to repress had she seen it manifested,\nbut they were none the less deep or tender for having hitherto found\nno occasion, of great display. On the first intimation she had\nreceived of her mother's illness, Adelaide had hastened at once to\nEstcourt Hall, and was with difficulty persuaded by Mr. Godfrey to\nretire. He feared that Adelaide's presence would but increase the\nexcitement under which Mrs. Godfrey labored, and as the doctor's\nopinion was to that effect also, Adelaide was compelled, however\nreluctantly, to yield. They gave her no clew whatever as to the cause\nof her mother's malady, and though she had a general idea of some\nunworthy transaction in which Eugene was wronged and Hester enriched,\nshe did not enter into particulars, nor mentally connect the facts\nwith her mother's illness. The only effect it had upon her was to\nestrange her from Hester, and in a slighter degree from her father\nalso.\n\nWhen she heard that Eugene and Annie were summoned to her mother's\nside, again she endeavored to share their cares; but Mr. Godfrey was\nfearful of suffering too great intercourse between Adelaide and\nEugene, and used his utmost endeavors to dissuade her. He insisted\nthat the physicians absolutely ordered that none should approach her\nsave those she asked for. The father dreaded the judgment of the\ndaughter when she should know the cause of her mother's trouble. He\nwas accustomed to be looked up to by his children, and shrank from\nincurring the disapproval of this one in particular; for Adelaide had\never been considered the most talented and the most intellectual of\nthe family. He had a sort of consciousness that to the mother's\ninfluence in veiling his foibles from his children's eyes, he owed\nmuch of that reverence with which they habitually approached him; and\nhe could but feel that he had made but a poor return for a life of\ndevotedness, when he refused to yield to the first {752} important\ndemand she had ever made him, and that in favor of his own son.\n\nBut now Eugene had written to Adelaide to say her mother was calm, and\nwould welcome her. Adelaide entered her father's house pale and\ntrembling, an attendant supporting her.\n\n\"Is she still alive?\" she whispered, as she saw her father; then, as\nif fearful he would still oppose her seeing Mrs. Godfrey's, she\nrefused by a gesture to enter the sitting-room, but made her way at\nonce up the broad staircase to the room her mother had ever been wont\nto occupy. She opened the door, and flinging herself on her knees by\nthe side of the bed, took the pale hand, and, as she kissed it, said,\nwith streaming eyes: \"Ah! dear mother, why was I not permitted to come\nto you before?\"\n\n\"And who forbade you, my love?\"\n\n\"My father said the doctors--\"\n\nMrs. Godfrey looked at her husband, who had followed Adelaide into the\nroom; there was surprise and sorrow, but no anger on her countenance.\nShe pressed Adelaide's hand and whispered, \"Perhaps he was right, I\nwas unconscious and delirious a long while, my poor child; but now you\nwill stay with me the little time that I remain on earth.\"\n\n\"You feel better to-day, my dear mother,\" said Annie, hopefully.\n\n\"I do, but it cannot last; we must not deceive ourselves. I am glad to\nsee my dear Adelaide, but I cannot talk to her yet.\"\n\nThe effort of saying even so much exhausted her; she lay back, and\nthey watched long hours in silence by her pillow.\n\nDay after day passed away, the loving children surrounding her, and\nMr. Godfrey sharing their watch. All traces of excitement had gone, in\nthe solemnity of that watch. Mrs. Godfrey seemed so thoroughly in\npeace, that that peace seemed to pass into the circle of hearts\nsurrounding her. She became, however, perceptibly weaker everyday. Ten\ndays after Adelaide's arrival she whispered to her one morning: \"Tell\nyour father I wish to speak to him.\"\n\nAdelaide summoned her father. Whatever were the words spoken, they\nappeared to distress him very much. He gazed at his wife as though in\na stupor. She held his hand and faintly whispered, \"My last wishes,\ncan you refuse them?\" \"No,\" said he, half choked, \"he shall be sent\nfor;\" and he left her to seek Eugene. That evening a stranger was\nushered by Eugene, as it were by stealth, into his mother's room.\nAnnie alone was present. The last sacraments of the church were\nadministered, and the stranger priest passed down the back staircase\nso secretly that none knew of or suspected his visit save those\npresent and Mr. Godfrey, who had insisted on such secrecy being\nobserved.\n\nAdelaide had at length gathered all the facts concerning her brother\nbeing disinherited, and the effect the transaction had produced on\nMrs. Godfrey's mind. A great feeling of repulsion for Hester was the\nconsequence, and her manner soon betrayed symptoms of the feelings\nthat swayed her.\n\n\"I can never again call her sister,\" she whispered, half-aloud, one\nday, in her meditation, by her mother's side; Mrs. Godfrey's eyes\nopened. \"My children, love one another,\" she said. \"Love, for he loved\neven sinners; forgive, for he forgave those who crucified him.\" She\nsank to sleep after pronouncing these words, and when the watchers\nbent over her to see what prolonged that sleep to so unusual a time,\nthey found that the sweet purified spirit had already winged its way\nto the mansions of the blessed.\n\nOf all the mourners there, perhaps the grief of Adelaide was the most\nviolent. The feelings of Annie and Eugene were tempered by the hope\nthat their mother was now happier than she had ever been before.\nHester's were modified by the deep meditation in which she was plunged\nby the fact that her mother had received full insight into that faith\nof which she had caught but a glimpse, and of which {753} she so\nearnestly desired to know more. But she dared not question Eugene or\nAnnie, for fear of angering her father and her mother! \"O mother, pray\nfor me!\" was in her heart, and checked the outward demonstration of'\nher grief.\n\nThey were standing round the coffin, those four children, whom she had\nbrought so faithfully through the cares and dangers of childhood! No\npride of station had withdrawn her from fulfilling her nursery duties;\nno sloth, no command of riches had caused her to delegate to hireling\nhands the cultivation of their infant minds; riches to them had been\nas an accessory, not, as too often happens, causing a withdrawal of\nmaternal offices. How had they requited her? Oh! happy they who can\nstand by the bier of those to whom they are bound by duty or by love,\nand feel no remorse for duty oft neglected.\n\nAdelaide was standing on one side at the head of the coffin, rapt in\ngrief, Eugene and Annie were on the other side. Hester at the foot\nabsorbed in intense thought, but tearless and as it seemed to Adelaide\nnot paying homage in her thoughts to that dear mother. \"Was she even\nthen dwelling on her own wild schemes?\" The thought maddened Adelaide,\nand forgetting the self-control for which she was usually so\nremarkable, she in the overmastering impulse of the moment seized\nHester's arm, led her to the head of the coffin, and, pointing to the\nsweet pale face before them, said in a frenzied tone, regardless of\nthe presence of Mr. Godfrey, who just then entered the room: \"And did\nyou dare to wring the heart of that most noble woman? Was it for you,\nwhom she loved so dearly, to crush her loving spirit, and then stand\nby so calmly contemplating her remains? How my heart loathes you!\"\n\n\"Hush! hush! dear sister,\" said Eugene tenderly, as he disengaged her\nclasp from Hester, who fell nearly fainting into her father's arms.\n\"Hush! Adelaide, hush! she bade us love each other; you have\nmisconceived this matter. Come with me, I will explain it\"--and he\ntook her to another apartment, and tried to make her understand\nHester's intentions of ultimately settling all according to equity,\nwhile Mr. Godfrey and Annie did their best, to restore Hester to her\nusual equanimity.\n\nMr. Godfrey was so much moved by this affront put upon his darling\nthat he forgot his intention of keeping Mrs. Godfrey's change of\nreligion secret, and in the evening he called Adelaide to his private\nstudy, and there explained that the delusions under which her dear\nmother had labored had no particular reference to Hester, but were\ncaused by religion. \"In fact,'\" said; Mr. Godfrey, \"what she wanted\nthe day you came to summon me to her, was a Catholic priest. Of course\nI refused her nothing; the priest came that night, but secretly, out\nof respect to the reputation of the family.\"\n\n\"Was my mother a Catholic?\"\n\n\"She became one latterly.\"\n\n\"And was it for her religion that you persecuted her?\"\n\n\"Persecuted her! Why, Adelaide, how dare you apply such words to your\nfather? Your mother was never persecuted; even when out of her mind\nshe had everything she asked for, and as I tell you, a Catholic priest\nattended her the other evening. Persecuted, indeed!\"\n\nAdelaide cared not to pursue a theme which brought her out as her\nfather's accuser, though the impression still remained on her mind\nthat injustice had occasioned the illness and subsequent death of her\nmother, and this prevented her from recalling the offending words.\n\nThe father and daughter parted somewhat coldly that evening, nor were\nmatters much mended by the family consultation held shortly afterward\nas to what was to become of Annie. Sir Philip's message was now first\ndelivered to her, as Alfred Brookbank had arrived as his agent, with\noffers of settlement for Mr. Godfrey's approbation.\n\n{754}\n\n\"And is Annie not to see her own children again?\" asked the duchess,\nas she gazed on the speechless, the agonized face of her sister.\n\n\"So says Sir Philip.\"\n\n\"But have you reasoned with him on the subject? Have you protested\nagainst such a monstrous piece of tyranny?\"\n\n\"It were useless, may it please your grace,\" interposed the soft low\ntones of Alfred Brookbank, who was secretly gloating in the agony of\nhis victim. \"It were perfectly useless. Sir Philip's hatred of\npapistry--\"\n\n\"Please to speak with more respect of the Holy Catholic Church, Mr.\nBrookbank,\" interrupted the duchess.\n\n\"I beg pardon; I knew not that your grace--\"\n\n\"It matters not what you knew,\" haughtily rejoined the duchess. \"It\nbehoves every man of common sense, or of common education, to speak\nrespectfully of a faith which for so many centuries has formed the\nreligion not only of the commonalty but of the heroes of the race. The\nnames of Alfred the Great and Charlemagne, of Copernicus and Michael\nAngelo, with countless others, may weigh a little perhaps against the\nopinion of so enlightened an individual as Sir Philip Conway.\"\n\nThe withering sarcasm of tone with which this was uttered made Mr.\nGodfrey bite his lips. He felt at once that he had not lowered her\nmother in Adelaide's estimation by informing her of that mother's\nbecoming a Catholic; and he began to wonder which would be the next\nseceder from rationalistic principle. \"A curse is fallen upon our\nhouse,\" he again muttered between his teeth.\n\nThe conference was necessarily a painful one; but it was with\nindescribable surprise and emotion that the assembled family heard Mr.\nGodfrey propose that Annie should take refuge in the convent in which\ndwelt her friend Euphrasie.\n\n\"Why, papa;\" whispered Hester, \"have you changed your opinion of\nconvents? You used to call them sinks of iniquity. Why do you wish to\nimprison Annie in one?\"\n\n\"Hush, my dear,\" answered her father, in the lowest possible whisper,\n\"all convents are not alike. I happen to know the antecedents of the\nsuperioress and of several of the nuns in this one; they are all\nladies of high birth, and are altogether above suspicion. They are\naustere fanatics, that is all. Annie will take no vows, and there she\nwill see the extent of the folly to which religious enthusiasm lays us\nopen. If a twelvemonth's residence among the poor Clares does not set\nher brain in order, then she is irrecoverably lost to us--we may set\nher down as incurably insane.\"\n\nWhile this little dialogue was going on, Eugene and Adelaide, jointly\nand severally, were urging Annie to make a home with one or other of\nthemselves, each promising to do the utmost to regain for her the\ncustody of her children; but Annie, while she mournfully thanked them\nfor their kindness, decided that, at least till she had taken time for\nreflection, she would abide by her father's advice, that is, provided\nthe sisterhood would consent to receive her.\n\nAfter vainly endeavoring to shake her resolution, the duchess resolved\non accompanying her to the north to see whether suitable arrangements\ncould be made for her comfort.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nTHE JOURNEY--THE CONVENT.\n\nIt was well for Annie that the care of a sister watched over her\nduring that sad journey, for sometimes her mind seemed almost to have\nlost its balance, and she would weep frantically over the loss of her\nlittle ones, as one who would not be comforted; then with a sudden\nrevolution of feeling she would stop, and say, \"Thy will be done, O\nLord,\" and would begin to say her beads, as Eugene had taught her,\nwith most edifying resignation. After awhile the thought of her little\nones would make her weep anew, and again the thought of God would\ncheck her tears.\n\n{755}\n\nThese alternations were for Annie alone, however. Adelaide felt\nunmitigated disgust at the barbarity which could sever a loving mother\nfrom her infants.\n\n\"As if those babes were safer with that bigoted, soft-pated Mrs.\nBedford than with my intellectual, high-minded sister!\" she thought.\nCertainly the duchess's horror of Catholicity had wonderfully abated\nof late. There was little said at first between the sisters on that\nthree days' journey. But once or twice the exclamation on Adelaide's\nlips, \"My mother a Catholic!\" showed which direction her thoughts were\ntaking. Once, when Annie was a little calmer than usual, she suddenly\nasked her: \"What made my mother desire to be a Catholic, Annie?\"\n\n\"The grace of God, as I humbly hope,\" answered her sister.\n\n\"The grace of God! What do you mean by that, Annie?\"\n\n\"I mean the special provision with which God deigns to bless every\nhuman soul that desires it with knowledge and love of himself. Adam\nhad this grace conferred on him at his creation. He lost it, not only\nfor himself, but for us also. But Christ has repurchased it for all\nwho come to him. My mother heard this voice pleading within her for a\nhigher life. She listened and obeyed. This is what theologians call\nco-operation with grace. The grace of God needs man's co-operation to\nbe efficacious, because God will not compel the human will. He desires\nfree service.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" said the duchess, \"all other were a mockery. Nature is\nbound by stern, inevitable law; that is easily seen: but intelligent\nlove must have freedom for its sphere of action, or it ceases to be\nthe love of intelligence; that, too, I comprehend. I thought your\nwords intended to convey some mysterious action of God on the soul not\ngiven to all men.\"\n\n\"All do not correspond with it, by a large majority, I fear,\" said\nAnnie.\n\n\"And think you God speaks to all alike?\" asked Adelaide.\n\n\"Theologians say that a grace corresponded to merits another,\"\nanswered Annie, \"and that one rejected or unused often loses that\ngrace, so slighted. This, at least, we know: God loves us all, and\nplaces at our option higher degrees of spiritual attainment than we\noftentimes profit by.\"\n\n\"God! What is God?\" murmured Adelaide. \"Truly a _Deus absconditus_ for\nman.\"\n\n\"'He who followeth me walketh not in darkness,' said the Man-God,\"\nreplied Annie. \"God was a hidden God for the nations of olden time,\nperhaps; but for us, Adelaide, he is God manifested in the flesh! and\nto as many as receive him gives he power to become 'sons of God.'\"\n\nWhere was Adelaide's sharpness at repartee as of old? She meditated\nnow instead of replying; and Annie solaced her own sorrows by praying\nfor her sister's conversion. It was in something like tranquillity of\nspirit that, she reached the district in which the convent was\nsituated.\n\nThe next day the duchess accompanied her sister to the dwelling of the\nsisterhood. They found it even poorer than they had anticipated. When\nit had been first contemplated, Eugene had handed over a well-filled\npurse to M. Bertolot with strict injunction to, procure everything\nneedful; but Eugene's idea of what was needed differed from that of\nthe superioress. \"We did not take vows of poverty,\" she said, \"to live\nwith every elegance like ladies. The spirit of our holy father, St.\nFrancis, as also that of our beloved mother and foundress, St. Clare,\nrequires the utmost plainness and poverty compatible with existence.\"\nEugene's large offering was refused, and when he on his part refused\nto replace it in his pocket, it was distributed among the sick poor.\n\n{756}\n\nEuphrasie received her friends with open arms, and conducted them to\nthe superioress with love and respect. Many of the sisterhood had now\ngathered together, and even postulants were not wanting. The\nsuperioress greeted the ladies with calm dignity, and entered with\nmuch feeling into the account given to Euphrasie in her presence of\nMrs. Godfrey's conversion and happy death.\n\n\"And am I to understand, dear ladies,\" said the superioress, \"that you\nalso share these blessed dispositions?\"\n\n\"Annie is a Catholic,\" answered the duchess, \"and a persecuted one.\nSir Philip has shut the doors on the mother of his children because\nshe has embraced Catholicity.\"\n\nEuphrasie, by a sudden impulse, rose and knelt by Annie's side;\nkissing her hands and bathing them with her tears. \"Now, God be\npraised for all his mercies!\" she said: \"How shall we welcome you,\ndear martyr, for his sake?\"\n\nAnnie could only reply by returning Euphrasie's caresses and\naffection. She placed her arm round her friend, and compelled her to\nsit by her side.\n\n\"Will you ask the reverend mother to let me stay with you awhile, dear\nEuphrasie?\" she said.\n\n\"What! Here? here in the convent? in this poor place?\" replied\nEuphrasie. \"You who have been, cradled in luxury and reared in\nabundance? You know not what you ask, dear friend; it is impossible.\"\n\nAnnie looked at the superioress; she read more promise there. \"Dear\nreverend mother,\" she said, \"Almighty God has seen how unfit I am as\nyet to train my beloved children in the narrow path of mortification\nand of humiliation, trodden by our Divine Master. He has sent me to\nlearn it of you. Will you accept me as your disciple in Jesus Christ?\nAt least, I can promise you reverence and submission.\"\n\n\"You are welcome, most welcome, my daughter,\" said the superioress,\n\"and may Almighty God, in his own good time, restore your children to\nyou, to be brought up in the faith and love of Christ.\"\n\n\"Thank you, dear mother; and if you and the dear sisters will assist\nme by your prayers, doubtless he will. He has but sent me here to\nschool awhile, that I may be able to teach them rightly. I stand as\nyet but on the threshold of the church; I have looked in and seen her\nglories, but selfish and worldly as I have been from childhood, I\nscarce know how to share in her unworldly triumphs.\"\n\n\"Dear cousin,\" said Euphrasie, \"you must not defame yourself. You were\never kind and generous, and now your humility will surely bring you a\nblessing. We will try to make you happy here.\"\n\n\"Indeed, yes,\" said the superioress, \"it is a great consolation to us\nto receive you. Your heart, so long accustomed to the incredulity of\nthe age, needs rest--such rest as is produced by dwelling on the love\nof Christ for us. After a while it will become for you a necessity to\nreciprocate that love, by pouring yourself out as it were in deeds of\ncharity and kindness for the pure love of him who died for you. Once\naccustomed to converse familiarly with him, you will no longer regard\nhim as divided from yourself, but as one same self with you, so that\nwith St. Paul you may be able to exclaim, '_I_ live now, not _I_, but\nChrist liveth in me.' Yes, my dear daughter, from him you may hope all\nthings for your children as well as for yourself. Detach yourself from\nthis world, seek Christ crucified, that you may repose surely in his\nlove.\"\n\nAdelaide listened and wondered. She looked around at the bare walls,\nthe uncarpeted floor, the plain deal tables, and the common\nrush-chairs. \"Is the rest of the house like this?\" she asked of\nherself: \"and am I to leave Annie here?\"\n\nBegging the superioress to excuse her for an instant, she drew Annie\napart, and urged upon her that it was useless for her to subject\nherself to such privations as these.\n\n{757}\n\n\"Come home with me, dear Annie, I beg of you.\"\n\n\"Nay, sister, think not so meanly of me, as to deem that I cannot\nendure for a few weeks or months, privations which these dear ladies\nsuffer always.\"\n\n\"Oh! they are nuns, you know.\"\n\n\"But that does not alter, their nature, and once, they were in the\nworld, rich, titled, honored. I would learn of them what has given\nthem power thus to trample the world beneath their feet. Leave me for\na while, my sister; if I find the life too hard for me, I will come to\nyou.\"\n\n\"You promise?\"\n\n\"I do, believe me, Adelaide.\"\n\nAnd with this promise Adelaide was obliged to be content. She prepared\nto wend her way homewards. As she rose for that purpose, the\nsuperioress said: \"Your grace will have a solitary journey. May I\nventure to offer you a book to beguile the tedium of the way?\"\nAdelaide smilingly assented, and on getting in her carriage, Euphrasie\nplaced into her hands Avrillon's meditations for every day in Lent.\nAbsorbed at first in her own thoughts, Adelaide, heeded the book but\nlittle: but after a while, to relieve ennui, she began its perusal,\nand was soon astonished at the interest it excited within her breast.\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nOn the morning of Annie and Adelaide's departure for the convent, Mr.\nGodfrey had ordered breakfast for himself in his library, and had\nsummoned Hester to attend him, on the pretext of not feeling well, but\nin reality to avoid a parting scene with his children. Hester, on the\nother hand, dreaded nothing more than they should depart without\nfarewell; she had keenly felt Adelaide's words beside her mother's\ncoffin, but in despite of her efforts could not effect an interview\nwhich should dispel the ill-feeling that oppressed her. Her father's\njealousy of her holding any private intercourse with the rest of the\nfamily on the one hand, and the coldness of Adelaide on the other,\nseemed to present insurmountable obstacles. At length she heard the\ncarriage draw up, and the voices departing; hastily she quitted the\nbreakfast table, and rushed into the hall. The travellers were already\nthere; she approached Annie with tears in her eyes. Annie was too sad\nherself to be angry just then, she imprinted on her sister's forehead\nthe silent kiss her gesture pleaded for; but Adelaide went forward and\nseated herself in the carriage, waving her hand for a general adieu,\nand Hester fell back weeping on her brother's shoulder as the vehicle\ndrove away from the door.\n\n\"O Eugene! I had no hand in this; tell me at least that you believe\nme,\" sobbed the poor girl.\n\n\"I do believe you, and so will Adelaide after a time; take comfort,\nHester.\"\n\n\"I cannot, with them all against me. Oh! who could ever dream our love\nfor each other could melt away to this?\"\n\n\"It is not, melted a way, dear sister, only obscured; it will one day\nreturn warmer and brighter than ever.\"\n\n\"Then you, you will write to me, you will not cast me off?\"\n\n\"Never, never will I cast you off! never cease to love you!\"\n\n\"Then, Eugene, you will help me also; I want to read, to know the\ncause of these unhappy divisions.\"\n\n\"And my father?\"\n\n\"O Eugene! that is the misery my father must not know. Eugene, I love\nmy father; there can be nothing wrong in that, he has only me now. We\ncannot help that; but I must be true to him, I cannot break his heart.\nHe must not know we correspond or that I read your books, or that I am\nthinking on the subjects he hates so much. He need not know it; I am a\nwoman now, I have a right to my {758} freedom. If I conceal my\nthought, it is out of love to him; you know well how it would pain him\nwere he to suspect I read a work that treats on religion.\"\n\n\"Our correspondence must be secret; then?\"\n\n\"I fear it must; at least till my father gets over this miserable\nprejudice. You can write and send to me under cover to Norah, my\nlittle maid. I will send her to you presently for some books, and now\ngood-by, my father will be wanting me. Pray for us both, Eugene.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey was considerably unhinged by the change that had taken\nplace in his family, and he watched Hester closely. She had truly said\nshe was now his last hope. That she was dejected at her mother's death\ncould not surprise him or any one, but that her sprightliness had\naltogether departed, that her energy was depressed, her color faded,\nand her appetite gone, were sources of great anxiety. Again he took\nher to Yorkshire, to endeavor to reinspire her with interest in the\npromotion of the \"March of Intellect.\"\n\nHester did not feel justified in withdrawing her interest or exertions\nfrom the institutions which she had raised and fostered; but it must\nbe confessed that these institutions were gradually assuming the\ncharacter of mere money-making factories. Mr. Godfrey, dissatisfied\nwith certain losses, had engaged a man of business to overlook the\nwhole concern, and in addition to a stipulated sum, this person was to\nreceive a certain percentage of the profits. This rendered him\nparticularly sharp-sighted as to doing matters economically; that is,\nwith the fewest number of hands, at the lowest rate of wages, and\noftentimes employing children in lieu of adults.\n\n\"This is altogether, foreign to our first idea,\" said Hester, \"and I\ndo not approve of it at all.\"\n\n\"It cannot be helped, my dear; no enterprise that will not pay can be\nproceeded with in the long run.\"\n\n\"But these children shut up in the close rooms at eight or ten years\nof age, for such long hours! it will numb every faculty they possess.\"\n\n\"If their parents are willing to permit it, I do not see what we have\nto do with it.\"\n\n\"O father! ignorant people often sell their children, without knowing\nthe harm they do; but this cannot be the way in which the world is to\nimprove.\"\n\n\"You were not satisfied with the results of your new plan, which did\nnot make money. I have put the matter into Mr. Fisher's hands for a\nwhile, because, I know that in his hands, if money is to be made, it\nwill be made: his talent for business is unrivalled.\"\n\n\"Money is not the principle of progression.\"\n\n\"Nothing can be done without it, at any rate.\"\n\nThese discussions annoyed Mr. Godfrey the more because he felt the\ninconsistency between the past idea and the present practice. On the\nother hand, Hester was not in possession of the principle she was\nseeking; that was acknowledged with regret on her part, though she by\nno means gave up the search, and still less rested contented with the\ninferior motive of placing all development, all future improvement on\nthe mere basis of money-making.\n\nAmong Mr. Godfrey's friends, one of the most intimate, because the\nmost scientific after the fashion of this world's science, was a Mr.\nSpencer--a gentleman whose works had already acquired for him a great\nshare of reputation, and who was gradually acquiring great influence\nover Mr. Godfrey. He was a man of about five-and-thirty years of age,\nbeing some twelve years older than our Hester, whom he greatly\nadmired, notwithstanding that he found her mind a little difficult to\nunderstand. Perhaps he liked her the better that she puzzled him, that\nshe took different views from him. Certain it is that he haunted her\nsociety whenever he could find an excuse, and Mr. Godfrey seemed\nparticularly well pleased to find them together, as he {759} hoped\nthat interviews with such a learned man would dissipate any tendency\nto religion, especially the Catholic religion, that Hester might be\nfostering in consequence of the proclivities of her mother and of the\nrest of the family in that direction.\n\n. . . . .\n\n'Twas autumn, a walk through the woods had brought the trio together,\nand together they returned to the house; the gusty and fitful wind\nscattering in their path the tinted leaves that fell like showers from\nthe trees beneath which they were passing. Wild clouds were hurrying\nthrough space, as if summoned suddenly to assist at some tempestuous\ncommotion, and though many miles distant was the sea, the roar of\nwaves was heard beating on the far-off shore; every sign betokened\nthat a storm was at hand. The pedestrians hurried to the house, and\nscarcely had they reached it, than impulsively they went to the window\nto gaze in mute amazement at the scene. A sudden wind was uprooting\ntrees, unroofing houses, and carrying off all things before it. An old\nbarn long doomed to be pulled down, which was but awaiting hands to\nperform the work, suddenly reeled like a drunken man, and in a few\nmoments more fell to the ground with a great crash. The servant girls\nscreamed in the hall, \"the men went in for shelter, they must be\ncrushed to death!\" The door was opened that the serving-men might rush\nto the rescue, but the wind swept like a tornado through the hall,\ntiles were rattling from the house-top, bricks tumbling from the\nchimneys. To leave the house was impossible, none could stand against\nsuch a blast. A large boarded roof that was being prepared by the\ncarpenters was carried off the scaffold, and after being for some time\nbalanced in the air as if it were a paper kite, fell at length with a\nloud splash into the lake some quarter of a mile distant from the spot\nwhence it was first uplifted. The scene was at once terrific and\nsublime, and but for the screams and sobs of the girls, who feared to\nhave some father, brother, or friend buried beneath the fallen\nbuilding, Hester could have enjoyed the spectacle; but she was\noccupied in endeavoring to soothe the panic-stricken tremblers, and\nfor consolation what could she say? She could but stand by and\nsympathize, and utter words of hope, meaningless because unfelt. It\nwas a relief when the storm abated to find that all the men had been\nable to quit the building at the first creaking of the rafters, and by\ncrawling on all fours had reached a place where they lay safely till\nthe storm had passed--all save one, and he was protected by the manner\nin which the beams fell over him, they being prevented from falling\nperpendicularly by some obstacles, and formed a sloping defensive\nshelter for the young man who happened to find himself in that\nparticular corner, from which, when the storm abated, he was\nextricated by his companions, with no other injury suffered than the\nalarm endured for several hours; and in this alarm he had many\nsharers, for few of the neighbours could rest in peace until he was\ndrawn forth unhurt.\n\nA feeling of relief pervaded the party as with closed shutters, drawn\ncurtains, and every appurtenance of comfort, they drew round the\nbright coal fire, which shed a glowing, cheering warmth throughout the\napartment--while the rain which had succeeded to this storm of wind\nwas pattering against the windows, enhancing the comfort within by a\nsense of dreariness without.\n\n\"How remorseless is nature!\" said Mr. Spence, as at length the silence\nwhich had pervaded the three friends became almost painful; \"decay,\nchange, transition, pain, with transient gleams of beauty, as if to\nrender the surrounding gloom more painful still, and no escape: how\nremorseless is nature!\"\n\n\"All things have their bright side, I believe,\" she said, \"even so\nterrible a storm as to-day's. It is good to feel a grand sensation\nsometimes, it stirs up the very depths of one's being.\"\n\n{760}\n\n\"How would it have been if those men had been crushed to death, or\nworse, hopelessly maimed for life?\"\n\n\"That did not happen. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.\"\n\n\"But similar events often do happen. The battle-field, the pestilence,\nman's evil passions, or the remorseless sea tossing man's feeble bark\nin sport against the rocks, cause many a grand sensation that is not\ngood. See in that newly settled swamp the settler's wife surprised\namid her household drudgeries with a startling shriek, and, hurrying\nto the water's edge, to find a rattlesnake coiled round her prattler's\nleg, inflicting the painful sting that causes the innocent child to\nexpire in torture: do you call that good?\"\n\n\"It does not follow that there is no good because we see it not! The\ndesign of the creation may involve a hidden good to be evolved out of\nwhat seems evil.\"\n\n\"And meantime the longer we pursue our researches, the more we become\nconvinced that an all-pervading inexorable law governs events by\nnecessary connection; that there is no resisting the force of this\nlaw, no disarming it. All that we can do is to study it, and take what\ncomfort we can individually by an intelligent application of it to\nourselves.\"\n\n\"And our neighbor's happiness is to tell for nothing?\"\n\n\"You will do no good by forcing any system on men for which they are\nnot prepared,\" said Mr. Spence. \"Ideas remain inoperative when the\ncivilization or intelligence to which it is addressed is unequal to\nits realization; practice does not depend on theories, but on\ndevelopment, on individual assimilation of the principles, if I may be\npermitted to use this word. For instance, moral theories are ever the\nsame. The Hindoo, the Chinaman, the follower of Zoroaster and the\ntranscribers of the precepts of Menu, declare with the Jew and the\nChristian, that the law is to be honest, virtuous, heedful of others'\npleasure or good, to seek justice, love mercy, reverence age, and\nsubmit to all lawful authority, etc.--each precept requiring a willing\nobedience; yet where are the fruits to be found?\"\n\n\"But do men believe these precepts to be the rule of right?\"\n\n\"Theoretically they are not disputed, but practically man is made by\nthe external objects that surround him. Give society a system below\nits advancement, it rises superior to it; give it one above it, it\ndoes not come up to it. This is observable in nations. Among the lower\norder of French Catholics there is less of bigotry and civilization,\nwith more of the real charity enjoined by religion, than among the\nlower order of Scotch Protestants, despite the theory of their\ntheology.   [Footnote 206] Again, the Swedes and the inhabitants of\nsome of the Swiss Cantons are less civilized than the French, and\ntherefore it avails them little that they three centuries ago adopted\na creed to which the force of habit and the influence of tradition now\noblige them to cling. Whoever has travelled in these countries will\nsee how little the inhabitants have benefited by their religion, while\nin France you will see an illiberal religion accompanied by liberal\nviews, and a creed full of superstitions professed by a people among\nwhom superstition is comparatively rare.\"  [Footnote 206]\n\n  [Footnote 206: See Buckle's Civilization in England.  Vol i. pages\n  191-193, from which above is extracted. (There are two references\n  and only one footnote on this page.--Transcriber)]\n\n\"That would rather go to prove Catholicity to be better than\nProtestanism,\" said Hester; \"at least, if liberal views and tolerant\nactions be a proof of the advancement of society.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey bit his lips, and Mr. Spence, suddenly mindful of certain\nproceedings in his friend's family not exactly of the tolerative\ndescription, hastily essayed to cover his mistake:\n\n\"Practically,\" he said, \"men's religious demonstrations are a thing\napart from their theory, and are governed by the character of\nindividual mental development, rather than (what they are assumed to\nbe) a power governing development.\"\n\n{761}\n\n\"I think that proposition illogical. If religion acts at all, it must\nact according to its character as a power. Granting that with many it\nis a dead letter, without any action, yet with those it does\ninfluence, its action must be the legitimate result of its doctrine;\nand if the civilization resulting from Catholicity is superior, is not\nthat the superior agency?\"\n\n\"You forget how the guardians of the Catholic faith have ever\npersecuted science; that proves them intolerant.\"\n\n\"Not necessarily. The guardians of a faith, amid a crude, undeveloped\npeople, may well be jealous of novel notions, dispersed out of their\nconnexion amid an unthinking, unreflecting populace. If the object is\nto raise people from the phase of their present existence to a higher\nphase, our late experiments have shown that it needs caution in\ndisturbing present moral influences. The mass are not philosophers;\nthey will not travel the whole round of a series to trace the whole\nchain of what you call the necessary connection. Were I to begin my\nexperiment again I should take the highest motive then active on the\nmind, and try to build higher on that. The first results of science\nare usually destructive, and therefore not fit for the masses;\nsomething must be built up again ere we present it to them. As it is,\nthese masses seem only to amuse themselves by hurling the stones of\nthe ruined theory at the world and at each other, destroying much, but\nadvancing nothing good.\"\n\n\"But philosophy must not be controlled. Science must not be impeded in\nits onward march; the hopes of ultimate civilization lie in free\ninvestigation. The evil is transient--the good permanent.\"\n\n\"Yet you admit that a system may be in advance of a people?\"\n\n\"Yes, and forerunners are martyrs, sacrificed to the ignorance, to the\ninaptitude of the age in which they live; yet there is a sort of\nnecessity for their existence, the law for which is not as yet\ndiscovered. Future ages will probably be more enlightened on this\nhead. All that we know is, that there is a law for all evolutions, a\npractical principle--if we could only trace it--to which every\naction, every development may be referred. Statistical tables show us\nthat even crime follows method. In a given number of people in a given\nstate of civilization there will be a certain percentage of murders, a\ncertain percentage of thefts, robberies, and the like; nay, a certain\naverage number of suicides. You may verify these facts by comparing\nthe statistical tables of large cities such as London and Paris,\n[Footnote 207] for a definite series of years.\n\n  [Footnote 207: See Buckle's Civilization in England. Vol. i. page 17\n  _et seq._ ]\n\n\"And through what agency is this effected?\" asked Hester, in\namazement.\n\n\"Nay, that I can scarcely answer save in general terms. The cause of\nlaw, the cause of evolution, the cause of everything is utterly\nunknown. The most we can do is to observe phenomena, to class them,\nand then note the sequences which form necessary connection together;\nin this way we discover the law, but beyond that science can affirm\nnothing. The cause we can know nothing, and affirm nothing of, save\nits bare existence as the incomprehensible cause of all phenomena. The\nsole possible predication is merely that he, or more properly it, is.\"\n\n\"Why, surely the cause is God,\" said Hester, who, new as she was to a\npersonal recognition of God's rights to her own devotion, had never\ndreamed of doubting, that \"absolute intelligence\" ruled \"as cause.\"\n\n\"God,\" said Mr. Spence, \"is too indefined a term for science, or\nrather there are ideas connected with the term which we cannot\nscientifically apply to the unknowable. We cannot affirm of this\nunknowable that he is either matter or mind; because this would be to\ndegrade him, by representing him in terms of our finite and human\nconceptions. Matter and mind are in fact but phenomena of which the\nunknowable is the unknown cause. {762} He is of a far higher nature\nthan matter or mind, for he is the common cause of both. Of this\nnature we can form no idea whatever. We cannot attribute to the\nunknowable _reason_; since that would represent him as finite, for all\nreasoning is limitation. We cannot affirm of him either justice or\nmercy; because these are words borrowed from the human, and to express\nthe unknown in such terms is anthropomorphism and blasphemy. Such a\nreligion is but one grade higher than the ancient theologies that\nrepresent God with hands and feet and other human members.\"\n\n\"Stay,\" said Hester, \"I cannot admit all your assumptions. That the\ncause is the great I Am, of whose essential being we know nothing, is\ndoubtless true, as also that finitude cannot comprehend infinitude:\nbut that it is wrong or blasphemous to speak of him in the language of\nearth, I cannot see. We know the expression is inadequate, that it is\nmetaphorical, an application of the less to signify the greater, but\nit is the only voice we have, and the degree of worship depends on the\nspirit of reverence which prompts the utterance, as the freedom from\nidolatry must depend on the spirit of appreciative love and submission\nwith which that worship is offered.\n\n\"But,\" said Mr. Spence, \"all theologies set out with the great truth,\nthat the deity is incomprehensible. But they immediately contradict\nand stultify themselves by proceeding to assign him attributes. In\nthis way all religions become suicidal as well as irreligious. The\nonly true religion is to worship God as the unknown and forever\nunknowable. True religion and science agree in this, that the cause of\nall phenomena is the unknown. Science, in affirming the cause to be\nmaterial or mental, becomes unscientific, just as religion, by\npretending to reveal his nature or attributes, becomes irreligious.\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" said Hester, \"I think you are begging the question.\nBecause we know nothing of the interior being of God, it does not\nfollow that we may not discover the relationships which he wishes to\nestablish between himself and ourselves, and to the manifestations of\nthese relationships we may in all reverence and with consistency\nassign attributes. Within himself God is the great I Am, unknown and\nunknowable to us. Reason, justice, mercy, probably find there, no\nexercise. Their exercise is outside in creation; for all creation is\noutside God, an expression of his power, as of every other attribute\njustly assigned him. Creation itself is limited: man's expression more\nso yet: but we do not therefore believe in the limitation of the\ndeity. We cannot conceive infinity, still less express it; still the\nidea exists, and our minds invest the deity with it in reverential\nawe, not in blasphemy.\"\n\n\"You have given the modern theology assuming God to be a spirit and a\ncreative spirit; and assuming also that the creation is a work of his\ndesign. You do not perceive that you make God the author of evil as\nwell as good, and that you assume matter was created. Now, the\neternity of matter would be no greater enigma than the eternity of\nmind; and we do not know whether the cause be 'matter or mind.' It is\nunknown, as it is also unknowable.\"\n\n\"Why this is sheer Atheism,\" said the startled Hester.\n\n\"Not so! This doctrine is neither Atheism nor Theism. It is merely the\nhighest and last formula, at once, of science and religion, ceasing to\nrepresent the unknowable in any conceptions of human thought, and thus\nleaving free scope for worship, which (worship) is not assertion, but\nhumility and transcendent wonder.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Hester; \"religion, as far as I can make it out, consists\nin acknowledging the relationships which God has established: first,\nbetween himself and man, and secondly, between man and man. Religion,\nif true, is a manifestation or revelation if not of God's essential\nnature, yet of his will {763} in man's regard. The discrepancies\nbetween our conceptions of what is evil and evil itself may explain\nyour difficulty about God being the author of evil. It may be that\nmere change, mere transition, is not evil, even when accompanied by\nsome pain. I read yesterday that the only real evil was, a voluntary\nact on the part of a rational creature, performed contrary to the\nknown will of God.\"\n\n\"That is so evidently a theological subtlety,\" said Mr. Spence,\n\"science deigns it no reply.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said Hester, \"your last and highest formula, which refuses\nto represent the unknowable in any conception of human thought, bows\ndown in worship and transcendent wonder to the 'cause' which makes\nmurder, suicide, and every species of human wickedness result from 'A\nLaw'!\n\n\"Because we believe that ultimately that law will evolve good. It\nappears a fact now thoroughly established, that all the organisms we\nare acquainted with, have been evolved by a gradual process rather\nthan produced by a series of special creations, as has been so long\nthe theory. And the evolution tends upward; that is, to produce new\nand more complicated organisms as time speeds on. This must in the end\nevolve higher good.\"\n\n\"Do you mean that the lesser is ever producing the greater; and that\nin the aggregation of insentient matter life is evolved?\"\n\n\"Does not the infant grow into the man by the aggregation of\ninsentient matter assimilated into his being in the shape of food?\"\n\n\"Yes, but life was there already; character and power, expansion and\ndevelopment it receives, but no new function.\"\n\n\"That is not so certain; or rather it is certain that evolution\nconstantly manifests changes, which can only be accounted for on the\nground of a great universal law, a law ever producing diversity of\nphenomena in unity of operation.\"\n\n\"But I do not see that it explains anything of the ultimate cause.\"\n\n\"Have I not already said that the cause is unknown and unknowable?\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nMODERN PHILOSOPHY,--\nTHE SOUL WITHOUT GOD.\n\n  Eternity and space! Remorseless law!\n    Without a voice or tone of love to man,\n  Without a sign to soften into awe\n    The terrors of necessity's dark plan.\n      Oh! what a wail of dark despair\n      Rent the unblest, unhallowed air,\n  As through the spheres the last dark utterance ran--\n  There is no God! no deity for man!\n  The glowing thoughts that thrill man's frame,\n  And bid him glorious kindred claim.\n  With all of brilliancy divine\n  That through the dazzling circles shine;\n  The thoughts unspeakable that swell\n    The heaving breast to ecstasy,\n  And cast their sweet and mystic spell\n    Until, attuned to harmony,\n  The winged soul is borne throughout all space\n  To read the symbols of celestial grace;\n  Tracing the wondrous lore from sky to sky,\n  Inflamed by consciousness of Deity\n  Though veiled, yet present still, and still\n  \"Educing good from seeming ill\"--\n  That thought is quenched in deepest night!\n  Vanished each ray of holy light!\n  The winged soul, all tempest-tost,\n    Rushes in vain throughout all space;\n  Amid dark waves of horror lost\n    No sign appears, her course to trace\n  In speechless agony, alone,\n      Finding rest--never!\n  The wearied spirit hurries on\n      Wandering forever!\n  All, all is lost! a dark despair\n  Fills up the void, the tainted air.\n  A Upas tree with poisoning shade\n  Monopolizes every glade;\n  And shadows flit and utter: \"Woe!\n  Remorseless nature rules below.\"\n\n  . . . . . .\n\n  Throughout all space-no rest--\n        No ray\n  By which the human heart is blest;\n        No day\n  Breaks th' interminable gloom\n        Around--\n  A foul, dark, loathsome tomb!\n        A burial ground!\n          Without a star\n        To light th' abyss!\n          Stern, elemental war!\n            No bliss!\n\n  The evolution of a vast decay:\n  Its beauty transient, as the fleeting ray\n  That gilds the clouds on fitful April's day.\n  Eternity! Immensity!\n  All unillumined lie,\n  No trace of high design\n  Doth through their glimpses shine:\n    Destruction and decay\n    Repeated day by day--\n  Music forgets to joy the earth,\n  Beauty to give the flowerets birth,\n  Banished all providence, banished for ever--\n  What from the fainting heart sorrow shall sever?\n{764}\n  One charnel-house is the all-teeming earth;\n  That Fetid Vapor rising sickly bright\n  To which foul rottenness is giving birth,\n  Is now man's _only_ source of mental light!\n  And shadows flit around and utter, \"Woe!\n  Remorseless nature rules _Alone_ below!\"\n\n  . . . . . .\n\nSuch were our heroine's reflections.\n\nPoor Hester! With no settled principle, with no defined religion, it\nwas little wonder that the gloomy speculations of a conceited science\nshould overpower her imagination, and that she should become\nmelancholy and dispirited. Indeed, it became evident that the false\nphilosophies, the exposition of which she was constantly called upon\nto hear, and from which her heart recoiled, even when she could find\nno reply to its specious reasonings, were preying on her health, and\nthe gentleman who had acted as medical attendant to Mrs. Godfrey, now\nwarned her father that Hester must be looked to, unless he would see\nher also fall into despondency.\n\nNot that Hester believed in a theory which contradicted her instincts,\nannihilated for her the use of a faculty. No; but the very enunciation\nof such dogmas oppressed her, seemed to spread a snare for her, raised\ndoubts of disturbance, at the very moment she was seeking to gain from\nworks her brother had lent her the peace of mind she so much needed.\nIn spite of herself her mind recurred to the theory which tormented\nher, and which she saw was favored by her father. \"And yet,\" mused she\nin sadness, \"can high ideas spring from the evolutions of matter? Is\nmatter creative? This panting after justice that I feel, the love of\norder, beauty, moral harmony, for which so willingly I'd give my ease,\nmy leisure, my exertions, nay, to forward the permanency of which I\nshould esteem my life well bestowed, does that proceed from blind\nnecessity, from evolution of organic life, itself unconscious of the\nboon conferred? Impossible! Idea is as real as is the brain: and there\nwere mighty minds in days of old, who left examples men have not yet\nequalled. He who died upon the cross, and left twelve laboring\nunlettered men to propagate his most unselfish lore, was he evolved\nfrom matter's slow progression? And the men who roused the souls and\nwaked the intellects of poverty, who preached the gospel to those\nlowly ones who live a life of toil and weariness, who kindled thoughts\nthat raised them high above the tyrant's might to claim their heirship\nas the sons of God, inheritors of freedom, justice, truth, which\nnaught save their own act can rob them of, were they evolved from\nrottenness? And if they were, why since that time, two thousand years\nago, have there no nobler souls than these appeared, who could show\nfiner instincts, higher views? Why, amid the luxury of Roman proud\npatrician life, did there spring up so suddenly a class who conquered\nby defeat, and laid foundations among the lowly of the earth cemented\nby their blood, that to this day proclaim their origin to be something\ndifferent from the world's natural influences--a class whose leaders\nsought renunciation rather than gratification of the senses; who wore\nthe chains themselves to free the slave, faced death to solace the\nplague-stricken, and abjured riches to feed the hungry with their\nstores? Why, among this class alone of all the earth's various\nclasses, is woman honored, and protected alike in her virginity, her\nmaternity, and her widowhood? Why, here alone, are we taught passion\nis to subject itself to the great idea of good, and why here alone is\nfound that power is given to act on the idea?--that hundreds and\nthousands borne above this earth by that idea, have lived a life such\nas the poets deem belongs to angels only, justice and truth their path\nillumining, and love divine inspired by heaven (so deemed by them at\nleast) infusing love of all humanity, to bear them nobly through the\nworld's rebuffs and contradictions, toil and want? That so empowered,\nby no exterior means, they walk superior to earthly types, to earthly\ninfluence, erect {765} as sons of God, though meanly clad; their\nsorrow only, that amidst this earth good does not reign supreme, that\npassion's sway so oft usurps that power to quell high thoughts and\nsink their brethren's souls to misery. No! no! it cannot be that all\nthose glorious acts of heroism, which bore witness to a higher\nexistence than that lived by the majority of men, an existence which\nrealized that truth and love could bring down heaven to dwell upon the\nearth, amid all untoward exterior appliances, that a power exists\nindependently of exterior surroundings, a happiness independently of\nmaterialisms--it cannot be that those acts were evolved from the\npolluted state of society in which they were performed, but which they\ntended to amend, and to guide into a new channel. I do believe in\njustice, truth, and love, as motive powers, irrespectively of selfish\ngratification to myself. I do believe in a state of being in which\nthey reign; and as I am not a creator, I must believe in a higher\nideal of this justice, truth, and love, than the one in my own mind,\nas also that from that higher ideal my own is derived, for the greater\ncannot derive from the less: nor can a newly formed organism, whether\nevolved or created, originate.\"\n\nThus mused Hester as she pondered over the lives of the saints which\nEugene had sent her, and as she read that book of books--the gospel.\nYet she dared not confess even to herself the impression she received.\nHer father! that source of dread was ever in her thought.\n\nMeantime that father was uneasy at the evident disturbance in Hester's\nmind. Once or twice he had observed a light in her room at late hours\nof the night, and yielding to his uneasiness he had softly turned the\nhandle and opened the door; books were on the table, but the light was\nvery low, and Hester! could he believe his eyes? Hester was on her\nknees, so absorbed as neither to perceive his entrance nor exit. He\nclosed the door as silently as he had opened it, and turned to think.\nWhat did this mean? Verily, wonders were heaped upon him! What should\nhe do? That very day Mr. Spence had proposed for Hester's hand,\nbecause of her supposed freedom from superstition, What was to be\ndone?\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nA CHANGE OF SCENE.\nTHE SISTERS.\n\nAdelaide was wondrously desolate on her return home. Her noble\nmansion, rcplete with elegance, what was it worth to her now? The\nfamed Pantheon, for which a splendid gallery had been built, she never\nentered. The thought of it seemed to sicken her. Company wearied her,\nsolitude distracted her. Miss Fairfield, the daughter of a decayed\nnoble family, who acted as humble companion to her grace, was quite at\na loss. What could be the matter with the lady? The poor humble lady\ncompanion did her best, her efforts were altogether unheeded. The\nduchess remained for the most part plunged in a profound reverie.\n\nAdelaide was reviewing the past; comparing characters; examining\nprinciples. She had not loved the duke, but none the less his death\nhad proved a loss to her. Rich as she was, powerful as she was, she\nwas neither so rich nor so powerful as she had been while he lived.\nBut there was a bitterer feeling far than this. It was, that she had\nnever been an object of love to him, or to any one. She had coveted\nhonor, power, wealth. She had these; but there were times when she\nwould have given them all for the consciousness of having been loved\nas Ellen had been. She was jealous of the affections now laid in the\ngrave, and would ask herself whether, had she been the one whom the\nduke had seen first, had they met ere his affections were engrossed,\nwould he have loved her as he had loved the injured one? \"I had youth,\nbeauty, and intellect,\" thought she; \"why should he not have loved me\nas he did that orphan girl?\" {766} Strange that these thoughts should\ncome upon her now; but only now had she compelled herself to\nacknowledge the great depth of feeling as well as the power of\nintellect which the duke had possessed.\n\nUntil she had read the mystery of the \"Passion\" in Avrillon, she had\nnot understood the profound heavings of a contrite heart, which she\nhad \"mocked at\" when he lay dying. Her eyes were beginning to open\nnow; the world to wear a new aspect, although as yet a cloudy mist\nhovered over her higher visions; for she understood not the yearning\nof her own heart.\n\nShe was in this softened mood when she received a letter from her\nfather. Six months had elapsed since her mother's death, and Mr.\nGodfrey complained that he could not yet rouse Hester to become\nanything like her usual self. He had taken her to Yorkshire, but she\nno longer cared to interest herself in \"progression;\" she had been\ndisgusted at some scenes of immorality, and had voted that\nintellectual improvement without the observance of the moral law was a\nfailure. \"In fact,\" said Mr. Godfrey, \"she is absorbed in discovering\na 'new principle,' and more than once I have found her on her knees,\nbathed in tears. What can this mean? Has she also been tampered with?\nI am uneasy: I am coming next week to pay you a visit, and shall bring\nher with me. Help me to rouse her from her melancholy, and above all\nto banish fanaticism, if it is that disease which has taken hold of\nher.\"\n\nAdelaide was not altogether reconciled to Hester, in spite of Eugene's\nexplanation; but the moment that she realized from this letter that a\nrestraint was likely to be put upon her sister's freedom of thought,\nthe images of her mother and Annie rose before her, and she determined\nto use such influence as she could to prevent \"persecution.\" \"It is\nbut a mistaken method after all,\" pondered she, \"persecution can only\ntend to engender obstinacy, and rouse the pride of our natures. If\nHester has any tendency to Catholicity, it can only be combated by\nreason, by showing its absurdity. My father will have to bring out his\nlearned friends, and we will have the arguments of both sides plainly\npropounded. It will be an excitement, if nothing else. What was it\nthat disgusted Hester with her 'march of intellect' scheme? She is not\nfickle-minded naturally; there is something fermenting in her mind\nwhich must be worked out. I am curious to see the termination; and if\nHester makes a friend of me, she shall have freedom to think, and\nfreedom too to act according to her conscience. There shall be no more\npersecution in the family.\"\n\nAh! Adelaide, you have learnt a lesson then from sorrow; it was not\nthus the proud young duchess reasoned when at the zenith of her power.\n\nAdelaide received her visitor most kindly, and soon made Hester feel\nat home, though there was a sedateness, almost a melancholy, about\nher, quite foreign to her previous deportment. Mr. Godfrey fidgeted\nconcerning her in a manner quite unusual with him, and seemed to make\nit his principal occupation to provide her with interest and\namusement.\n\nOne morning, to the surprise of the sisters, as they were sitting\ntogether Mr. Godfrey entered, accompanied by the rector and his lady.\nAdelaide had certainly done the indispensable before, in receiving and\nreturning a formal call with these parties, but nothing like intimacy\nhad existed. Adelaide was so rarely at church, that the reverend\ndoctor and lady did not feel encouraged to push themselves into her\nsociety. However, Mr. Godfrey now insinuated that his youngest\ndaughter had taken a religious turn, and that he hoped from the\ndoctor's reputation for learning that he would be able to give that\nturn a right direction, since unfortunately some developments in his\nfamily in religions matters had not been satisfactory.\n\n{767}\n\nDr. Lowell had looked somewhat askance on hearing this, as Mr.\nGodfrey's latitudinarian opinions and Eugene's Catholicity were both\npretty well known, and had immediately enquired if Hester were a\nCatholic also. On receiving a decided negative he complied, though\nwith some hesitation of manner. Controversy was not to the reverend\ngentleman's taste, and but that his wife offered to accompany him, and\ndo her share of the talking, he would probably have backed out; but\nthe lady possessing at once more earnestness of character and more\nconfidence in her power of suasion than her husband, was anxious not\nto lose this opportunity of setting forth the value of Protestantism,\nand thus preserving Miss Hester Godfrey from following the pernicious\nexamples set by Eugene and Lady Conway.\n\nWith these dispositions Dr. and Mrs. Lowell were ushered into the\npresence of the duchess and her sister, not altogether at ease at\nfinding themselves in such aristocratic society. Adelaide received\nthem with her usual quiet dignity, and turned the conversation to\nflowers, paintings, sculpture, literature, everything, in fact, save\nthe topic which they came to discuss. At length, turning to Mr.\nGodfrey, she asked if he had introduced Dr. Lowell to the Pantheon.\n\n\"No, indeed,\" said Mr. Godfrey, laughing, \"the doctor is more anxious\nabout another subject just now; he is desirous of restoring his\nchurch, which has fallen out of repair.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Adelaide, \"then I must have the pleasure of assisting\nhim,\" and she placed a well-filled purse before the doctor.\n\n\"Your grace is very good;\" said the reverend gentleman. But Adelaide\nhad risen to seek a volume of engravings on church architecture, which\nshe placed in the lady's hand, telling her, as she presented it, that\nshe presumed it would interest her, and might give her a hint or two\nto the style of embellishment suitable.\n\nThe doctor now took courage. \"I am glad to see your grace so much\ninterested in our church,\" he said. \"I feared--\" but here he stopped.\nAdelaide waited, perhaps a little maliciously, for the conclusion of\nthe sentence. but it came not.\n\n\"May I ask what you fear, Dr. Lowell?\" she said.\n\nBut as the answer did not seem quite ready, the lady of the reverend\ngentleman took up the word. \"Your grace will pardon us,\" she said,\n\"but as we have so seldom the pleasure of seeing you at church, the\ndoctor feared that its reparation would not interest you so much as\nyour kind acts now prove that it does.\"\n\nAdelaide bowed, but replied simply by turning to an engraving. \"I\nthink it was in this style our church was originally built,\" she said;\n\"do you propose to restore it in any way similar to the primitive\nidea?\"\n\n\"I think not,\" said the doctor, \"we only intend thoroughly to repair\nand cleanse it, unless, indeed, your grace desires your own pew\naltered.\"\n\n\"Oh! I will leave that matter to Miss Fairfield, she goes to church\nevery Sunday, I believe, and I wish she should be made as comfortable\nas possible. If you will be kind enough to consult with her in this\nmatter, I will agree to any arrangement she may make.\" And the duchess\nrang the bell; to request the attendance of the lady named.\n\n\"But,\" said the doctor, unwilling to lose the opportunity that seemed\nnow to open, \"I cannot believe that one so kind, so considerate, can\nbe indifferent to matters of religion.\"\n\nBy this time Adelaide was amused, so she answered with a quiet smile:\n\"It does not follow that one is indifferent to religion, because one\ndoes not consult the statute-book to find it. Great as is my reverence\nfor English kings, queens, parliaments and prime-ministers, it is not\nto them I should go to learn religion.\"\n\n{768}\n\nThe rector stared; his wife was equally confounded. The latter spoke\nfirst. \"It is to church we were inviting you grace, to hear the word\nof God.\"\n\n\"The word of the preacher you mean, expounding what is termed the word\nof God, according to act of Parliament, and varying according as Henry\nVIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, James, William, Anne, or the Georges\nhave dictated. You must excuse me, Dr. Lowell, I am a loyal subject,\nand as such duly uphold church and state, and you will ever find me\nwilling to assist your wishes; but to take my religion by act of\nparliament home to my heart, to regulate my private motives, and unite\nmy being to God, is quite another affair. Ah! in good time, here comes\nMiss Fairfield. My dear Lucy,\" continued the duchess, \"Dr. Lowell\nwishes the advantage of your good taste in rearranging his church; I\ngive you _carte blanche_ to act in my name on the subject. I must also\nbeg your kind offices in entertaining him and his lady this morning.\nThey will like to visit the hot-houses, the conservatories, the\ngardens, perhaps, also the picture gallery and the hall of sculpture.\nDr. Lowell, Mrs. Lowell, I hope at my return from my drive I shall\nstill find you here; you will favor me with your company to dinner.\"\n\nAdelaide swept from the room like a queen who had issued commands none\ndared to gainsay, carrying off Hester with her.\n\nMr. Godfrey accompanied the rector and his lady on their tour through\nthe house, but neither he nor anyone of the parties made the slightest\nallusion to Adelaide's remarks respecting the state religion; nor was\nthe subject ever broached by them in her presence again. The dinner\npassed off pleasantly enough, and in the evening the carriage of the\nduchess conveyed the married pair to their homes, they feeling\nthemselves honored by the gracious reception which on the whole they\nhad experienced.\n\nMr. Godfrey could not but perceive from this attempt that it would be\nuseless for him to attempt giving any direction to a religious\nmovement, should such be the subject that occupied his daughter's\nmind; though in truth she was habitually so silent now, it was\ndifficult for him to discover what did interest her. Suddenly he took\nit into his head he would like to go to London, and he asked Adelaide\nif she would not open her town house, and, go too.\n\n\"Certainly, if you wish it, father. It might amuse Hester also, for as\nyet Hester has never gone through the campaign of a London season.\"\n\nBut on their arrival in town Hester did not seem in any way eager to\nlaunch forth into the great world of fashion; its frivolities\ndisgusted her, some of the fashions shocked her, particularly the ball\ndresses of some of her young compeers. She could not reconcile her\nnative modesty to do the like, and was soon voted a prude by the\nexclusives of _bon ton_. However, as she made no effort to shine, and\nhad \"no success\" in attracting the attentions of the gentlemen, she\nwas soon forgiven and most times overlooked.\n\nBut this latter fact she did not even perceive; she was living within\nherself for the most part just now, and looking for a principle when\nshe took a glance outside. It was not perhaps at Mayfair, among the\nsons and daughters of dissipation, that she might expect to find it.\nThe only thing that was remarkable about her was her propensity to\ntake a walk before breakfast; this in London was unusual, and but that\nthe duchess imperiously forbade her household to comment on the\nsubject, and jealously contrived to conceal the matter from Mr.\nGodfrey, threatening dismissal to anyone who spoke to him about it, it\nwould have been a never-ending topic of discussion. Hester was\naccompanied in these walks by her little maid, Norah, but Norah could\nnever be brought to tell where they had been. \"Sure 'twas sometimes\nthis way and sometimes that, and how should she know the names of all\nthose fine London streets?\"\n\n{769}\n\nMr. Godfrey was not often up on her return, so did not perceive that\nshe had been absent. One day, however, when Hester came in later than\nusual, Adelaide met her in the hall, took her bonnet and clock from\nher, and whispered that Mr. Godfrey was already in the breakfast-room.\n\nHester entered; but she found Mr. Godfrey so busy unfolding the\nnewspaper that he did not perceive her entrance. She passed behind him\nere he was aware, and impressed a kiss on his forehead; it was her\nusual morning's greeting.\n\n\"Ha! Hester, so you're up at last. I have a letter on your account.\"\n\n\"A letter for me?\"\n\n\"No! yet one that you must answer; the great philosopher of the day is\nsmitten with the charms of the fair vestal; he asked me ere we left\nYorkshire if her heart was free.\"\n\n\"And what did you answer him?\"\n\n\"That I did not know, but would enquire; this letter is a sort of\nreproachful remonstrance for not having fulfilled my promise.\"\n\nHester smiled, and Adelaide enquired who the gentleman was.\n\n\"A man,\" said Hester, \"who thinks we have evolved into human beings\nfrom worms or bats or lower creatures still. By-the-by, father, he\nnever told us why so many lower creatures remain unevolved.\"\n\n\"You piece of mischief, be serious; what answer shall I give him?\"\n\n\"That I don't like his pedigree: I am looking higher than worms for my\nforefathers.\"\n\n\"But seriously, Hester--\"\n\n\"But seriously, father, he says the character of the ancestry often\nreappears in the posterity, even after the lapse of many generations;\nand as he may have had, a tiger, a hyena, or even a boa-constrictor in\nhis genealogical tree, I do not feel well inclined to trust myself to\nhis keeping.\"\n\n\"Is that the new philosophy?\" said Adelaide; \"the vicious propensities\nof so many of the race are then accounted for, they are but beasts of\nprey in tailor's clothes.\"\n\n\"And yourselves, ladies?\" said Mr. Godfrey.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Adelaide, hastily, \"please do not put us into the same\ncategory, Hester and I are well content with the old story. We are\ndaughters of men and women, created in the good old style; reigning\nover the brutes by special privilege, and claiming no sort of kindred\nwith them whatever.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Spence, Hester--\"\n\n\"Mr. Spence, father, must seek a mate among his kindred, I am of\nanother order of beings.\"\n\n\"Is that your final answer?\"\n\n\"It is.\"\n\n\"You will revoke it, Hester; I will tell him to come and plead for\nhimself.\"\n\n\"It will be useless; I shall tell him as I tell you, that I do not\nlike his pedigree.\"\n\n\"Is that your only objection?\"\n\n\"It is sufficient for a lady to give one objection, I think,\nespecially when that one is insuperable.\"\n\nMr. Godfrey seemed disappointed, but he made no reply: the entrance of\nMiss Fairfield to pour out the coffee summoned the party to the\nbreakfast table.\n\nMr. Godfrey took up the newspaper, and sipped his coffee in silence;\nit was his habit to read in company when annoyed. Suddenly, however,\nhe laid the paper down. \"De Villeneuve dead,\" he said, \"my first, my\nearliest friend!\" He rose and went to the window, but shortly\nafterward he left the room, evidently overpowered with the sudden\nnews. Adelaide took up the paper. \"It is the father, the old marquis,\nand his eldest son, drowned on Lake--in a sudden squall of wind. Why,\nHester, our old acquaintance now succeeds to the property and title.\"\n\n\"Was not the elder brother married?\"\n\n\"The paper says not; or at least it says he was a widower and\nchildless, and that the estates now devolve on the second, the\nyoungest son, the one who was in England last year.\"\n\n{770}\n\n\"Yes, and it says that he was about to start for England again when\nthis event detained him, and that he is expected shortly; why, it is\nthree months ago since the old marquis died.\"\n\n\"It's strange the news did not reach us before, but what business can\nour M. de Villeneuve have in England now?\"\n\n\"There is some talk of his coming over to take the 'Poor Clares' back\nwith him. He was Euphrasie's guardian, and I know he wished to get her\nand the community established in America. It was that wish that took\nhim back, to see what arrangements could be effected.\"\n\n\"But will they go?\"\n\n\"Nay, that I know nothing about; I suppose he talked with them on the\nmatter ere he made his plans.\"\n\nBy this time the breakfast table was cleared, and the sisters were\nalone together, and Adelaide suddenly turned the conversation into\nanother channel. \"Hester,\" she said, \"you must make me your friend;\nyou know that you are pursuing a path of difficulty. You are my\nfather's idol, have you thought what it will be to break his heart?\"\n\n\"O Adelaide! forbear; I have thought of that, and the thought is\nnearly killing me, but I must on in spite of myself.\"\n\n\"It is true, then?\"\n\n\"What is true?\"\n\n\"That you go to mass every morning, and weep yourself to sleep every\nnight, my poor, dear sister!\"\n\n\"How did you discover this?\"\n\n\"Your attendant showed your pillow to Lucy Fairfield, it was no longer\nfit to use; and Lucy followed you more than once, and saw you enter\nthe Bavarian Ambassador's chapel in Warwick street.\"\n\n\"But she did not tell my father?\"\n\n\"No, I have threatened with dismissal anyone who makes a remark on the\nsubject; meantime tell me, are you a Catholic?\"\n\n\"No! but I must see the end of this. Adelaide, out of Christianity\nthere is no 'power;' and 'power' it is that we want to effect good.\nScience is taking the form of Atheism more and more. It represses\nrather than elevates. The masses are awakening to consciousness of\npossessing a right to intellectual culture under influences that will\nfinally subject them even more to tyranny; for when man seeks only\nsensuous gratification by his science, he must eventually fall under\nthe empire of the appetites, and then barbarism results. Is not this\nthe history of all anterior civilization? Our modern rise has been the\ngradual growth of intellect evolved under the restraining influence of\nreligion; and though men have very imperfectly submitted to these\nrestraints, they have produced immense fruit among the masses. Even\nindirectly, the consciousness of the possession of soul, of immortal\npower, has elevated the ideal, and the laborer assumes a legitimate\nplace in humanity. And woman, Adelaide, what is woman out of\nChristianity? What was she in Pagan Greece and Rome; what will she be,\nagain if Christianity is abolished? I see but three phases for her.\nThe Turkish harem, the Mormon polygamy, or that worse than either\nstate, which consigns an immense number of our sex to debasement utter\nand desperate.\"\n\n\"There is too much truth in this. But, Hester, be cautious; I will not\nhinder you, rather will I help you, and study with you, but you are\nnot yet a Catholic. I must then say again, be cautions: I dare not\nthink on the result of my father's knowing your present study!\"\n\n\"Indeed it has troubled me more than a little. O Adelaide! why should\nthere be such a prejudice against any one form of religion?\"\n\n\"I cannot answer that, still less can I tell why men of science should\nhate it so supremely; but it is so, and you know, dear Hester, that\nthe shock of your conversion might occasion a terrible convulsion in\nmy father. Let us proceed quietly, until the result is decided. Have\nyou ever considered {771} what is the first step to take in the\ninvestigation of truth?\"\n\n\"I am inclined to think the process must be a moral one, as well as an\nintellectual one. I heard a preacher say lately: 'Souls who would come\nto Christ, must first be gathered to the Baptist!'\"\n\nAdelaide hid her face in her hands, \"There is a deep meaning in that,\"\nshe said. \"Hester, I too have my secret. Do you remember the Catholic\npriest whom I ordered to quit the house as soon as the duke was dead?\nHis visage haunts me, he looked up from his prayers at my words, and\nhis face seemed so full of pity, pity for me, that I half relented;\nbut matters had gone too far. Well, I wrote to Eugene lately to\ninquire about him, and Eugene says he is at H---- on a mission, among\nthe poor Irish laborers, and that young Henry, the duke's son, is with\nhim. The mother too, the Ellen of the duke's romance, lives in the\nneighborhood. I have an intense desire to pay the place a visit; had\nyou not come, I should have gone alone; now will you go with me?\"\n\n\"Willingly; you are, then, in communication with Eugene?\"\n\n\"Slightly; I dare not tell him all that is in my thoughts, lest I\nshould raise false hopes. I have not faith, but I feel it would be a\ngreat gift.\"\n\n\"So great that it would be worth any sacrifice; but Catholics say it\nis a supernatural gift, and that it must come from God.\"\n\n\"And Eugene insists that the presence of sin blinds the soul; by\nobscuring the spiritual faculty, thus hindering the reception of\nfaith.\"\n\n\"If so,\" said Hester, \"we must do what we can to get clear of sin,\neven at the price of confession.\"\n\n\"It is therefor I intend to see the abb\u00e9, to make reparation. I will\nnot voluntarily put an obstacle to the reception of God's gifts. If\ngrace comes, it shall find me ready to receive it.\"\n\nHester looked at Adelaide in surprise. The haughty duchess had\ndisappeared; another spirit so gentle looked from those eyes, that\nHester could only throw herself into her sister's arms and weep.\n\nTO BE CONTINUED\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nON THE CURE OF BARTIMEUS.\n\n  \"Bartimeus, the blind man,\n  sat by the wayside begging.\n  And they say to him:\n  Be of better comfort:\n  arise, He calleth thee.\"\n\n\n  Out of the windows of my mind----\n    From my heart's idly open door,\n    My gaze the wide world wanders o'er,\n  And yet, alas! how blind, how blind!\n\n  My sight of things divine how dim!\n    Though there be not a single day\n    But Jesus passeth by the way;\n  All else I see, but blind to him.\n\n  Though rich, I seek the beggar's mite----\n    His beauty only do I prize;\n    And all is darkness to my eyes\n  Whilst he is hidden from my sight.\n\n  I hear a voice within my soul----\n    \"Arise, of better comfort be,\n    And come: the Master calleth thee----\n  Thy faith shall also make thee whole.\"\n\n--------\n{772}\n\n\nFrom the Dublin Review.\n\nORIGEN AT CAESAREA.\n\nOrigenis Libri contra Celsum (inter Opera omnia). Ed. Migne.1857.\n\n\nIn concluding our survey of the character and work of Origen, it will\nbe useful to recall the leading dates in the chronology of his life to\nthe date of his exodus from Alexandria. Born in or about 186, he\nbecame the head of the Catechetical school at the age of eighteen:\nAbout 211 he visited Rome. From that year till 231, he labored at\nAlexandria, with no other interruptions than short journeys into\nArabia, to Caesarea, and into Greece. In 231 he left Alexandria never\nto return, and thenceforward the chief place of his residence was\nCaesarea of Palestine. In the fourth or fifth year of his sojourn\nthere (235), Maximin's persecution compelled him to flee to Caesarea\nof Cappadocia. Returning to the other Caesarea in 238, he remained\nthere for about eleven years, that is, until the commencement of the\nDecian persecution. During these years, however, he made another\njourney into Greece, and two more into Arabia. After the cessation of\nthe persecution he lived a short time in Jerusalem, and thence removed\nto Tyre, where he died in 253, or 254, in the sixty-ninth year of his\nage. The chief divisions of his life after attaining manhood are\ntherefore the following:\n\n  1. The twenty years (211-231) of his Alexandrian teaching.\n  2. The twenty years (231-251) of his life at Caesarea.\n  3. The three or four years from the end of the Decian persecution\n    (251) till his death (254.)\n\nIn our present essay we shall be concerned chiefly with the second of\nthese periods. It was the time of Origen's most active and dignified\nlabor. He was now not so much the teacher of disciples as the teacher\nof teachers and the doctor of the whole East. The church was, on the\nwhole, at peace, her numbers were increasing, her organization\ndeveloping, and her doctrines becoming daily more and more a subject\nof inquiry to intellects, friendly and hostile. We have before taken\nnotice (Dublin Review, April, 1866, p. 401) how Caesarea was an\nimportant centre, political, literary, and religious; and here Origen\nspent the twenty years of which we now speak, in intercourse with such\nbishops as S. Alexander, S. Theoctistus, and Firmilian, in training\nsuch pupils as Gregory Thaumaturgus, in preaching such homilies as\nthose on Isaiah, Ezechiel, and the Canticles, in writing such\napologies as the Contra Celsum, and in carrying through such an\nenterprise as the Hexapla. It is to this period that we must refer the\nemphatic testimony of S. Vincent of Lerins. \"It is impossible,\" says\nhe, \"to tell how Origen was loved, esteemed, and admired by every one.\nAll that made any profession of piety hastened to him from the ends of\nthe world. There was no Christian who did not respect him as a\nprophet, no philosopher who did not honor him as a master.\" The word\npiety ([Greek text]) is worth noticing, because something much more\nwide and broad was meant by it then than now; indeed, the original\nword would be better translated religion or religiousness. The term,\nprophet, is also worthy of being remarked; a prophet means one who is\nat once teacher of the most exalted class and an ascetic who has\nperfectly trampled this world under his feet. Finally, the\nphilosophers looked to him as their {773} master, though he professed\nto teach no philosophy but Christianity, and quoted the Hebrew\nscriptures instead of Plato and Aristotle when men came to him with\ndifficulties about the soul, the logos, and the creator.\n\nIn the present article, therefore, we shall be concerned with his\nCaesarean life; and as it is impossible to compress within moderate\nlimits all that might be said of the literary productions of this\nexceedingly rich period of his labors, we shall confine ourselves\nchiefly to the consideration of the great work Contra Celsum. First,\nhowever, let us take a glance at the events of the twenty years, for\nthey are not void of events which give us a notion of the man.\n\nSince his principal charge at Caesarea was to preach the Word of God\nto the people, perhaps the largest part of his extant writings has\ncome to consist of the homilies that he delivered in the discharge of\nthis honorable duty. It was the bishop himself who, as a rule,\npreached in the church, and no priest was substituted whose learning\nand piety were not beyond all question. We have before quoted the\nstrong words in which Eusebius has handed down the opinion of Origen\nheld by S. Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea. On the Sunday, therefore,\nas we learn from himself, on festivals, and sometimes, it would seem,\non Fridays or other week-days, he stood forth from among the clergy\nwith all the weight of his bishop's mandate and of his own character,\nto interpret and comment on the Holy Scriptures. It would be\ninteresting to be able to picture to ourselves that church at Caesarea\nin which the great light of the east spoke, Sunday after Sunday, to\nthe mingled Greek and barbarian Christians of the capital of\nPalestine. It would probably be a building designed and founded for\nthe purpose. Yet it cannot have been grand or sumptuous, or in any way\nresembling. a heathen temple, for Origen himself allows that the\nChristians had no \"temples.\" 'What it was inside we can better guess.\nWe know from Origen's own hints that there existed in it the usual\ndistinctions of position for the various ranks of faithful and of\nclergy that are so well known from writers of a century later. We may\ntherefore conclude that the chancel or altar part was clearly\nseparated from the rest of the interior, and perhaps elevated above\nit; that the altar itself stood at some distance from the eastern\nwall, and that round the apsis behind it ran the [Greek text] or\npresbyters' bench. Here, in the centre, stood the chair of the bishop,\nand here he sat during the sacred liturgy in the midst of his priests,\nall in a semicircle of lofty seats. The deacons and inferior clergy\noccupied the rest of the sanctuary, which was separated by a railing\nfrom the nave. In the nave, immediately outside the rails, stood the\n_ambo_ or reading-desk, sometimes called the choir, for here clustered\nthe singers and readers whose place it was to intone the less solemn\nparts of the liturgy. Hangings, more or less magnificent, according to\ncircumstances, suspended above the rails, were closed during the canon\nof the mass; and shut out the holies from the sight of the people.\nOver the altar was the canopy, on four pillars, and upon the altar a\nlinen cloth; and the chair of the bishop was usually covered with\nsuitable drapery. When the bishop preached, he stood or sat forward,\nprobably in front of the altar, but within the chancel-rails; it was a\nvery unusual thing to preach from the _ambo_, though S. John\nChrysostom is recorded to have done so in Sancta Sophia, in order to\nbe better heard by the people. Origen, therefore, would preach from\nthe sanctuary on the Lord's-day; bishop, priests, clergy, and people,\nin their places to hear him; the pontiff in his flat mitre with the\n_infulae_ of the high priesthood; the priests in the linen chasubles\nthat came down and covered them on every side; the deacons and others\nin their various tunics and albs; the singers and readers with the\ndiptychs and books of chant laid {774} ready open on the desk of the\n_ambo_; the faithful in the nave, men on one side and women on the\nother; the virgins and the widows in their seats apart; the various\norders of penitents in the nave or in the narthex, and the band of\nlistening catechumens in front of the \"royal gates\" (of the nave) that\nthey hoped soon to be allowed to enter. His hearers would be of all\ndegrees of fervor, and of many different ranks; they might include\nGreek philosophers and poor _vernae_ or house slaves, patricians of\nRoman burghs, and Syrian porters; doubtless the bulk of them were the\npoor and the lowly of Caesarea. He had to say a word to all, and he\nfound means to say it, in the word of Holy Scripture. He had, by this\ntime, dispensed himself from previously writing his discourses; and\nhence many of those that have come down to us are the shorthand\nreports that were taken down as he spoke, and afterward corrected by\nhimself. The text or subject of the discourse was that portion of\nScripture which had just been recited by the reader, or part of it;\nthough sometimes we find that he had a text given him by the bishop or\nby the presbytery, and that occasionally he selected a particular\nsubject at the desire of \"some of the brethren.\" He held his own copy\nof the Scripture in his hand; for we find him comparing it with the\nversion just used by the reader. His discourses were not set pieces of\neloquence; they were true homilies, that is, familiar and easy\naddresses, almost seeming to have developed themselves out of an\nearlier style of dialogue between priest and people. They have all the\nabruptness, all the questionings and answerings, all the explanations\nof terms and sentences, and all the appreciation of difficulties that\nsuggest rather the catechist with his class than the preacher with his\nauditory. We miss the poetry and fine fancy of Clement, but we gain in\norderly and connected development. One is certainly tempted to think\nthat more artistic and ornamental treatment might have been expected\nfrom the son of Leonides and the teacher of rhetoric. But Origen tells\nus more than once that he studiously avoids worldly and profane\neloquence. His reason seems not far to seek. Rhetoric was the main\nprofession of the pagan teachers that abounded in every town of the\nempire; and S. Augustin's expression, that rhetoric meant the art of\ntelling lies, was not exaggerated. Rhetoric in those days did not mean\nthe sound and immortal precepts of Aristotle, but the vain heaping\ntogether of empty words. It was the necessity of protesting against\nthis that has undoubtedly given much of their ruggedness to the\nhomilies of Origen. His watchword was, edification; his rule and law,\nas he expressly says, was, not completeness of exposition, not parade\nof words, but the benefit of those who listened. Because he was a\nspeaker, he rejected tedious and minute disquisitions, which were more\nsuitable for \"the leisure of a writer.\" Because he was a speaker of\nthe truth, he avoided, even to austerity, the imitation of profane and\nperverted art. He was rich in matter, and poured forth a stream of\ndoctrine, of exhortation, of reproof. His name and character did the\nrest. A word from Origen had more weight than a treatise from an\nunknown mouth. We have no record of how his audience took his\ndiscourses, save what is implied in the general testimony to his\nprodigious reputation. But, on the other hand, he presents us with a\nfew facts about his audience. We learn that some were readier to look\nafter the adorning of the church than the beautifying of their own\nsouls. It appears that it was difficult to get an audience together on\ncommon week-days, and that they were somewhat remiss in assembling\neven on festivals, though he speaks of a few as \"constant attendants\"\non the preaching. Those who did come to church, too often came not so\nmuch to hear God's word, as because it was a festival, and because it\nwas pleasant to have a holiday. And {775} some escaped the sermon\naltogether by going out immediately after the reading: \"Why do you\ncomplain of not knowing this and not knowing that,\" he says, \"when you\nnever wait for the conference, and never interrogate your priests?\"\nMoreover, many who were present at the discourse in body, were far\naway in spirit, for \"they sat apart in the corners of the Lord's house\nand occupied themselves with profane confabulation.\" He did not preach\nto an immaculate audience: there were many who were Christians in\nname, Pagans in life; many who turned the house of prayer into a den\nof thieves; many who preferred the agora, the law courts, the farm,\nbefore the church; and many who could provide pedagogues, masters,\nbooks, money, and time, that their children might learn the liberal\narts, but who failed to see that something of the same diligence and\nsacrifice was necessary on their own parts if they wished to become\ntrue disciples of the word of God. But from all this it would be wrong\nto infer that Origen's hearers were worse than others in their\ncircumstances. Doubtless they listened with reverence both to his\nteaching and to his rebukes. Perhaps even they applauded him by\nacclamation; such a thing was not unknown a century or so later. It\nwould be little to Origen's taste to have his audience waving their\ngarments and rocking their bodies in ecstasy or calling out\n\"orthodox!\" as they did to S. Cyril, of Alexandria, or \"Thou art the\nthirteenth apostle!\" as the excitable Constantinopolitans did to S.\nChrysostom; like S. Jerome, he preferred \"to excite the grief of the\npeople rather than their applause, and his commendation was their\ntears.\" S. Vincent, of Lerins, two centuries after Origen's preaching\nat Caesarea, speaks of the way in which his \"eloquence\" affected\nhimself. If his audience were as well satisfied, they must have\nlistened to him with great pleasure and profit. \"His discourse,\" says\nS. Vincent, in the Commonitorium, \"was pleasant to the fancy, sweet as\nmilk, to the taste; it seems to me that there issued from his mouth\nhoney rather than words. Nothing so hard to believe, but his powers of\ncontroversy made it plain; nothing so difficult to practise, but his\npersuasiveness rendered it easy. Tell me not that he did nothing but\nargue, There has never been a teacher who has used so many examples\nout of the Holy Writ.\" The homilies of Origen did not pass away with\nthe voice that delivered them. Till he was sixty years old he had\ngenerally written them out beforehand. After that time the shorthand\nwriters beside him caught every word as it fell, and so the discourses\nbecame a treasury for ever. Fortune and time have indeed destroyed far\nthe greater part of the \"thousand and more tractates\" which S. Jerome\nsays he delivered in the church, and of what remain some only exist in\nabbreviated Latin translations. But though their letter is diminished,\ntheir spirit pervades the whole field of patristic exposition, and\nmany of the greatest of the Greek and Latin fathers have not hesitated\nover and over again to use at length the exact words of Origen. And so\nthe sentences first uttered in the church of Caesarea have become the\npublic property of the church universal, and while Caesarea is a ruin\nand its library scattered to dust, the living word and spirit of him\nwho spoke there, speaks still in cities far greater, and to auditories\nfar more wide; for every pulpit utters his thoughts, and Christian\npeople, though they may not know it, are everywhere \"edified\" by that\nwhich was first the offspring of' his intellect.\n\nOrigen had been laboring at Caesarea for barely four years when one of\nthose interruptions occurred that he had already become familiar with\nat Alexandria. The Emperor Maximin (235), a barbarian giant, whose\nunchecked propensities for cruelty and blood seem to have driven him\nabsolutely mad before the end of his three years' reign, followed up\nthe murder of his {776} benefactor Alexander Severus by a series of\nhorrors, in which were involved both pagans and Christians alike. Any\nman of name, character, or wealth, in any part of the world that could\nbe reached by a Roman cohort, was liable to confiscation, torture, and\ndeath in order to appease his frantic suspicions. Caesarea was an\nimportant Roman post, and as no one in Caesarea was better known than\nthe head of the Christian school, we soon find that Origen is marked\nout for a victim. He escaped, however, by a prompt flight, and reached\nthe other Caesarea, of Cappadocia, the see of his friend Firmilian. He\nhad no sooner arrived there than the capricious persecution fell upon\nthe city of his refuge, under the auspices of Serenianus the governor,\n\"a dire and bitter persecutor,\" as he is called by Firmilian. In these\nstraits he managed to lie hid for two years in the house of a lady\ncalled Juliana--a house, indeed, to which he was attracted by other\nconsiderations beside that of safety; for this lady was the heiress of\nthe whole library of Symmachus the Ebionite, one of those learned\ntranslators of the Hebrew Scriptures whom Origen incorporated in the\nHexapla. He himself mentions with great satisfaction the advantages\nwhich his biblical labors derived from the opportunities he enjoyed in\nhis Cappadocian retirement. We are also indebted to this period for\ntwo, not the least interesting, of his works. Maximin's informers seem\nto have contrived to implicate the good Christian Ambrose in some\ntrouble. That Ambrose was a man of wealth we have seen, and he was\nundoubtedly, also, in some considerable charge or employment which\nnecessitated his journeying frequently from one Roman city to another.\nWhether this persecution caught him at Alexandria or Caesarea, or\nelsewhere, is uncertain; but he had received notice of his danger and\nwas preparing to place himself in security when the insurrection of\nthe Gordians broke out in Syria and Asia, and in the confusion and\ntrouble that ensued he became the prisoner of Maximin's troops, and\nwas immediately sent, or destined to be sent, to Germany, where the\nemperor had just concluded a triumphant campaign. The news of the\ndanger of his zealous friend and patron drew from Origen the letter\nthat we know now as the Exhortatio ad Martyrium. It was accompanied by\nanother, the De Oratione, which he had perhaps already composed. These\ntwo works, into an examination of which we cannot enter, show more of\nthe interior spirit of their writer than anything else that has\nreached us. When a history of the early methods of prayer comes to be\nwritten, the treatise on prayer will have to be thoroughly examined.\nThe Exhortation to Martyrdom is full of the true Adamantine vehemence\nand piety. Though addressed to Ambrose, it is really, and would be\naccepted as a general call to the Church of Palestine to stand fast\nand do manfully in the dangerous times on which they had fallen. The\nname of Protectetus, a priest of Caesarea, which is associated with\nthat of Ambrose in the dedication, as he was also in danger of death,\nfelicitously localizes it, and we may look upon it as a homily,\ndelivered in writing and from a distance, and on a new and stirring\nsubject, to that church which he had been accustomed to edify with his\nwords during the three or four years preceding. We unwillingly omit to\nenter upon it at large. At Maximin's death (238) he returned to his\nown Caesarea. After this, his literary enterprises, completed and\nundertaken, come thick and frequent. Among other works we meet with\nthe commentaries on Ezechiel and Isaiah, on S. Matthew and S. Luke, on\nDaniel and the twelve minor prophets, and on several of the epistles\nof S. Paul. It is to this time also that belongs the celebrated\nexposition of the Canticle of Canticles, of which S. Jerome has said,\nthat whereas in his other works he surpassed all other men, so in this\nhe surpassed himself. But little of the original has come down to us,\nand the translation {777} of Rufinus is too free and abridged to\nenable us to understand how this high praise was deserved.\n\nAbout the same period he made a second journey into Greece. What\noccasion brought him to Athens we are not informed. We find, however,\nthat he thought very highly of the Athenian Church. In his reply to\nCelsus, speaking of the influence and weight that Christians were\neverywhere acquiring, he instances the Church at Athens, and boasts\nthat the assembly of the Athenian people was only a tumultuous mob in\ncomparison with the congregation of the Athenian Christians. Since\nAthens was even then the central light of the whole world, we may\nperhaps conclude that Origen's journey thither was caused by some\nphase of the conflict between Philosophy and the Gospel with which he\nhad been all his life so familiar. On his return to Caesarea he wrote\nthe answer to Celsus, with which we shall concern ourselves presently.\nIt was written during the reign of Philip the Arabian. We are told by\nEusebius that Origen wrote a letter to this emperor. What this letter\ncan have been about is somewhat of a puzzle in history. Eusebius, to\nbe sure, a couple of chapters before he mentions the letter, relates a\nstory, rather coldly, about Philip's coming to the church (at Antioch)\none Easter time as a Christian, and his seating himself among the\npenitents when the bishop (S. Babylas) refused to admit him on any\nother terms. S. Babylas might well reject him and place him among the\npenitents, for his career, which commenced, as that of most of the\nRoman emperors, with the murder of his predecessor, the young Gordian,\nhad been anything but innocent. Certain it is, however, that the story\nwas current of Philip's being a Christian. Even if he were not, which\nseems the more probable, there is no improbability that he may have\nquestioned such a man as Origen about Christianity. It must be\nrecollected, moreover, that this Emperor Philip was by birth an\nArabian, being a native of Bostra. He was the son of a robber-chief,\nand we are first introduced to him as taking an important part in the\ncampaign of Gordian in which the Persians were driven out of\nMesopotamia. The important Roman city of Bostra, though not within the\nboundaries of Arabia, was sufficiently near them to be considered the\nmetropolis of the upper part of Arabia, as Petra was of the middle.\nPhilip, therefore, was evidently nothing more than a powerful Bedouin\nSheik, such as may be seen at this very day in the countries of which\nhe was a native, and had succeeded his father in the possession of\nwide influence over the predatory tribes that ranged over all\nPalestine, Syria, and Arabia, except the actual spots occupied by a\nRoman military force. His character is significantly illustrated by\nthe incident that raised him to the purple. When Gordian's army was in\nMesopotamia, his dangerous captain of Free Lances took care to have\nthe whole of the commissariat supplies intercepted, and thus caused\nthe mutiny which, terminated in Gordian's death. Such a feat was easy\nand natural to a chief whose wild horsemen commanded every part of the\ngreat Syrian desert that lay between Mesopotamia and the Roman\nstations off the Mediterranean coast. But what is more to our purpose\nis, that Origen was frequently at Bostra, and was there at the very\ntime of Gordian's campaign and Philip's accession. Bearing in mind the\nextent to which the name of Origen was known among the pagan men of\nletters, as well as among the Christian churches, it seems impossible\nbut that Philip must have heard him mentioned. Only let us grant that\nthe emperor had a leaning to Christianity, even though in no better\nspirit than that of an eclectic, and the occasion of Origen's letter\nbecomes clear. The mention of the Syrian desert reminds us of another\ncelebrated name. Palmyra, or Tadmor of the Wilderness, was, at the\ntime of which we write, almost in the zenith of her beauty, though it\nwas not till {778} twenty years afterward that her splendor culminated\nand collapsed under Zenobia and Longinus. Origen knew the great\nphilosopher, who had been his auditor at Alexandria, and whom he had\nmost probably met again at Athens. It is quite possible that Longinus\nmay have become the guest of Zenobia before Origen left Caesarea for\nthe last time, and, therefore, during the time he was so familiar with\nthe Arabian Church. We know that he had more than a mere acquaintance\nwith the author of the Treatise on the Sublime, and, perhaps, there\nwere no two minds of the age more fitted to grapple with each other.\nOf their mutual influence we have no certain traces, but it may be\nnoted that amongst the lost works of Longinus there is a treatise,\n[Greek text]. Can it have had any relation to that of Origen under the\nsame name?\n\nIt was at Caesarea, between the years 243 and the breaking out of the\nDecian persecution in 249, that was written the famous Contra Celsum.\nIt is justly considered the masterpiece of its author. Ostensibly an\nanswer to the gainsayings of a heathen philosopher, it really takes\nup, with the calmest scientific precision, the position that\nChristianity is so true and hangs together with such completeness of\nmoral beauty, that the barkings of Gentile learning cannot confute it,\nnor the violence of Gentile hatred stop its inevitable march. With no\nrhetorical passion, with profound learning, with a knowledge of Holy\nScripture truly worthy of Adamantins, with frequent passages of noble\nand profound eloquence, the Christian doctor builds up the monument of\nthe faith he loved and taught; and the work that has come down to us\nthrough all those ages since it was written, has been recognized for\nfifteen hundred years as one of those great, complete, finished\nproductions that are only given to the world by the pen of a genius.\nEusebius, his biographer, speaks of it as containing the refutation of\nall that has been asserted, and, \"by pre-occupation,\" of all that\ncould ever be asserted on certain vital matters of controversy. S.\nBasil and S. Gregory Nazianzen strung together a series of favorite\npassages mainly from it and called their work Philocalia, \"love for\nthe beautiful.\" S. Jerome, whose praise cannot be suspected of\npartiality, puts him by the side of two other great apologists his\nsuccessors, and exclaims that to read them makes him think himself the\nmerest tyro, and shrivels up all his learning to a sort of a dreamy\nremembrance of what he was taught as a boy. Bishop Bull takes the\nContra Celsum as the touchstone of Origen's dogmatic teaching; \"he\nmeant it for the public,\" he says, \"he wrote it thoughtfully and of\nset purpose, and he wrote it when he was more than sixty years of age,\nfull of knowledge and experience.\"\n\nIt must have been about the time when Marcus Aurelius was engaged in\npersecuting the church (160-180) that a certain eclectic Platonist\nphilosopher called Celsus, in order to contribute his share to the\ngood work, wrote an uncompromising attack on Christianity, and called\nit by the title of The True Word; or, The Word of Truth. We have\ncalled him an eclectic Platonist; but, in fact, it is very much\ndisputed among the learned what sect of philosophers he honored with\nhis allegiance. Some call him a Stoic, others an Epicurean, and this\nlatter opinion is the common traditional one; and what would seem to\nsettle the question, Epicurean is the epithet given to him by Origen\nhimself. That Origen, when he took up The Word of' Truth to refute it,\nthought he was going to refute an Epicurean, is quite evident; but it\nis no less evident that he had not read many sentences of the work\nitself before he began to doubt and more than doubt whether the name\nof Epicurean was a true description of its author. In one place he is\namazed to hear \"an Epicurean say such things,\" in another he charges\nhim with artfully concealing his Epicurism for a purpose, and in a\nthird he {779} supposes that if he ever was an Epicurean he has\nrenounced its tenets and betaken himself to something more sound and\nsensible. What made Origen hesitate to state plainly that he was no\nfollower of Epicurus seems to have been the broad tradition that had\nattached the epithet to the name of Celsus, thereby identifying the\nwriter of The Word of Truth with the writer of a certain work against\nmagic, well known to literary men, which was beyond all doubt from the\npen of an Epicurean Celsus. This latter was also probably the same as\nthe Celsus to whom the scoffer Lucian dedicated his Alexander, in\nwhich he shows up that impostor's tricks and sham magic; and Lucian,\nin his dedication, alludes to the works against magic, just as Origen\ndoes. As Lucian died some years before Origen was born, the works\nagainst magic must have been very widely known, and their author must\nhave been accepted as _the_ Celsus, and as he was certainly an\nEpicurean, that designation fastened itself also upon the other\nCelsus, the author of The Word of Truth, who had not had the advantage\nof an admiring Lucian to fix his proper title in the memory of the\nliterary world. But an Epicurean he certainly was not. One proof is\nquite sufficient. The subject of magic was a decisive test of a true\nEpicurean. Not believing in Providence and professing, in fact, a sort\nof philosophic atheism, he considered that gods and demons never\ninterfered in the concerns of the earth and the human race. Human and\nmundane atoms, as they got created by a species of accident and came\ntogether fortuitously, so they continued to blunder against each other\nin various ways, and thus caused what men foolishly called the cosmos,\nor order of the universe; whilst the divine nature of the immortals,\nserene on Olympus\n\n  Semot\u00e1 a nostris rebus, sejunctaque long\u00e8,\n  Jam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,\n  Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri,\n  Nec ben\u00e8 pro meritis capitur nec tangitur ir\u00e2.\n\n     Lucretius, de Rerum Naturt\u00e2, I. 50.\n\nThe Epicurian, therefore, laughed alike at the notion of benevolent\ngod and malignant demon, at providence and at magic, and crowned\nhimself with flowers and drank and sinned, if his means allowed it,\nunder the soothing persuasion that \"to-morrow\" he was \"to die.\" When,\ntherefore, we find that the author of The Word of Truth not only\nattributes miracles to AEsculapius, Aristeas, and others, and magic to\nChrist, but also considers that this world and its various parts are\ncommitted to the custody of demons, whom it is, therefore, proper to\npropitate by worship and sacrifice, we need no other evidence that he\nwas no follower of Epicurus.\n\nOn the other hand, a prominent belief in the agencies of unseen powers\nwas a mark of the Platonist of the day. Whatever Plato may have\nthought of the inferior gods and demons (and on some occasions, as in\nthe Timaeus, he speaks of them with considerable levity), the\nfollowers, who revived his doctrine in the first centuries after\nChrist, gave them a very large share of their attention. A creator or\nfirst father of all things was a Platonic dogma, and man and matter\nmust have in some way come from him; but in order to bridge over the\ninterval between two such extremes as God and matter, recourse was had\nto an immense army of intermediate beings, of which the highest was so\ndignified as to be little more than an abstraction, and the lowest\nshaded off into a species of superior animal. It is this, multitude of\ngood and bad demons that makes its appearance in modified shape and\nnumber in Platonist and Gnostic cosmogonies, and which is so puzzling\nto follow through all its fantastic intermarriages and combinations.\nWhen Celsus must have been writing, that is, about the time S. Clement\nof Alexandria began to teach, the spirit of Plato was abroad, not only\nat Alexandria but at Athens and in Rome. Theurgy was openly professed\nby the most reputable teachers; their enemies called it sorcery; but\nwhatever it was, it meant some intimate communion with {780} the\ninvisible world. A writer; therefore, who puts the moon and stars\nunder the guardianship of heavenly powers, who pathetically defends\nthe case of the demons and deprecates their being deprived of the\ngratification they derive from the \"smell\" of a sacrifice, and who\nattributes supernatural powers to friends and enemies--calling them in\nthe one ease miracles, in the latter, magic--is evidently closer to\nSaceas and Porphyry than to Epicurus and Democritus. Celsus, however,\nthough he says all this, cannot be called a real Platonist or\nNeo-Platonist. He came in the early days of a revival, and his\nphilosophic pallium hung rather loosely about him; he was not above\nfollowing a new leader on an occasion, provided he saw his way to a\nnew stroke against the Christians. It must be admitted that he shows a\nfair share or learning, some acuteness, and some acquaintance with a\nvariety of different peoples and customs. On the other hand, he is\noccasionally guilty of the most absurd and transparent sophisms, his\nconceit is unbounded, and his tone generally sneering and often very\noffensive.\n\nIt was this philosopher then, Eclectic, Platonist, and man of the\nworld, whose Word of Truth seemed to the pious and indefatigable\nAmbrose to be so dangerous and damaging that no time ought to be lost\nin answering it. With this view, he attacked Origen on the subject,\nand by dint of prayers and representations made him take in hand its\nrefutation. Origen was by no means eager to undertake the work; and we\ncan partly enter into his objections. The book of Celsus was not a new\none: it had been in the hands of the reading world and in the centres\nof learning, such as Athens, Antioch, Caesarea, and Alexandria, for at\nleast sixty years, and it is to be supposed that answers to its most\nimportant objections were common enough in the Christian schools,\nthough, perhaps it was itself ignored. Then, it was not the sort of\nbook that could do the faithful any harm, for they could not read it,\nor, if they did, they distrusted it even where they could not refute\nit. It was too late in the day for an open-mouthed pagan to have any\nchance against the gospel of Christ. The dangerous people were those\nwho, like the heretics, came with the elements of this world disguised\nunder the sheep's clothing of Christianity; but an honest wolf only\nlost his trouble; and so Origen, whilst promising to comply with the\nwishes of his friend, plainly says that what he has undertaken to\noverthrow, he cannot conceive as having the least effect in shaking\nthe orthodoxy of a single faithful man. \"That man,\" he says, \"would be\nlittle to my taste, whose faith would be in danger of shipwreck from\nthe words of this Celsus, who has not now even the advantage of being\nalive; and I do not know what I should think of one who required a\nbook to be written before he could meet his accusations. And, yet,\nbecause there might possibly be some professing believers who find\nCelsus's writings a stumbling-block, and would be proportionally\ncomforted by anything in the shape of a writing that undertook to\ncrush him, I have resolved to take in hand the refutation of the work\nyou have sent me.\" The expressions, \"a book to be written,\"\n\"writings,\" and \"hand-writing,\" are noticeable, for they show clearly\nenough, what has not been much observed, that Origen's chief objection\nto answering Celsus was that Celsus was already answered in the oral\nteachings of the church. In this also we have the explanation of the\ncontempt in which he seems to hold his antagonist--a temper which is\nseldom advisable either in war or polemics. But Celsus had been, and\nwas daily being answered, and the only question was, whether it was\nworth while to put formally on paper what every Christian catechist\nhad by heart. Was it not better to imitate the majestic silence of\nJesus Christ, who spoke no word, but let his life speak for him? \"I\ndare affirm,\" he says, \"that the defence you ask me to write will be\nswamped and disappear before that other defence of {781} facts and the\npower of Jesus, which none but the blind can fail to see.\" And he\nadds, that it is not for the faithful he writes, but for those who\nhave not tasted the faith of Christ, or for those weak believers who,\nin the apostle's phrase, must be kindly taken up.\n\nAnd yet Ambrose seems to have been quite right in insisting that\nOrigen should answer the book of Celsus. Its arguments might be stale,\nand its influence small, but there it was, a formal written record of\nsome of the ugliest things that could be said against Christianity and\nits founder. What seemed more becoming, than that the foremost\nChristian doctor of his day should take in hand, at a time when\nexternal peace and internal growth seemed to warrant it, to give a\nformal, written answer to an attack that was a standing piece of\nimpertinence, even if it did no harm? Besides, some harm it must have\ndone, at least in the shape of keeping well-meaning pagans from the\ntruth; and though Origen is always more fond of working for the\nspiritual welfare of his own household than of direct proselytizing,\nyet Ambrose, as a convert, knew what prejudice was, and what was the\nimportance of a work from the pen of a Christian doctor who had the\near of the Gentile world. And Ambrose, moreover, was perfectly aware,\nas was everyone except the Adamantine himself, that even if the\nrefutation embraced only the common topics that were handled daily in\nthe Christian instructions, yet the result would be as far above the\nordinary catechetical lesson as the master was above the ordinary\ncatechist. Perhaps he hardly knew, as we know, that his instances\nwould produce a master-piece of polemical writing, from which all ages\nhave borrowed, and in which the immense knowledge of Scripture, the\nbeautiful and tender piety, and the sustained eloquence of expression\nwere unrivalled until, perhaps, Bossuet wrote his Histoire\nUniverselle.\n\nIt is by no means our intention to give a detailed analysis of this\nwonderful work: it is described at great length in easily accessible\nauthors. But it will be interesting to seize on some of its most\nsalient characters, and thus to throw what light may be possible upon\nthe subject of our discussion. And the first remark that occurs seems\nto be a contradiction of Origen's own statement. The Contra Celsum was\nwritten more for the faithful than for the philosophers, and was less\naimed at the dead and gone Celsus than at the living children of the\nchurch. It may be true that it was not meant precisely to confirm\ntottering faith or to prop up consciences that the objections of\nCelsus had shaken; but its effect would naturally be to encourage the\ndevout Christian by showing him how much could be said for his\nprofession, and exposing to scorn with irresistible logic the best\nthat could be said by his gainsayers. If Origen had not had in view\nthe same audience as that to which he preached on Sundays and Fridays,\nhe would hardly have dealt so abundantly in the citations from Holy\nScripture which are such a marked. feature of the work, and he would\nnot have cared to expand as he does the bare polemical branch into the\nflowers and fruit of homiletic exhortation. But the faithful were\nalways his first thought, and the ground-color of all he has written\nis warm and outspoken piety. He knew much about pagan philosophy and\nworldly science, but when Porphyry (quoted by Eusebius) says that\nPlato was never out of his hands, we can only say that Plato is never\nmentioned in his writings save where an adversary or an error-compels\nhim. A far truer picture of himself is given in his own words to his\nfavorite pupil, Gregory Thaumaturgus. \"You have talents,\" he says,\n\"that might make you a perfect Roman lawyer, or a leader of any of the\nfashionable sects of Greek philosophy; but the wish of my heart is,\ndear lord and my most honored son Gregory, that you make Christianity\nyour last end\" ([Greek text]--alluding to the _summum bonum_ of the\nstoics), \"and that you {782} use Greek philosophy and all its\nattendant sciences as handmaids to the Holy Scriptures, and as the\nmeans ([Greek text],) toward Christianity.\" This was written, of\ncourse, long after Gregory had become a Christian, and, indeed, about\nthe very time that the Contra Celsum would be in progress. Not a\nlittle, therefore, in the work which would seem to beg the question,\nas against an enemy, becomes an eloquent development, as toward those\nwho already believed. And this remark will be found not unimportant in\nexplaining more passages than one.\n\nThe attack of Celsus is that of a clever, well-informed, travelled\nman. It is to be feared that we cannot call him a well-meaning one.\nThe extra-ordinary impudence of one or two of the leading sophisms and\na general tone of rancor and rabidness, very different from the\npoliteness of Numenius and Porphyry, seem to force the conclusion that\nwe are dealing with a man who ought to have known better but whose\nheart had been hardened by the world and the flesh. He goes over a\nlarge variety of topics, is not at all remarkable for order (as his\nopponent complains), and repeats himself more than once. Several\nGerman writers have published accurate accounts of his philosophic\ntenets, as far as they can be ascertained. For the present, in order\nto arrive at some definite knowledge of the sort of people who opposed\nChristianity from the time of S. Clement to the Decian persecution, we\nshall present Celsus in a few of the chief characters that he assumes\nin his onslaught on Christianity. For he is very many-sided in his\nanxiety to get at all the vulnerable points of his enemy, and perhaps\nit might be said that his memory is not so good as a polemic's memory\nought to be, and that he contradicts himself once or twice. At any\nrate he acts with some success more parts than one.\n\nThe Scoffer was a character in which Celsus had the advantage of a few\nrecent traditions. Perhaps the thorough pagan scoffer, who really\nlaughed at Christianity because he believed it deserved to be laughed\nat, was rather out of date. But Lucian (and he may have known Lucian)\ncould have let him see how a man of genius may scoff impartially at\nreligion in all its shapes. Celsus was not a scoffer of this latter\nsort. Either he was really too conscientious, or else he instinctively\nhated Christ more than Zeus, and therefore tried to ridicule and crush\nthe former, while he waived hostilities against the latter. The\nscoffer, as impersonated by him, is a decent, lawfearing citizen, who\nis quietly engaged in doing his duty to society and making what he can\nout of the queer problem called Life, when suddenly a man that calls\nhimself a Christian bursts in upon his calm existence with the\nintelligence that he must believe in a person called Christ, or expect\nto burn everlastingly. Of course, the first thing the amazed Gentile\ndoes is to think the man mad. His second, and more charitable idea,\nwhich is the result of some little inquiry and of a comparison of\nnotes with other amazed acquaintances at the bath and the theatre, is,\nthat the obtrusive person is an adherent of a new and peculiar sect of\nphilosophers. He, therefore, resolves to examine the tenets of these\nphilosophers with the serene impartiality of one who sets small store\nby any tenets of philosophy. He finds that their doctrines are not\nnew, but most of them quite old--the immortality of the soul and a\nfuture life, a rather strait-laced verbal morality, and so on; ideas\nwhich many respectable philosophers have held, and do hold. But is\nthere any reason in the world for making such a parade, and noise,\nmerely because another philosopher, called Christ, has chosen to teach\nthem also? How impertinent, absurd, and unpleasant it is for these\npeople, instead of keeping their doctrines to the schools, to force\nthem with threats upon practical men! Of course, practical men and\ngood citizens do not regard them. If the gods do interfere in the\nconcerns of the earth {783} (a doctrine which Celsus, in his character\nof scoffer, is inclined to waive rather than to admit), why all this\nindispensable dogmatism about a Son of God? Let it be enough that we\ndo admit that there is a God, who in some way is supreme; as sensible\npeople you can demand nothing more. We call him Zeus; you call him the\nMost High, Sabaoth, Adonai, or what else you please, just as the\nEgyptians call him Ammon, and the Scythians, Pappaeus. Doubtless you\ntalk of miracles; so do all these new-fangled sects, but they mean in\nreality Egyptian magic. You appeal, moreover, to your intellectual\nteaching; we know about that also: no sect is good for much in these\ndays which does not hang on to the skirts of Plato. Besides, what is\nthis we hear about disputes among yourselves? This makes the absurdity\nof the thing better still! The Jews say the Messiah is to come; the\nChristians declare he has come. Pray, which are we to believe? On what\nside are we solemnly to arrange ourselves in this momentous dispute\nabout a donkey's shadow? Why, here we have a squadron of bats--or an\narmy of ants swarming from their nest--or a congress of frogs in\nsolemn session on the banks of their ditch--or a knot of worms\nassembled in full ecclesia in a corner of their native mud, in hot\ncontroversy which of the lot are the wickedest. We are the ones, they\nkeep saying, to whom God has foreshown and announced all things; he\nhas left the whole universe, the broad heavens, and the earth, to look\nafter themselves, and makes his laws for us alone; to us alone he\nsends his heralds, and us he will never cease to prompt and to provide\nfor, that we may be united with him for ever. He is God; and we are\nnext to him, as being his sons and like him in all things. We are\nlords of all things, earth, water, air, and stars; on our account is\neverything, and all is ordained to minister to us. If some of us sin,\nGod will come, or he will send the Son, to burn up the wicked, that\nthe rest may live with him eternally. One could listen to worms and\nfrogs going on in this fashion with more composure than to you Jews\nand Christians.\n\nIt is not Origen's object to prove directly the importance of\nChristianity. He says that it was no barbarous system of doctrine, and\nchallenges any philosopher, fresh from the teachings and the schools\nof Greece, to come and examine it. \"He will not only pronounce it\ntrue,\" he says, \"but he will work it up into a logical system, and\nwill be able to supply it with a complete demonstration, even to a\nGreek. But I must also add this: our doctrine has a certain method of\ndemonstration peculiar to itself, and far more divine than any that\nthe Greeks have in their schools. It is that which the apostle calls\nthe demonstration of spirit and of power; of spirit, that is, by\nprophecies, which abundantly prove our whole system, especially those\nparts of it which concern Christ; of power, by the miracles which can\nbe shown to have taken place among us, and traces of which still\nremain among those who live according to the will of the Word.\" And as\nChristianity was now well known to the whole world, to scoff at it\neither for its insignificance or its absurdity seemed very foolish: it\nwas a standing fact, and challenged examination. This is partly taken\nfor granted partly incidentally expressed throughout the reply. But\nthe impudent scurrility of the passage about the bats, frogs, and\nworms, rouses Origen's indignation. \"The Jews and the Christians,\" he\nsays, \"because they hold dogmas which Celsus does not approve, and\nwhich he does not seem to be very well acquainted with, are worms and\nants, are they? The peculiar opinions in which the Jews and Christians\ndiffer from other men, are not unknown to the world. If a man,\ntherefore, feels inclined to call a part of his fellow-men worms and\nants, I will show him whom to call so. The men who have lost the true\nknowledge of God, whose religion is all a sham--the worshipping {784}\nbrute beasts and graven stocks, and lifeless matter--creatures whose\nbeauty should have led them to glorify and adore their Creator--these\nare the worms and ants. But those who, led on by reason, have risen\nabove stocks and stones, above silver and gold, and everything\nmaterial; who have risen above this whole created universe unto him\nthat made all things; who have confided themselves wholly to him; who\nrecognize him almighty over every creature, seeing every thought and\nhearing every prayer; who send up their prayers to him only, doing all\nthat they do as though he saw it, and speaking all their words that\nnone may be displeasing to him who heareth them all--these, surely,\nare _men_; nay, if it were possible, more than men. They may have,\nbeen worms once, but shall not such religion ([Greek text]) as this,\nthat no trials can shake, no danger, not even death itself, destroy,\nno persuasiveness of words overcome, be their shelter against such\njibes for the future? What! shall they who restrain the appetites that\nmake men soft and yielding as wax--and restrain them because they know\nthat by continence alone they can obtain familiarity with God\n[Footnote 208]--shall they be called the brothers of worms and the\nkindred of ants and the near neighbors of frogs? Forbid it Justice!\nglorious Justice, that gives social rights to fellow-men, that guards\nthe equitable, the humane, and the kind--forbid that such men as these\nshould be likened to birds of night! Call those worms of the slime,\nwho wallow in lust--the common herd of men, who do evil and call it\nright--but surely not those who have been taught that their bodies,\ninhabited by the light of reason and the grace of the omnipotent Lord,\nare the temples of the God whom they adore.'\" It is a subject that\nwarms him, and he pursues it at some length. He does not imitate the\nscurrility and abusiveness of his adversary, though he must have been\nsorely tempted sometimes, to say some plain things about paganism.\nCelsus shows all the liveliness of language of a man who carries on a\npersonal quarrel. He is not above calling his enemies \"drunken\" and\n\"blear-eyed;\" he hardly takes the trouble to mention that they are\nirrational fools; and for a specimen of his more fanciful bad language\nthe passage quoted above will suffice. Origen sometimes complains of\nthis, as well he may. He says that Celsus \"scolds like an old woman,\"\nthat he shouts calumny like the lowest of a street-mob, and, as a sort\nof climax, that he reminds him of a couple of \"women slanging each\nother in the street.\" But the scoffer and the reviler is after all not\nour philosopher's favorite _r\u00f4le_. Perhaps he will show better as the\nman of intellect.\n\n  [Footnote 208: The expression of the contemporary Platonists.]\n\nThe man of intellect has a face of severely classic mould, whereon\nsits normally a thoughtful frown, as though he were ever asking\nhimself the reason of things, varied by a pitying smile when he finds\nit necessary to recognize the existence of a non-intellectual being.\nHis hands are very white, his pallium neat, his hair scented, and his\nwhole appearance bespeaks him to be on the most distant terms with the\nprofane multitude. When Christianity first had the bad taste to talk\nto him of penance and hell-fire, he did not deign to speak, but only\nscowled disgust; but in a century or two he began to see he must say\nsomething for his own credit. He therefore began to utter lofty\nsentences and to employ his smile of pity, though the early look of\ndisgust was so very deeply printed on his countenance that it never\nafterward left him. This is the sum of his case:--\"This foolish system\ncalled Christianity makes some little noise, it is true. But a\nphilosopher has only to glance at it, to despise it. I have read and\nexamined the books and writings of the sect; I have conversed with its\nlearned men, and I find that it is essentially low, grovelling, and\nvulgar. It repudiates wisdom altogether; it formally forbids the\neducated, the learned, and the wise to be numbered among its {785}\nmembers. On the other hand, it energetically recruits its ranks from\namong the uneducated, the weak-headed, and the imbecile. These are the\nsort of men the Christian teachers declare to be most acceptable to\ntheir God, thus showing clearly that they have neither the ability nor\nthe wish to make converts of any but the feeble-minded, common people,\nand country boors, slaves, women, and children. They are wary; they\nare like the quacks and cheap-jacks of the agora, who take care not to\nobtrude themselves upon those who could find them out, but show off\nbefore the children in the streets and the loitering house-slaves and\nan admiring mob of any fools they can collect. They are mean and\nunderhand. You shall see, in a private house, your slave, your weaver,\nyour sandal-maker, or your cloth-carder--a fellow wholly without\neducation or manners, and silent enough before his master and his\nbetters--the moment he finds himself alone with the children and the\nwomen, beginning to hold forth in marvellous style. Parents and\npreceptors are no longer to be obeyed, but he is to be believed\nimplicitly; they are mad and doting, immersed in fatuous trifles, and\nincapable of seeing or doing what is really good, he alone can impart\nthe secret of virtue; let the children believe him, and they will be\nhappy themselves and bring a blessing on the house. Meanwhile, let\nfather or tutor make his appearance, he mostly gets frightened and\nstops; but if he be a determined one, he just whispers in parting,\nthat children of spirit should not submit to parental tyranny; that he\nhas much to explain which the presence of others will not allow him to\nutter; that he cannot bear the sight of the folly and ignorance of\nsuch corrupted and lost men, who moreover are seeking every pretext\nfor punishing him; finally, that if the dear children want to hear\nmore, they must come, with the women and as many of their companions\nas they know of, into the women's apartment, or into the carding-room\nor the leather-shop--and so he contrives to get hold of them.\"\n\nPerhaps there was nothing in Christianity that disgusted the\nphilosophers so much as the fact that it went out after the poor, the\nlowly, and the sinful, and offered them a share in all that it could\nteach or promise. That the common herd had no need and no right to\nphilosophy was an accepted tenet with the new Platonists. The passage\njust quoted is interesting; through its transparent misrepresentation\nwe can see the poor man and the slave, in the second century, in the\nactual process not only of having the gospel preached to them, but\nalso actively preaching it as well as they could to others. The\nsophism of Celsus, that Christians prefer fools and sinners for\nconverts, therefore they must be all a foolish and wicked set, must\nhave been stale, we may hope, by the time Origen undertook to answer\nit. He enters into the whole accusation, however, and refutes, almost\nword for word, the whole of what we have just given and more to the\nsame purpose.\n\nBut the intellectual objector has something positive to say, as well\nas something negative. He announces, therefore, with almost ridiculous\nsolemnity, that he will have pity on these poor Christians, and tell\nthem how they are to obtain union with God, what masters they are to\nfollow, and what heroes they are to imitate; in short, he will provide\nthem with a theology, a gospel, and an assemblage of saints. For the\nsaints, they are our grand Grecian heroes--Hercules, Orpheus,\nAEsculapius, and the rest, from Anaxarchus, who encouraged the tyrant\nwho was having him bruised in a mortar to \"pound away on the mortal\ncoil of Anaxarchus,\" to Epictetus, who made a cheerful remark when his\nmaster broke his leg. For the gospel, it is the most powerful teaching\nof the divine and immortal Plato; and for the theology, it is the\nfollowing sentence from the Timaeus: \"To discover the maker and the\nfather of the universe is a hard {786} thing; to make them known to\nothers, when discovered, is impossible.\" This last doctrine he is\nafraid the wretched Christians will not be able to take in. They are\nsuch a poor frightened set that the sublimity of Platonic dictum\nscares them into their holes; they are such a body-loving race that\nthey must have a God with a body, and be able to see him with the eyes\nof their flesh, which all philosophers pronounce to be impossible.\nOrigen, in his reply, first of all disposes of these two sneers: \"The\nChristians a timid set! when, rather than renounce a syllable of their\nChristianity, they are prepared to suffer torture and death in its\nworst shapes! The Christians a body-loving race! when they are readier\nto lay down their bodies for piety's sake than a philosopher is to put\noff his pallium! and when the injunction to be dead to sense and\nliving to soul lies upon the very surface of their teaching! But let\nit pass. We must speak to Plato's theology.\" Here is the answer, as\nterse as an epigram, as luminous as the sunlight. \"Plato, when he said\nGod was hard to find, impossible to impart, said a sublime and a\nwonderful thing; but our Scriptures give a message from God to man\nthat changes all the facts, and it is this: God the Word was with God\nin the beginning, and the _Word was made flesh_. It is not only hard\nfor man to find God; it is impossible for him to seek him at all, or\nto find him in an elevated order ([Greek text]) unless he whom he\nseeks assist him. The knowledge of God is indeed far above man's\nnature; but God, out of his kindness and _philanthropy_\" (Origen's\nusual expression when speaking of the incarnation), \"through his\nwonderful and godlike grace, has willed that his knowledge appear unto\nthose whom he foresees will live worthily of it, and whose piety will\nbe firm even against death itself, though they who know not what piety\nis may jeer and ridicule. God, I think, seeing the arrogance and the\ninsolence of those who, with all their boasted philosophical knowledge\nof the divine nature, are idol-ridden and temple-ridden and\nmystery-ridden as much as the most ignorant of the mob, has chosen the\nfoolish things of this world, the poor, simple Christians, whose life\nis purer than the lives of most philosophers, to put to the blush\nthose wise men who can unblushingly treat a lifeless thing as a god or\nthe likeness of a god. Surely the man of sense must laugh to see the\nphilosopher, after all his sublime talk about God and things divine,\ngo and ogle his idol and pray to it, or think there is some being\nbehind it that requires prayer to be offered up with such a ritual as\nthat. But the Christian knows that God is everywhere; no image limits\nhis vision, no temple bounds his power, for the whole world is his\ntemple; and his servant, therefore, shutting the eyes of his body,\nraising on high the eyes of his soul--transcending all this world,\npiercing the concave of heaven itself, out of the world and above the\nheavens--makes his prayer to God: no sordid or grovelling prayer, for\nhe has learnt from Jesus to ask for nothing little or sensible, but he\nprays only for what is great and really divine--for such things as\nlead to that blessedness which is in him, through his son, the Word,\nwho is God.\" He has no wish to disparage Plato; Plato has spoken very\nbeautifully, but the Christian Scriptures have not only beauty; but\nthey have, what is much more important, plain morality and the divine\nvirtue of changing the heart. The \"ambassadors of the truth\" propose\nto themselves to convert the whole world, the clever and the dull, the\nGreek and the barbarian; not a rustic, not a poor unlettered simpleton\nwill they consent to abandon. Of what use is Plato in such a work as\nthis? His brilliant and polished periods may possibly be of use to the\nfew literary men that can understand them; but in the art of\nattracting the attention of the rude populace he is outdone even by\nEpictetus. But the Scripture has something in it that not even\nEpictetus can show. Its doctrines may possibly in certain cases seem\nto repeat the teachings of Grecian philosophy; but {787} it has the\npower of making men act on those doctrines, which never a Greek\nphilosopher yet could boast of. And now as to the heroes and\nphilosophers, the fathers and saints of paganism. \"Let us see what\nleaders Celsus wishes us to follow, to the end that we may not be\nwithout ancient and reverend models of heroism. He sends us to\nGod-imbued poets, as he calls them, the sages, and the philosophers,\nwhom he indicates in a general way, without naming particular names.\nHe sends us, also, to Hercules, AEsculapius, and the rest, to learn\nheroism from their brave contempt of death, not unfittingly rewarded\nby the myth that has deified them. Where he does not mention names it\nis hard to refute him. Had he named his divine poet or sage, I should\nhave tried to show him to be a blind guide; but since he has not done\nso, I must content myself with appealing to what everyone knows of the\ndivine poets as a body, and asking whether they can be compared for a\nmoment to Moses, for instance; to the prophets of the creator of all\nthings; above all, to him who has shone forth on all the race of man,\nand announced to all the true way in which God would be served; who,\nas far as lay in him, has willed that none should be ignorant of his\nsecret teachings, but, in his super-abounding philanthropy, has both\ngiven to the learned a _theology_ that can raise their souls above all\nthings here below, and yet at the same time condescends to the weak\nintellect of the untaught man, of the simple woman, and the household\nslave--himself assisting them to lead a better life, each in his\ndegree, according to the teachings about God that _every one of them_\nhas been enabled to share. He mentions Hercules. Has he forgotten the\nugly story about that hero's base servitude to Omphale. It would take\nsome persuading to make us pay divine honors to the ruffian that\nseized the poor farmer's ox by main force, and devoured it before his\neyes, whilst the owner cursed him, and he seemed to enjoy the curses\nas much as the meal itself; whence is derived the edifying custom of\naccompanying his sacrifices by a rite of powerful execrations. He\nmentions AEsculapius. I have already dealt with AEsculapius: he was a\nclever doctor, but he did nothing very extraordinary. He puts up\nOrpheus. Of course, Celsus is aware that Orpheus wrote about the gods\nfar more impiously and fabulously than Homer ever did. Now, he\nconsiders, with Plato, that Homer's poems are unfit to be permitted in\nthe model republic; so that it is perfectly evident that he introduces\nOrpheus here for the sole purpose of defaming us and disparaging\nJesus. Poor Anaxarchus in his mortar undoubtedly affords a great\nexample of fortitude; but as this happens to be the solitary fact that\nis known about Anaxarchus, it would be difficult to make him a model\nhero and absurd to make him a god. Then, as to Epictetus: there is no\nneed of depreciating him; it is enough to say, that his words and\ndeeds are not worthy of the most distant comparison with the words and\ndeeds of one whom Celsus despises; for the sayings of Jesus _convert_\nthe wise and the simple. Celsus asks: 'What did your God say in his\nsufferings, like to this?' I answer that his patience and his bravery\nin his scourgings and his thousand ignominies were better shown by his\n_silence_ than by any word ever uttered by suffering Greek. But he did\nspeak.\" And then he touches on some of the words of Jesus in his\nagony. It is to us like a new revelation of the gospel, like a new\nEpiphany, to read the comparison of the life of Jesus with the lives\nof the best and noblest of antiquity. It brings vividly to our\nimagination the brilliancy of the dawn of that day of Christ Jesus\n(into whose light we are baptized, and in which we live with little\nappreciation), when we can call back again the shades of paganism, and\nwatch the gross darkness as it lifts and moves slowly off before the\nsun of justice. We can realize something of the feelings of earnest\nhearts as they came within the reach of that light, and share a little\nin the {788} excitement of a conflict wherein the victor overcame,\nnot, like Perseus, by displaying the horrors of a Gorgon's head, but\nby unveiling, philosophically, artistically, enthusiastically, the\ncharms of a \"theology\" upon whose beauty and truth there were no\ndrawbacks, and in whose abysses of gladdening hope there were resting\nplaces for every want and wish of a human heart. Origen lets the light\nin upon the poor heroes and purblind sages of a Cimmerian night, and\nhe forgets the scoffings of wretched philosophy, as he expiates on the\nlove, the kindness, the philanthropy, the condescending grace of the\nWord, who is God. We cannot follow him far. The intellectual objector\nhas much to say about the unreasonableness of faith; and the Christian\ndoctor vindicates scientific theology, whilst he shows how the crowd\nof men must simply believe or be without any teaching whatever. He\nsays deep and pregnant things about faith, science, and wisdom, that\nwould bear fruit if reproduced in an age like ours. Then he enters at\ngreat length into the critical objections of the man of intellect\nagainst the life and actions of Jesus, more especially against the\ngreat corner-stone of faith, the resurrection. And throughout the\nwhole of his demonstrations on intellectual grounds, he is fond of\ncalling attention to two grand arguments of fact, that no amount of\nsubtlety can explain away, and that the dullest wit cannot help\nseeing: first; that Christianity has changed and reformed men's morals\nin a way totally unexampled; second, that such a system of dogma and\nmorality can never by any possibility have been the product of human\nthought, especially seeing what sort of men have propagated and\nprofessed it, \"not many wise, not many noble;\" therefore its origin is\ndivine, and its author is the great creator of whom Plato spoke in\nstammering words, and whom all philosophy has sought.\n\nCelsus, after having laughed at Christianity, and argued against it,\nand having sometimes laughed argumentatively, and at other times\nargued by a laugh, appears toward the end of his book in the entirely\nnew character of the citizen, or patriotic opponent of impious\ninnovations. He defends the old faith in the gods and the myths, the\nold sacrifices, in a word, the old civilization, from the awful\nradicalism of a sect that were upsetting the very foundations of\nsocial order, and endangering what little religion the common people\ncould be got to practise. \"All this private association and\nsectarianism is clearly against the law of the empire. They repudiate\ntemples, they despise statutes, they mock at the offerings of incense\nand the sacrifices of living things; and they tell decent temple-goers\nand frequenters of the sanctuaries that they are doing an abomination\nand worshipping devils. Now, the proper, sensible, and right thing is,\nthat each nation preserve its own customs and laws. One people has\nfound the advantage of one set of institutions, another of another;\nlet each keep what is once established by due and competent authority.\nThe Jews are perfectly right in being tenacious of their particular\nlaws.\" (This is cool, in one who had just been abusing the Jews with\nall his powers of ridicule and logic--but then he is now speaking in a\ndifferent character.) \"Besides, there is another and a deeper reason\nfor this. It is probable that in the beginning of things the diverse\nparts of the earth were committed to diverse powers and dominations to\nbe presided over and governed according to their pleasure; it must\ntherefore be wrong to attack those institutions which they have\nestablished from the beginning in their several prefectures. It seems,\nindeed, perfectly certain that there is nothing in the world that is\nnot given in charge to some demon. Man himself, the moment he enters\nthe prison of his body, passes under the power of the keepers of this\nprison-house. Nay, the Egyptians, who are unexceptionable {789}\nauthorities here, tell us that to look after the various parts of a\nman's body, there are told off no less than six-and-thirty demons or\naerial powers (some say more); and they even mention their names, as\nChnoumen, Chnachoumen, Cnat, Sieat, and others, by invoking whom you\nobtain health in your various limbs. Certainly, therefore, if a man\nprefer health to sickness, and happiness to misery, there is no reason\nwhy he should not deliver himself from evil by propitiating these\nbeings who have him in charge. One or two things, therefore; either\nthe Christians must live in this world and worship those who rule this\nworld, or they must abjure marriage, never have children, take no part\nin the affairs of men, in fact depart from the earth altogether, and\nleave no seed behind them. If they are to share in the goods, and to\nbe protected from the evils of this world, then it is both\nunreasonable and ungrateful not to render tribute to the guardians of\nwhat they enjoy and the powers from whom they have so much to fear.\"\nThe proud and fastidious philosopher has fallen low. What an interval\nbetween the grand sentences of Plato and the humiliating confessions\nof the apologist of idol-worship! And yet both extremes must be duly\nconsidered, before we can realize the Paganism of the Neo-Platonic\nrevival. The demonology of Zoroaster, which was the practical religion\nof the whole East, had encountered the Platonic philosophy and\nengrafted itself upon it; and the sages of such Greek cities as\nCaesarea found themselves seriously defending the devil-worship of the\nwandering Arabs that roved over the plains of Syria and Asia, ignoring\nthe centres of civilization that Alexander's conquest had erected in\ntheir midst.\"\n\nThe first part of the objectors patriotic appeal on behalf of\nestablished \"institutions\" is easily disposed of. The argument,\ncarried to its lawful lengths, becomes ridiculous. \"The Scythian law\nkills all the old men; the Persian law sanctions incest; the Crimeans\nsacrifice strangers to Diana; in one part of Africa they immolate\ntheir children to Saturn. One national law makes hanging a virtue,\nanother commends death by fire. Some nations reckon it pious to\nworship crocodiles, others pay divine honors to cows, others again\nmake gods of goats, and one people adores what another eats. This is\nmaking religion, not a truth, but a whim and a fancy. This is making\npiety, holiness, and righteousness, affairs of opinion, and not\nascertainable, fixed realities. Suppose some one were to get up and\nsay the same of temperance, prudence, justice, or fortitude, would he\nnot be considered an imbecile? The truth is, there are two sorts of\nlaws; the unwritten law of Nature, of which the author is God, and the\nwritten law of the state. If the state-law is not at variance with\nGod's law, it ought to be kept and to be preferred before the laws of\nstrangers; but if it oppose the law of God, it must be trampled upon,\neven though danger, ignominy, and death be the consequence.\" Thus much\nfor the sentiment of nationality, and the common and obvious reasons,\nas Origen calls them, that will make plain men repudiate it. But the\ndemon-theory and the alleged distribution of things to the aerial\npowers, leads to a deeper and more serious question. Knowing,\ntherefore, that his book will fall into the hands of some who will be\ninclined to examine such questions to the bottom, he undertakes to\nspeak more at length on the matter. This gives him an opportunity of\nshowing, by the history of the dispersion of Babel, how it is that we\nfind such diversity of peoples in different parts of the earth. Their\ndispersion was a punishment; the ministers of this punishment are the\nwicked spirits, acting as the instruments of God. One nation alone\nremained in God's favor, and even it had to be punished through the\n\"princes\" or spirits of other nations. Of God's mysterious dealings\nwith this nation, and of the redemption that was to come {790} through\nit to all the other nations, he says he cannot speak out, an account\nof the _disciplina arcani_, which forbade the Christian teacher to\nenter into explicit details about the evil spirits, and this far the\nsake of not affording encouragement to idolatry.\n\nThe time had now come when all the nations were called to the one\nsaviour, the one lawgiver Jesus Christ, who \"issuing a master and a\nteacher from the midst of the Jews, feeds with the word of his\nteaching the universal world.\" For punishment, therefore, were the\npeoples of the earth delivered to demons; for salvation they must all\nreturn to the law of God, through Jesus. Then, as usual, the Christian\ndoctor lays down the grand principle that withers with its first\nbreath all this base and futile service of devils. \"The Lord our God\ndo we adore, and him only do we serve.\" If demons punish men, or if\nangels rule this lower world, it is by his supreme will that they act.\n\"God, therefore, the one Supreme Lord of all--him we must conciliate\nand make propitious, by religion and all virtue. Is not this simple?\nIs it not reasonable? Bethink you for one moment. There are two men,\nof whom one devotes himself entirely to the Almighty God, the other\nbusies himself in searching out the names of the demons, their powers\nand their deeds, the rhymes that raise them, the plants that please\nthem, the magic gems and the wizard characters that will elicit their\nanswers; which of these two, think you, will be most pleasing to the\nLord of All? But little wisdom is required to see that the former, in\nhis simplicity and trust, will be accepted of the Almighty God and his\nfamiliars; whilst he who for the sake of his health and his comfort\nand his base and mean wants, deals, in demon-worship and magic, will\nbe rejected as evil and impious, and be left to the tender mercies of\nthe devils he invokes, to the confusion and despair of diabolical\nsuggestions, and to infinite evils. For Celsus himself owns that these\ndemons are wicked, that they are covetous of blood, of the savour and\nsmoke of a sacrifice and of the singing that evokes them; let their\nworshipper, then, beware lest they prove slippery in their faith to\nhim, and lest the adorer of yesterday be abandoned or ruined in favor\nof the more ample offerings of blood and of burnt odors that are\nbrought by the adorer of today. And let not Celsus accuse us of\ningratitude. We know perfectly well what true gratitude is, and to\nwhom we ought to be grateful for all that we possess; and we fear not\nto be ungrateful to the demons, our adversaries and our enemies; but\nwe fear to be ungrateful to him with whose benefits we are laden,\nwhose workmanship we are, whose Providence has placed us in our varied\nlots in life, and at whose hands we look for life eternal when this\nlife shall be ended. And we have a symbol of this our thankfulness; it\nis the bread that we call the Bread of thanksgiving--the Eucharistic\nBread.\" This last sentence would read commonplace to the infidel or\nthe catechumen that might fall upon this answer of Origen to Celsus.\nThey could not know what the faithful Christian knew, and what the\nwriter himself knew and must have felt to his innermost heart, that\nthese passing words were a veil that covered nothing less than the\nTabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament. The great central mystery, for\nwell-known reasons, does not meet the eye in the pages of Origen, save\nin suggestive passages like this; but we Christians of today can\npierce the mystery because we have its key, and can respond with our\nCatholic sympathies to a Catholic voice that speaks to us in veiled\naccents across the expanse of sixteen centuries. \"For our\ncitizenship,\" he concludes, \"we are no rebels or traitors. You say,\nquoting the words of an ancient--\n\n  'King there is but one,\n  whom Saturn's son hath established,'\n\nWe say with you, King there is but one; but in the place of Saturn's\nson' {791} we put him who 'raiseth up kings and deposeth them,' and\n'who provideth a wise ruler in his season upon the earth.' The kingly\npower is from God, and by God's will we obey it; would that all\nbelieved this as we do! You exhort us to enter the imperial armies and\nfight for the state. But no men serve their country as the Christians\ndo. They are taught to use heavenly arms in behalf of their rulers,\nand to pray to heaven for 'kings and all those who are in high\nplaces;' and their prayers, their mortifications, and their\nself-restraint are of more avail than many soldiers set in array of\nbattle. And beyond all this, they teach their countrymen the worship\nof the Lord of All, and there is no earthly city so little and mean\nbut they can promise its citizens a heavenly city with God. You exhort\nus to enter the magistracy and protect our country's laws and\nreligion. We have in every city an organization that is to us a second\n_patria_, created by the word of God, governed by those who are\npowerful in word and sound in work; excuse us if we concern ourselves\nmainly with the magistracy of the church. The ambitious we reject;\nthose whose modesty makes them refuse the solicitude of the church of\nGod, these we compel to accept it. The presidents of God's state are\ncalled by God's will to rule, and they must not defile their hands\nwith the ministry of human laws. Not that a Christian refuses his\nshare of public burdens; but he prefers to reserve himself for burdens\nand for a service of a diviner and more necessary sort, wherein is\nconcerned the salvation of men. The Christian magistrate has a charge\nover all men; of those that are within, that they live better every\nday; of those that are without, that they may be numbered among those\nwho act and speak the things of God-service. Serving God in very\ntruth, instructing whom he may, he lives full of the divine word and\nlaw, and so he is able to lead to the Lord of All every one that is\nconverted and wishes to live in his holy law, through the divine Son\nof God that is in him, his word, his wisdom, his truth, and his\nrighteousness.\"\n\nWith this description of the Christian bishop, we conclude our remarks\non Origen. It will doubtless have occurred to most of our readers that\nwe have too completely ignored the charges of heterodoxy that have so\noften been made against the name of Origen. But we do not admit that\nOrigen was unsound in faith, much less that he was formerly heretical.\nAlthough not unprepared to justify this conviction, we cannot do more\nat present than invoke the authority of a new and important\ncontribution to the Origen controversy, which was notified in our last\nnumber.  [Footnote 209] Professor Vincenzi, it is confessed by\ncompetent and impartial critics, has totally dissipated the notion\nthat Origen denied the eternity of punishment. As to the other\naccusations, he goes through them one by one and confutes them,\nwithout admitting anything whatever in the genuine works of Origen to\nbe theologically unsound, \"excepting a few points on which the fathers\nof his age were as doubtful and uncertain as himself, since the Church\nhad not then defined them.\"  [Footnote 210] Thirdly, he undertakes to\nprove that S. Jerome was completely mistaken, through no fault of his,\nwith regard to the merits of a controversy in which he played so\nmemorable a part; and, lastly, he maintains that Origen was never\ncondemned by Pope or council, discussing especially the alleged\ncondemnation by the fifth general council. Under shelter, then, of the\nauthority of a work that comes to us with the approval of the Roman\ncensorship, and which on two separate occasions has been warmly\npraised in the Civilt\u00e0, we cannot be wrong in waiving, at least, all\ndiscussion, in articles like the present, on the alleged errors of\nOrigen. What has been said, though it has left the greater {792} part\nof his work unconsidered, may perhaps have served to draw attention to\none who is in some respects the greatest of the Greek fathers. He did\nnot live long after the completion of the Contra Celsum. As he had\nbeen the faith's champion from his orphaned boyhood to his old age, so\nhe merited at least to suffer as a martyr for the Truth he had served\nso long. His tortures in the Decian persecution did not immediately\ncause his death, but they hastened it. He died at Tyre in 253 or 254.\nThe cities where he taught are now mere names. Alexandria is a modern\nTurkish town, Caesarea is a heap of broken columns and ruined piers,\nAthens is the capital of a pitiful nation of mongrel Hellenes, Bostra\nand Petra are tombs in the deserts of Arabia. But two things are not\nlikely to grow less in their greatness or to lose the vividness of\ntheir importance, the faith of Christ and what Origen has done for it.\nIn another region of the world, and in cities with names that are\ndifferent, yet with histories as grand as belonged to the cities of\nthe East, unbelief seems to be bringing back a condition of mind, to\nencounter which the Catholic writer will have to put himself into the\ncircumstances of those ancient giants who met and overthrew scientific\npaganism in the second and third centuries. Faith, and what is faith,\nand why men must believe, occupied Clement and Origen. The same\nquestions are occupying the thought of our own day; and many a hint\nmay be gathered and many a suggestive argument started, by those who\nwill take the Alexandrian stand-point and look at faith as it is\nlooked at in the polemical works of the great Alexandrian school.\n\n  [Footnote 209: In S. Gregorii Nysseni et Origenis scripta et\n  doctrinam nova recension, per Aloysium Vincenzi. 4 vols. Romae\n  1865.]\n\n  [Footnote 210: \"Dummodo tamen nonnulla exceperis, quae pariter apud\n  Patres coaevos adhuc dubia manebant et incerta; quippe nondum ab\n  Ecclesi\u00e1 definita.\"--_Vincenzi_, ii. 524.]\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE TALE OF A TOMBSTONE.\n\nBY D. O'C. TOWNLEY.\n\nIt is quite true to say, that the American makes a mistake who, in his\nEuropean tour, leaves Ireland out in the cold unvisited. He at least\nfails to make an acquaintance which could not prove otherwise than\ninteresting, and possibly to find a burying-place where, if he had\nthem, he might dispose of his superfluous prejudices bearing upon that\nisland and its people--prejudices for the most part begotten of\nill-directed reading or formed with the hasty conclusions of a very\nlimited experience.\n\nIf a politician, he cannot fail to learn, ere he travels many miles,\nwhether in Connaught or in Ulster, what he ought _not_ to do with a\npeople having a desire to see them prosperous and contented. If a\nhistorian, he may find food for a chapter unwritten by Hume and\nSmollet, or even by the more impartial Macaulay; a chapter which may\nthrow some light upon the cause, ever obscurely and often untruthfully\ngiven, whose effect is that spirit of retrogression which hovers over\nthe unhappy island and lays its blighting hand upon every acre from\nCork to the Giant's Causeway. If he be a painter, a poet, or a\nnovelist, he may find in Ireland and her people an Eldorado with mines\nas inexhaustible as the ore is rich. If a tourist merely, even such a\none as does London in a fortnight, Paris in a week, and the Rhine on\nthe fastest steamer upon that ancient river--that brilliant soul who\ntakes his sleep o' moonlit nights, and on the days which follow, sits\nyawning over dinner till the shadows fall, and the storied head\u00b7 {793}\nlands have been passed unseen--even such as he, stupid or _blas\u00e9_, as\nthe case may be, may find in Ireland something to awake to momentary\nenergy, at least, his sleeping thought and action.\n\nApproaching the fall of 18--, having done the continental celebrities\nthe year before, and having been in England since early in the month\nof May, I concluded, before returning to New York, that I should pay a\nflying visit to the emerald cradle of that prolific race, which is, in\nthe language of the stump, when it suits the orators to say so, the\nbone and sinew of these States; the great level which uproots our\nforests; the great spade which hollows our canals; the huge pick and\nshovel and barrow, that lay our iron roads over mountain and morass;\nand the mighty polling power which develops the peculiarities of\nlegislators, contributes most generously to the revenue of the excise,\nand to the sustenance of the many good and bad people whose business\nof life it is to get this truly erratic people into all manner of\ntrouble, including jails, and out of it.\n\nWith no prejudices against the Irish people, and some\nclear-sightedness as to the causes of their proverbial discontent,\nunthriftiness, and frequent turbulence, I went quite ready to sorrow\nor be glad, just as either mood was suggested by my surroundings;\nneither to sneer at their emotional enthusiasm nor to turn disgusted\nfrom their hilarious mirth.\n\nCrossing from Holyhead to Dublin, I remained in that city for a few\ndays, then visited the south and west, leaving the industrious north\nto finish off with. But as the purpose of this sketch is not to retail\neither impressions of the country or its people, or all the personal\nexperiences of my journey, I must proceed to the narration of the\nsingle incident, the object of this writing, referring the reader, if\nhis appetite lean in the direction, to the pencillings of Mr. Willis\nor the much more truthful story-telling of Mrs. Hall. My immediate\npurpose is gained if I have in a slight degree awakened the reader's\ninterest for that which follows, and if he understands that I had now\nalmost reached that period which I had set down for the close of my\ntour and my return home.\n\nOf the month I had set apart for Ireland--the _bonne bouche_, or, if\nyou like the Celtic better, the \"_doch an durhas_\" of my feast--I had\nbut one week left when I found myself at Warrenpoint, a pleasant\nwatering place on the margin of the bay of Carlingford, going\nnorthward to Belfast. Here I had been two days, rather longer than I\nhad proposed to remain, but the season and the place at this time of\nthe year are especially attractive. So near Ireland's' highest\nmountain as I then was, it occurred to me how discreditable the\nconfession would be that I had not seen it save in the purple\ndistance, and I concluded to do myself the honor of a near\nacquaintance--sit upon its topmost ridge, and rifle a sprig of heather\nfrom its venerable crown as a relic of the nearest spot to heaven on\nthe Isle of Saints.\n\n\"No,\" said mine host, \"your honor must never say good-by to Ireland\nuntil you see her only living monarch who has not emigrated or been\ntransported to a penal colony!\"\n\nSlieve Donard, the king in question, was but twelve miles distant, or\nrather the village nestling at its foot. The road to Newcastle, the\nname this village bears, was one of peculiar beauty all the way, and I\nchose, to me, the most enjoyable of all ways of reaching it--I\ndetermined to walk there. So, about eight o'clock on a beautiful\nautumn morning, the dew still upon the grass and glistening upon the\nrustling leaves of the beeches in a grove of which my rustic hotel lay\nshadowed, armed with a stout blackthorn, a book in either pocket, and\na light breakfast in its appropriate department, I set out upon my\njourney; accomplished it most enjoyably, arriving with but a {794}\nfaint remembrance that I had eaten any breakfast whatever, and just in\ntime for the _table d'h\u00f4te_ at Brady's.\n\nThe hotel was full with the motley occupants peculiar, there as\nelsewhere, to hotels by the seaside in the bathing season. Among the\nguests were reverend gentlemen assorted in the nicest manner, lean\nkine and fat; the good-natured parish priest and the more\nsanctimonious and exclusive curate of the orthodox persuasion; surly\ncountry squires who had rushed down to please their wives and the\ngirls--\"what did they want with salt water?\" the city shopkeeper and\nhis prim property, exulting in evidence of _ton_ in every word and\nmovement. Even the eye-glassed, red, and wiry-whiskered Cockney could\nbe seen and heard, possibly attracted there by the reputation of the\n\"Hirish girls for fine hiyes and hintellects,\" or probably from a\npeculiar horror, for private reasons, of other watering places nearer\nhome, where landlords were less generous and accommodating, being more\nexperienced. These, and such as these, with a few who came to see\nrather than to be seen, made up the guests at Brady's.\n\nAfter dinner I joined a party of the class last mentioned who purposed\ndevoting the rest of the afternoon to an excursion upon the mountain,\nascending as high at least as would enable them to enjoy a scene\npronounced by travellers to be one of the finest in a land praised\nalike in song and story for its scenic beauty. The unmingled enjoyment\nof that ascent--for the labor of the journey was a pleasure too--is\none of the most pleasant of the many happy memories which I owe to the\n\"Isle of Tears.\" The landscape which unrolled itself like a scroll as\nwe ascended was of remarkable beauty. Rich with all the gorgeous\ncoloring of the season was spread out as far as the eye could reach\nthe unshorn wealth of corn-field and of meadow. Here and there a clump\nof beech or chestnut sheltered, half hidden among the foliage, the\nsnow-white walls of a farm house. Liliputian figures crept stealthily\nalong through lane and over pasture, more like the tiny figures in a\nFlemish painting than men and cattle at their labor. The rock-bound\nbay was alive with its freight of toy-like fishing-boats, whose white\nsails borrowed the golden hues of evening as the sun stole down toward\nthe heathery forehead of Slieve Donard. The whole scene, embraced from\nan altitude of fourteen hundred feet, is again before me, and I revel\nfor a moment, whilst the illusion lasts, in the unspeakable emotion\nwhich was born of it.\n\nBut as I set out to tell a story whose theatre is not the mountain but\nthe valley underneath, I must e'en come down again to supper and to\nprose, leaving, however reluctantly, Slieve Donard and its poetry\nbehind me.\n\nLeaving Newcastle with that regret which all must feel who leave it at\nsuch a season, I started next morning after breakfast for\nCastlewellan, where I intended taking the coach for Newry, having\nordered my luggage to be forwarded there from my hotel at the Point.\n\nCastlewellan is but four miles distant, and the journey thither was\nsaid to be one of the most enjoyable walks in this romantic region.\n\nThe road, for the entire distance, is one uninterrupted ascent toward\nthe summit of one of the lesser hills on which the village stands,\naffording from every point--unless when now and then a jutting\nmountain crag overhangs the path, and for a moment, intercepts the\nvision--a view of the broad expanse of sea, the valley widening as you\nrise--each footstep of the ascent adding some new beauty of form and\ncolor, light and shadow to the scene.\n\nHalf way upon my journey I sat down to rest for a minute or two by the\nroad side and lighted a cigar. Under its soothing influence and that\nof the scene beneath me, I dropped into one of those blissful reveries\nin which we sometimes forget our earthliness for a while, our souls\nabsorbed in ecstatic {795} contemplation of the wondrous beauty, yet\nstill more wondrous mystery, of the Creator's handiwork.\n\nI had been thus but a short time indeed when the sound of approaching\nfootsteps broke in upon my thought, followed by the customary\nsalutation, \"God save you, sir, 'tis a heavenly morning that we have.\"\n\nReplying in the country phraseology, \"God save you kindly,\" I raised\nmy eyes to see the passing figure of a stooped old man, with a spade\nupon his shoulder, moving slowly onward 'neath his weight of years and\nin my direction. Always fond of a companion, when wandering in this\nway, being usually fortunate enough to meet with those to whom the\nscenes around me were familiar, and from whom I often learned much\nindeed that was new and interesting, I arose to resume my walk.\nStrongly impressed by the venerable form of the old peasant, as I\ndeemed him, and thus attracted, I joined him, making some casual\nremarks about the appearance of the country, which easily opened the\nway to conversation. Enough of years have passed since that autumn\nmorning to have worn out the then feeble thread of the old man's life,\nbut palpable to my memory as the recollections of my wedding day is\nevery lineament of that expressive face. I hear again, as I write, the\ngentle music of his voice, his white hairs float before me stirred by\nthe morning mountain breeze, and I greet again his expressive\nsalutation, felt again if again unspoken, \"God save you kindly.\"\n\nTo all my inquiries touching the country round about, and the harvest,\nthen all but gathered from the fields, he replied in that simple yet\nlucid manner common to the most uneducated Irish peasant, when he\nspeaks of things familiar to him, chastened in his every remark by\nexpressions of his gratitude to God for bounties received, and of his\nreliance upon his wisdom and goodness in affliction.\n\nHis calling, he told me, was a sad one. He, too, was a laborer in the\nfield, but the harvest he gathered was moist with the tears of many.\nDeath himself was the reaper. He was the village sexton.\n\nI had often before met men of his melancholy occupation, but the\nhearts of these seemed to have been hardened by the very nature of\ntheir handicraft, as they became familiarized with that sorrow,\nbitterest to human nature--the parting for ever in this world with the\ntruest and best beloved; but in the good old man beside me the keenest\nsympathy for his suffering fellow mortals seemed to have found a meet\nand fitting resting-place.\n\nI learned from him that a few rods further on my way stood the chapel\nand burying-ground of Drumbhan, where, for some fifty years back, he\nhad made the last dwelling-places of his friends and neighbors. Five\nminutes' walking brought us to the open gate and to the pathway\nleading to the modest village church, within whose sacred walls a\nnumber of the villagers had already gathered to early mass.\n\nGuided by my new acquaintance, I also entered, joining in the sacred\nceremony, which began soon afterward.\n\nHow is it, I ask you who have accompanied me thus far, reader, how is\nit--and the feeling is common to almost all of us--that in such a\nsimple edifice as that I knelt in, paintless and unpictured, unadorned\nby the bright conceptions of genius or the cunning fingers of art;\nwith naked floor and whitewashed wall; window untinted with Scripture\nstory, itself suggestive of devotion; no ornament save the simple\nembellishments of the altar; no music save the solemn voice of the\npriest, distinctly audible in the respectful stillness of the place;\nhow is it, I ask you, that in such a sanctuary our souls seem to reach\nnearer to their God in silent adoration, than when we kneel on velvet\ncushions in the temples of the city, with their graven oak and marble\npillars, their lofty domes of painted glass, their frescoes and their\nstatuary, their mighty organs and their hundred choristers?\n\n{796}\n\nOn leaving the church, at the conclusion f the mass, I rejoined the\nsexton, who had stopped a moment at the porch for his spade, where he\nhad left it in an angle as we entered. I followed him across the yard\nand through the wicket which separated us from the burying-ground.\nCalling my attention to some of the more imposing monuments of the\nplace, he passed forward along the narrow pathway to perform the\nmelancholy task which he had told me was his first duty of this\nmorning--to make a grave for the last, the very last, of the\ncompanions of his boyhood; one, he said, whose death, like his life,\nwas all peace, and that was part of the reward of the gentleness of\nhis nature, the fulness of which was hereafter.\n\nPassing from stone to stone, to linger for a moment at this which told\nits tale of the early call of the young and innocent, or at that which\nspoke of many years and mayhap of many sorrows, I stopped near to one\nwhich, from the quaintness of the inscription and chaste simplicity of\nits form had a peculiar attraction for me. It was a cross in granite\nwith a wreath not unskilfully chiselled crowning the upper limb,\nwhilst along the extended arms was a single line, \"The 'Widow and her\nSon.\"\n\nLeaning on a more aspiring tombstone near, I read again and again\nthese simple words, all the while imagination doing its work of making\na history for the mother and her child, when from this my second\nreverie of the morning, I was again aroused by the voice of my aged\nfriend.\n\n\"I see you have been reading that inscription, sir,\" he said. \"I\nhave,\" I, replied, \"and it has stirred my curiosity rather strangely.\nIt seems to me that there is much which the tombstone does not tell.\"\n\n\"Very much indeed, sir,\" returned the sexton; \"look around me as I may\nat these familiar forms, there is not one amongst them tells as sad a\ntale as this one.\"\n\n\"Your reply does not lessen my curiosity,\" I said; \"and even if it be\nthe saddest of your sad experiences, and that I did not fear to\ntrespass too much upon your feelings or your time, I should ask you to\ntell me the story of those whose resting-place is thus beautifully,\nyet strangely marked.\"\n\n\"No trespass, sir, no trespass,\" the old man replied. \"If the story be\none to recall a scene which will make my old eyes weep, it will just\nbe such a one as suits my heart this morning. So having yet an hour to\nspare before the remains of my old friend can reach the ground, we\nshall sit down upon this grave here whilst I tell you the story of\nMary Donovan and her boy.\"\n\nGlancing around to see that no unexpected duty called him, he seated\nhimself on the mound proposed. I sat down beside him, an eager\nlistener to that which follows, given to you in words as near his own\nas may be, but wanting in that richness of accent and figurative\nexpression peculiar to his class and to his country.\n\nHad business or pleasure called you to Castlewellan some six years\nago, began the sexton, you could hardly have failed to meet a\ngood-natured innocent,  [Footnote 211] some seventeen or eighteen\nyears old, ever to be seen the first at Blaney's when a traveller\npulled up his horse for refreshments or coach or car, to set down or\nto receive a passenger. Ere the rattle of hoof or wheel had ceased in\nthe courtyard before the inn, the voice of poor Ned Donovan was sure\nto fall upon the stranger's ear in a greeting, wild, yet musical, and\nwith that peculiarity of expression which told the story plainly, that\nhe was one of those to whom, for his own wise purpose doubtless, God\nhad been but sparing in the gift of mind. And yet there was a childish\njoyousness in his every look and tone that compensated in some measure\nfor his misfortune, evidence as it was that he was saved from the\ncares and anxieties common even to those of his early years.\n\n  [Footnote 211: Synonymous with \"Idiot\" among the Irish peasantry\n  when used in this way; they rarely use the word idiot unless in\n  derision.]\n\n{797}\n\nNed loved the horses and the cars, and knew every professional driver\nthat came that way to fair or market for miles and miles around. He\nreserved, however, especial affection for the regular roadsters, man\nand beast; these I mean that drove daily to Blaney's from Newry,\nRathfriland, or Dromore. The men, well acquainted with his ways, never\nspoke a hasty or unkind word to him, although he was occasionally\nself\u00b7willed in the matter of the horse-feed and the watering. The\nhorses naturally returned the affection of one whose attendance upon\nthem was untiring. He talked to them incessantly in public or in\nprivate; their comfort occupied the first place in his thought. He\ncurried, whisked them down, patted and praised their best points with\nall the enthusiasm of a connoisseur, or, when the like happened,\nmourned over a broken knee or a windgall as over some serious domestic\ntrouble, as indeed to him it was. All this and more of the kind was\ndone without fee or reward, save the privilege at all hours of the\nkitchen fireside and the stables, with an occasional ride down to the\nriver, \"wid the creatures for a drink,\" as he would say or \"to wash\nthe mud from their legs, and bad scran to it.\"\n\nFew days passed, however, failing to bring him a chance horse to hold\nfor a fine gentleman \"wid boots and spurs bedad,\" or when he had not\nan errand to run or to lend a helping hand with the luggage of some\ngenerous traveller; and with these opportunities came sixpences,\nsometimes even shillings, for his trouble, but oftener still just\nbecause he was Ned Donovan. Many to whom his story was unknown often\nwondered at the glistening eager eye with which he counted his\nearnings over, and at the happiness an additional sixpence seemed to\ngive him; all this was so unlike the hourly evidences of his most\nunselfish nature. Strangers, less charitable in mind than in pocket,\nled astray by this seeming love of money, not unfrequently thought\nthat much of the boy's idiocy was put on, and they said so; but they\ndid not know him, nor happily he the meaning of their sneer. It was\namusing to follow him at the lucky moment when he got a shilling or so\nin this way, when be invariably made straight for the bar of the inn\nto deposit it with the utmost gravity of manner in the safe keeping of\ngood Mrs. Blaney. He had learnt from bitter experience how unsafe it\nwas to be his own banker, as he had frequently lost his earnings in\nthe hay loft or the stable, before the happy thought had struck him to\nfind a better keeper for them. You would have heard there, too, how he\ninvariably came at night to withdraw his funds, and how he always had\nmoney given him, more or less. For there were unlucky days for Ned,\nwhen travellers were few or forgetful; but his memory was far from\nfaithful in this regard, and good Mrs. Blaney was more than kind.\n\nThe reason for this seeming selfishness of Ned is easily told. He had\na mother whom he loved with all his strange impassioned nature, a\nwidowed mother. To receive her grateful smile in return for the wages\nof his industry each evening when he reached his home was the crowning\nhappiness of the day.\n\nGod was kindly with him--he was not alone, poor boy! He had a mother,\nand all that mother's love. Had you travelled that way you must have\nnoticed their little cottage at the turning going up the hill to St.\nMary's. You may see it even now as you pass, but the roses Mary\ntrained there are dead and gone, the little latticed window broken,\nthe garden weedy and desolate, telling its tale of sorrow like the\ntombstone.\n\nMary Donovan had lived there for many years--since her boy was quite a\nchild. She came one morning, so the gossips said, a passenger by the\ncoach, somewhere from the North. Her child was then but four years\nold, and then, as ever after, an object for the sympathy of the kind\nof heart. She took humble lodgings and applied to the {798}\nshopkeepers and the neighboring gentry for employment at her needle,\nwith which she was wonderfully skilled, they said. The prejudices\nwhich met her at the first, from all save the kind landlady of the\n\"Stag,\" soon gave way before her patient, unbending uprightness of\ncharacter and the unfathomable sorrow that weighed her down, for\nsorrow is a sacred thing; even the voice of scandal hushes in its\npresence. Her past history was her secret. Whether it was one of shame\nor of suffering virtue no tongue could tell. Silent as the grave to\nall impertinent inquiry, meek and humble before her God, and gentle as\ngentleness itself with every living thing, her mystery became\nrespected, and she and her boy beloved.\n\nFrom that evening, when wet and weary from her journey, she first\nawoke the kindly sympathies of the hostess of the \"Stag\"--the same\ngood-natured Mrs. Blaney--for twelve long years the widow pursued her\npeaceful way, earning for herself and for her child not merely a\nlivelihood, but many of the comforts of dress and food, which were\nlooked upon as luxuries by those around her; and never did mother\nreceive more fulness of reward in the passionate love of offspring\nthan she in that of her all but mindless boy.\n\nWhen he was yet a child often have I watched him sitting at her feet,\nas she sat at the cottage door or window plying her ever busy needle,\nlistening to the strange stories of the fairies and the leprechauns of\nthe olden times she could tell so well. Of Heaven and its glories,\ntoo, she would sometimes speak, to be interrupted by some strange\nremark, suggestive of more than human wisdom. Then the startled mother\nwould fix her eyes upon his face so earnestly, as if in hope that God\nat last would shed light upon the shadowed mind of her bereaved one,\nto meet ever and always the glance of childish adoration, but with it,\nalas! the vacant smile that spoke forgetfulness already of the\ntransitory ray of reason that a moment rested there.\n\nOften have I stopped, as I passed that way, to listen to some quaint\nold ballad full of the melancholy music of her voice, and make my\nfriendly inquiries for herself and child, sure to find him in his\nusual resting-place. My welcome was a warm one always, and my grey\nhairs--for they were grey even then, sir--often mingled with the\nyellow curls of the boy as he clambered up my knee to kiss me. We were\nwarm friends, sir, Mary and I, for I and I only, of all living beings,\nknew her secret and the story of her sorrow--and this was the way I\nlearned it:\n\nOne day, soon after her arrival in the town, I had just risen from\nearly mass in the chapel and turned in here upon my morning round,\nwhen the voice of some one weeping bitterly, and the sad wail of a\nchild accompanying, drew my attention to a corner of the yard and to\nthe kneeling figure of a woman and that of a little boy, seated among\nthe long grass of the grave beside her. Mourners were no unfamiliar\nsights to me, even at such an early hour, but the woman's dress\nbespoke the stranger and awoke my curiosity. I neared the grave and\nrecognized it as that of a good old man, once the village\nschool-master, who had died two years before. I knew him well; for\nmany years he had dwelt amongst us, respected for himself as for his\ncalling. He had been happy in the affections of an only child--a\ndaughter, the very picture of her mother, he used to say, whom he had\nburied amongst strangers. In her was centred his every earthly hope.\nShe was his pride, and her pleasure all the reward he sought in a life\nladen with all the petty vexatious of the teacher. She forsook him and\nher happy home, and fled to England with one whom she had known for a\nfew weeks only, who had met her at Rostrevor, where her father's fond\nindulgence had sent her for the season; forsook all for a\nhusband--scandal said, a lover--who, whilst enamored of her beauty,\nscorned her father's poverty. The old man never raised his head again\nin the village. Two years of sorrow, and the grave closed over him.\n{799} I made it. The savings of his industrious life still lay in the\nhands of the village pastor in safe-keeping for the lost one should\nshe ever return to claim it; but Mary never claimed it.\n\nI drew nearer, for my heart told me who the mourner was. I, too, had\nloved the girl, as who indeed had not? I, too, had shared the sorrow\nof her honest father, and many a time had yearned to know the fate of\nthe fair-haired daughter of his affection.\n\nI drew still nearer; my step was noiseless upon the grass. I leaned\nupon a headstone near me. I spoke the words that pressed for\nutterance, \"Mary, Mary,\" I said, \"You come too late, too late!\"\n\nShe started from the grave; an exclamation of terror and surprise\nbroke from her. She looked me wildly in the face as if the spirit of\nher injured father stood in shape before her, and recognizing the sad\nfeatures of that father's friend, she sank, sobbing convulsively, upon\nthe grave again, hiding her pale face in the long grass which covered\nit.\n\nI raised her kindly in my arms, and sitting down beside her, her\nwondering yet gentle boy between my knees, I heard her sad tale of\npassion and remorse. No other ever heard that story; she asked my\nsilence and I spoke not.\n\nFrom that time forward, year after year, the penitent paid frequent\nvisits to her lather's grave; her gentle manner asked for no inquiry,\nand none was made, and there was nothing left of the once joyous\ndaughter of the school-master to challenge recognition. The boy, too,\nseemed to love the place, and oftentimes accompanied her. For her sake\nit was he loved it, seeming to comprehend that here there was\nsomething sharing with him her affection, some link which bound them\nboth to the place for ever.\n\nWell, years passed on; and, as I have said, the voice of scandal had\nlong been hushed; the child had almost reached to manhood, and the\nsilver threads of time and sorrow had stolen in among the once golden\nlocks of the mother. Childlike ever, and uniformly good and cheerful,\nNed rose each morning, and as it had been for some years, the daylight\nwas not more certain to enter the pleasant bar-room of the \"Stag\" than\nwas the shadow of the innocent to fall across its threshold, its\nearliest visitor. Evening brought him home with his caresses, his\nchildish chat; and his petty earnings to his mother, who, happy at the\npleasure his employment gave him, was profuse in the praises that he\nloved to hear.\n\nAnd so matters had gone on for years, just as if they might have done\nso for ever, when God in his wisdom brought that sore affliction upon\nus all--the famine and the sickness of '47. Who that has lived\nthrough that year of misery and horror, but shudders at the\nremembrances its very name recalls? Who but wails some beloved one\nsnatched away with scarce a moment's warning?--the child from its\nmother's arms; the mother from the child's caresses; the youth\nstanding, full of hope on the threshold of his manhood, when the warm\nblood froze suddenly in his veins, the glad visions of his future\nfaded before him as the relentless hand of death seized him with a\ngrasp of iron, leaving him upon the earth but one hour of agony, and\nthe breath to say farewell; the aged flung into the grave upon whose\nbrink they had, trembling, stood for years clinging to life with more\nthan the tenacity of the young;--all, all stricken with that horror of\ndissolution; bowed down as if a curse had fallen upon us for our sins\nas once came the plague upon the Egyptians.\n\nFirst amongst the victims was the long-tried, patient Mary. With\nsufficient warning only to bring the good priest to her side, to\nreceive the last rites of her faith, to press in her enfeebled arms\nher terror-stricken son, and upon his lips one agonizing kiss--and her\nsoul was with its God.\n\nThe agony of the boy when once he realized the great grief that had\nfallen upon him was, they told me, so fearful and so wild as, to wring\nwith horror the {800} hearts of all who heard him. After a time he was\nsomewhat pacified by the gentle persuasion of the priest and the kind\nsoothing of some good-natured neighbors, who, disregarding the danger\nof the infection, had gathered in, out of love and pity. They strove\nto lead him from the death-bed; but no! the first paroxysm of despair\nonce over, he sat him down, silent yet stern, by the bed side. He\nspoke not, he wept not. Apparently unconscious of the presence of\nothers as of his own existence, the icy fingers of one hand clasped in\nhis, he thus sat gazing, motionless as stone, upon the dead face of\nhis mother.\n\nOn through the long hours of that autumn night sat the stricken\nmourner, and though daylight came, aye, even the sunlight that he\nloved stole in and crept up upon the bed till it fell upon the placid\nfeatures of the dead illumining them as with the glory of immortality,\nstill he moved not. Dead as the dead he seemed, in all but the\nstrange, weird evidence of being in his eyes. Stolid he remained to\nall remonstrances; silent as motionless to all words of comfort. The\nhour came at last for preparation toward the removal of the body--for\nthe cholera did not spare the poor body after death, decay set in so\nrapidly--when, contrary to the expectation of all, the innocent\nvoluntarily arose and even assisted at the necessary duties, duties\nwhich must have conveyed to him the knowledge of his approaching\nparting with her to whom he still clung as lovingly in death as he had\ndone in life.\n\nIt was the afternoon of the day following that of Mary's death when a\nfew neighbors gathered to see her home, poor girl! I should not, say a\nfew either, for they were many at such a time, when the dead cart\nrattled hourly past the door, and sorrowing and desolation was in\nevery home.\n\nThey bore her from the cottage and along the way leading to the\nburying ground of Castlewellan, the parish she had lived and died in.\nThe wailing orphan walked stealthily behind, his head low bent,\nunearthly pallor on his face, his fingers interlaced before him every\nmotion and expression speaking of the sorrow unto death, of the mortal\nagony of desolation.\n\nMournfully the procession passed along till it reached the cross road\nleading to this village here; but continuing their journey, those\nforming it were suddenly interrupted by a wild unearthly cry from the\nlips of the idiot.\n\n\"Where are yez goin', men, where are yez goin', men, I say? You must\ntake her to Drumbhan, you must take her to Drumbhan! She said she\nwould lie there some day beside her father; do you hear that, men? So\nbring her to Drumbhan, I say!\"\n\nHis agony was fearful, his shriek inhuman in the fierceness of its\npassion. The bearers stopped, the mourners gathered around the boy,\nbut vain was every effort to appease him, and still his cry rose far\nabove their words of comfort: \"Bring her to Drumbhan, oh! bring her to\nDrumbhan!\"\n\nNone there knew, as I have said, the mother's story, and all believed\nthis but a wild unreasonable fancy of poor Ned's; but had it been\notherwise, what could they do? The grave was already made, and the\ngood priest waiting to give the last religious rite to the body of\nthis patient and enduring Christian.\n\nSeeing that they again moved on, Ned suddenly ceased his cry, as if he\nhad formed some strange resolution which pacified him, and relapsed\ninto the sudden gloom that had preceded the outcry of his anguish.\nThey buried her; he came away quietly with them. They sought, some of\nthem, to bring him to their houses, thinking to save him the agony of\nreturning home just then to miss her presence; but all efforts to lead\nhim any way but that toward his desolate home were fruitless He\nreturned to the cottage. He sat down by the vacant bed and rocked\nhimself to and fro, singing with mournful pathos snatches from an old\nballad, a favorite of his mother's.\n\n{801}\n\nAn old neighbor promising to remain with him that night and care for\nthe cottage till next day, when arrangements were to be made for the\ndisposal of its contents and for the future of poor Ned, the others\nwent to their homes.\n\nThe shadows of the night came down. In and near the cottage all was\nsilent. The old woman crept toward the boy to rouse him from his\nlethargy, and to urge him to take some food which she had prepared for\nhim. He was asleep. Thanking God for this, his greatest gift to the\nsorrowing heart, the old woman sat down, and, covering her shoulders\nwith her clock, dozed away an hour or two, then awoke and watched,\nthen slept again, again awoke to find the idiot still asleep, then\nslept again.\n\nAbout an hour after sunrise she started from her seat, alarmed by an\noutcry at the door, her name being loudly called, \"In God's name,\nwhat's the matter? who's dead now? is it the priest, alanna?\"\n\n\"Oh! may the Lord be betune us an harum,\" said a voice from amongst a\ncrowd of excited people at the door, \"if they haven't raised poor\nMary's body in the night! Here's Brian an' myself saw the empty grave\nas we passed by the chapel yard just now. Sure never was such a thing\nas that ever heard of before in Castlewellan anyhow.\"\n\n\"Whisht, whisht, for the love av God,\" said the old woman, \"or Ned\nwill hear yez,\" and turning toward the bedside, hoping that he still\nslept quietly, she saw but his vacant seat--the boy was gone.\n\n\"I know it all, I know it all,\" she cried. \"As sure as God's in heaven\nthis day, he's gone and raised her up himself. I heard him in his\nsleep, the crature, but thought nothing of his demented talk. Go after\nhim, men! Go after him, I say! He has gone wid her to Drumbhan.\"\n\nThey hurried off with many others who now heard this extraordinary\nstory. They ran eagerly down the hill toward the village here. You\nknow the distance, maybe? Two long miles at least. Well, when they had\nreached within half a mile of this spot, sure enough, God knows, they\novertook the crazy boy, wheeling before him on a barrow the coffin\ncontaining the dead body of his mother.\n\nNever did human eye see sight like this before. He heard their hurried\nfootsteps coming on behind him, and setting down the barrow gently on\nthe road, he turned suddenly upon them with all the frenzy of the\nfiercest madness in his face, and raising up the spade that lay beside\nthe coffin, and brandishing it above his head, he cried, \"Back, back,\nI tell you all; touch her one of you, and I'll cleave him! Didn't I\ntell you to bring her to Drumbhan? Didn't I tell you she wanted to\nsleep down here beside her father? You thought that you were good, did\nyou, and Father Connor, too, to put her up in the hill beside the big\nchurch there? But what did you know? what did you know? Did she tell\nany of you last night that she couldn't rest there; did she do that, I\nsay? No, no, she came to me who loved her, to her own poor Ned--she\ncame and asked me to bring her to Drumbhan; and so I will--so I will,\nI say, in spite of you all! in spite of you all!\"\n\nSo saying, he raised the barrow once again and passed onward with his\nburden. They spoke not. They made no effort to turn him from his\npurpose. Many there were who would gladly have eased the exhausted\ncreature of his burden, but, awe-stricken, they feared to approach\nhim, and silently fell behind a second time in sad procession at the\nwidow's funeral.\n\nAt last he reached the gate there. I was standing at it when he came.\nHe wheeled his burden along that path behind us, and to the grave,\nhere. I followed with the rest, as powerless to interfere as they. He\nlaid down the barrow gently again, and taking up the spade he had\ncarried with him, began to dig the grave. I joined him. He looked at\nme at first inquiringly; then recognizing me, muttered something to\nhimself as if approvingly. Other hands besides ours were soon at work,\nand a {802} few minutes more found Mary resting by her father's side\nand the last sod carefully replaced--when, failing only when his task\nwas done, the worn-out boy sank senseless upon the grave.\n\nThey carried him away gently, and when consciousness returned, they\nsoothed him with kind words. The women blessed him and praised his\nmother, and his love for her, till recollection returned, and tears\nfor his loss stole silently down the idiot's cheeks. All traces of\npassion had disappeared, and in its place there seemed the evidence of\na new-born intelligence in the mute yet expressive sorrow of that pale\nface.\n\nHe went with them without a murmur; several times turned hastily\nwhilst in sight of the graveyard to look back, then disappeared.\n\nAll that day the picture of that poor creature and the scene in which\nhe played so strange a part, haunted me at every step. Still I saw him\ncoming as he did that morning down the hill; the barrow, the coffin,\nthe crowd walking solemnly after. Still I saw it through that long,\nlong day, and leave my fancy it would not. That night I could not\nrest. True, I had loved poor Mary and I had loved her boy; still I had\nlaid away in their narrow beds many, very many that were dear to me,\nlinked to my affection by the closest ties of kindred, but I had never\nsorrowed, old man as I was, as I had done that day; never felt such\nawe at the untold mystery of our nature and the wonderful ways of my\nGod.\n\nIn the morning I arose early, early for me, and although no duty\ncalled me here till after early prayer's, I took my spade upon my\nshoulder and came upon my way, feeling drawn toward the place, I knew\nnot why.\n\nThe morning was as beautiful as this one, and, as I think I have said\nbefore, the season of the year the same. Already here and there I\nnoticed, as I came along, familiar faces in the fields, and some, too,\nof my neighbors I met upon the road; but contrary to my usual custom l\navoided the familiar chat so frequently indulged in when we met each\nother at such an early hour, passing on with a \"good morrow\" only,\neager to reach Drumbhan.\n\nSome twenty minutes brought me to the chapel, for I lived then as I do\nnow, a short mile below there. I went in to say a prayer, conscious of\nmy weakness, in the hope to shake the weight from off my shoulders\nthat pressed me down so heavily. Thence passing into the graveyard\nhere, I turned my eyes in this direction to behold, prostrate upon the\ngrave of his. mother, the loving, harmless boy.\n\nMy knees trembled as with palsy. How came he here? I said, and when?\nWhy, I asked not; I knew too well of this love that was more than\nearthly. Tottering, I drew near; I called him by his name. He answered\nnot. I called again. No voice replied; nor sound, nor motion was there\nsave the echo of my voice and my hurried footfall as I neared the\nspot. I stooped, I raised him in my arms, I parted from his brow the\nlong hair damp with the dew of morning. I gazed upon that pale, pale\nface, which, in the holy peace that rested there, spoke of the\ngoodness and the mercy of our Heavenly Father, into whose holy keeping\nthe spotless soul had passed. He was dead.\n\nThe sexton's tale was told.\n\n----------\n\n{803}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nLIGHT.\n\nGaudium lucis AEternae.\n\n\n  When the twilight veil is closing\n    Gently o'er each darkening scene,\n  Love we not the shades reposing\n    Underneath its misty screen?\n\n  When, like ruins dim and hoary,\n    Forms are outlined on the sky,\n  See we not surpassing glory\n    In the day-god's closing eye?\n\n  Yes! But from the LIGHT is given\n    All the grace of coming night;\n  And the change from day to even\n    Is a change of varied light!\n\n  Silent midnight reigneth over\n    Scenes so lately bright and fair,\n  Shades like gliding spectres hover.\n    Round each faint-traced image there;\n\n  And the darkness' onward stealing\n    Shrouds the earth with dusky pall,\n  But from LIGHT, the dim revealing\n    Even of midnight's glories fall.\n\n  And the purer spirit-vision\n    Is a world all fair and bright;\n  Ever in the dream elysian\n    Joy is of \"eternal light.\"\n\nMarie.\n\n--------\n\n{804}\n\nFrom The Dublin University Magazine.\n\nMEDIAEVAL BOOKS AND HYMNS.  [Footnote 212]\n\n  [Footnote 212: The reader will bear in mind that the author of the\n  following paper is a Protestant minister.-ED. CATH. WORLD.]\n\nThe fall of Rome was the annihilation of a great dominant power, a\npower which had been supreme; and when the barbarians marched into her\nstreets and devastated her homes, the world sunk back into a tenebrous\nnight of social, intellectual, and moral darkness. Her mighty empire,\nheld together like one country by her genius, was broken up and\ndivided amongst the different tribes who had poured down from the\nnorth and overrun Europe, divided just as the fortune of war or the\ncaprice of choice indicated. It was the approach of a moral chaos; but\nthe hand whose guidance is to be felt in the life of individuals, and\nmay be traced in the history of nations, did not abandon the world to\nthe utter confusion of its own impulses. As the imperial power of Rome\nfell away and died out like an effete thing, wasted by its own'\ncorruption, a new power was springing up in vigorous youth by the side\nof that which was declining. Christianity was advancing toward the\nwest with rapid strides, victorious through the persecution of tyranny\nand the jealousy of philosophy; it was then taking its stand in the\nworld as an influence; but if at this moment amid the vast changes and\nsubversion of things which took place after the fall of Rome,\nChristianity had been merely a reformed philosophy, and had been left\nto the mercy of pagan barbarians, it would have been extinguished in\nits infancy. That was avoided by a remarkable concatenation of\ncircumstances. For centuries there had been an apprehension in the\nRoman empire of an advance of the barbarous nations in the north of\nEurope, symptoms of which had manifested themselves in the earliest\nperiod of the Christian era. Toward the latter end of the second\ncentury the most powerful of these tribes, the Goths, impelled by some\ninflux of other barbarians, advanced from their position near the\nmouth of the Vistula, invaded the Roman frontier, and took Dacia,\nwhere they were found by the Emperor Caracalla at the opening of the\nthird century, in the middle of which they were allowed by Aurelian to\nsettle along the banks of the Euxine, when they were divided into two\nparts--the \"Ostro\" or Eastern, and the \"Visi\" or Western Goths. In the\nnext century a terrible alarm was raised amongst them, which even\npenetrated into the Roman empire, and up to its capital, where it was\nrelated that an awful race of beings--savage, ugly, inhuman, begotten\nof the devil--were pouring in thousands out of the deserts and plains\nof Asia into Europe. Such were the Huns. Already they had reached the\nterritory of the Ostrogoths, whom they compelled to supply them with\nguides to lead them on toward the Visigoths. These latter at their\napproach fled in the extremity of terror toward the Danube, and\nimplored the protection of Valens the emperor, who allowed them to\nsettle in Moesia, upon the condition that they should defend the\nimperial frontier. In less than forty years afterward from defending\nthe Roman frontier they sacked Rome. But during this interval an\nincident took place which had a great influence upon the destinies of\nChristianity. After the settlement with Valens, an intercourse of a\nsomewhat friendly character sprung up between the Romans and {805}\nthese barbarian defenders of the frontier. The church was suffering\nfrom her great Arian apostasy--a form of scepticism exactly parallel\nto that new light of modern times called Rationalism. Valens was an\nArian, and, wishing to convert these pagan barbarians, sent a\nmissionary amongst them in the person of the renowned Ulphilas, whom\nhe made bishop of the Moeso-Goths. This great bishop labored\nassiduously for the conversion of the barbarians, invented an\nalphabet, and translated the Scriptures with his own hand into their\nstrange idiom. His labors were blessed with success; the Goths\nembraced Christianity, though in the Arian form; and fifty years\nafterward, when Alaric led them into Rome, amid the tumult of the\nunfettered license of the soldiers, an order was issued to respect the\nchurches of the apostles and the sacred places. In the midst of the\ndevastation of the city and through the very thick of the riot, a band\nof priests and devotees were seen marching under the protection of\nGothic soldiery, carrying on their heads the sacred vessels of St.\nPeter, and mingling with the shoutings of the ravagers the chant of\nsolemn psalms. Under Gothic protection, and by the express order of\nthe Gothic king, the sacred vessels were deposited in safety at the\nVatican; numbers of Christians joined the procession and received\nshelter, whilst many who were not Christians also availed themselves\nof the opportunity to join the band of believers and escape in the\ngeneral confusion.  [Footnote 213]\n\n  [Footnote 213: Oroslus Hist., lib. vii. c. 39.]\n\nThis was the first indication of the new life which was to dawn upon\nthe world under the influence of Christianity. Gradually all the\ntribes of barbarians yielded to its influence--the Burgundians in\nGaul, the Vandals in Africa, the Suevi in Spain, the Ostrogoths, the\nFranks, and then the Saxons in England; but the early conversions of\nthese barbarians were to the Arian form of Christianity then in the\nascendant. Its principal tenet was the denial of the equality of the\nSon to the Father; and the heresy spread until the error, after being\nvigorously combated, was suppressed, and the new nations won back to\nthe orthodox faith. Thus was this compensation for the overturn of\ncivilization effected; the world was not abandoned to utter\ndestruction, it was indeed given up to the hands of rude barbarians,\nbut they in turn were subjected to a new influence which accompanied\nthem to the various kingdoms founded upon the ruins of' the extinct\nempire, and formed the basis in each of those kingdoms of a new and\nhigher civilization. With the fall of Rome the gods of the pagans were\noverturned, their temples destroyed; and in the midst of the\ndevastation, the ruin, and, the despair into which the world was\nsinking, the Church of Christ arose as the guiding spirit, the pioneer\nof the new life. Another incident in connection with the establishment\nof Christianity, which saved the lore of ancient times from\ndestruction, was the adoption of the Latin language by the church; for\nalthough that language had made a settlement in many of the countries\nsubject to the Roman arms, yet a tendency soon sprung up, from the\nmixture with barbarian invaders, to the degeneracy of the Latin tongue\nand the rise of new and separate idioms. But it was preserved in\ncomparative purity in the church, which naturally led to the\npreservation of its most noble monuments; and it ultimately became,\nwhen the modern languages were in their infancy, the tongue especially\ndevoted to the transmission of learning. History, poetry, science, and\nwhat little there was of literature, found a medium of communication\nand a means of preservation in the Latin language. Had it not been\nadopted by the church then for some centuries, whilst the new tongues\nwere gradually developing and settling into a form, the world would\nhave been dark indeed, not a book, not a page, not a {806} syllable\nwould have reached us of the thought, the life, or the events of that\nperiod.\n\nFrom the fourth to the seventh century there would have been an\nimpenetrable gap in the annals of humanity--the voice of history would\nhave been hushed into a dead silence, and the light of the past which\nbeacons the future would have been extinguished in the darkness of a\nuniversal chaos. In England, however, the case was somewhat different.\nFrom the earliest period of the Saxon domination there was a struggle\nfor a literature in the vulgar tongue. The Saxons had brought with\nthem a vast store of traditional poetry out of which one specimen has\nbeen preserved, consisting of an epic poem in forty-three cantos, and\nabout 6,000 lines--the oldest epic of modern times. It is called, \"The\nGleeman's Song,\" and was composed by Beowulf in their native wilds and\nbrought over with them in the fifth century. It is a strange poem,\nimpregnated with the vigorous air of the North; strength and\nsimplicity being its chief characteristics. The principal personage is\nHrothgar the king, and the poem is full of incidental descriptions of\nmanners and customs which afterward became native to England, and\nlinger about among us even now: there are great halls, ale-carousals,\nfighting with giants, the elements of a rude chivalry, and an\ninvincible prowess which dares both dragons and ghosts. But the first\nnative writer in Anglo-Saxon after the conversion to Christianity is\nCaedmon, who lived in the latter part of the seventh century (680);\nThe story of his miraculous inspiration is recorded by Bede.\n[Footnote 214]\n\n  [Footnote 214:  Eccl. llist., lib. iv., c. 24.]\n\nHe was born in Northumbiria and was a monk of Whitby. He paraphrased\nlarge portions or the Scripture, and has aptly been called the\nAnglo-Saxon Milton; indeed it is more than probable that the Puritan\npoet borrowed the ideas of his sublime soliloquy of Satan in\nPandemonium from this Saxon monk; After Satan's overthrow, Caedmon\nsays--[Footnote 215]\n\n  [Footnote 215: Thorpe's edition of Caedmon.]\n\n  \"Then spake he worde:\n  This narrow place is most unlike\n  that other that we formerly knew\n  high in Heaven's kingdom,\n  which my master bestowed on me,\n  Though we it for the All\u00b7powerful\n  may not possess.\n  We must cede our realm.\"\n\nSo Milton--\n\n  \"O how unlike the place from whence they fell!\"\n\nand in the words of Satan--\n\n  \"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,\n  That we must change for heaven, this mournful \tgloom\n  For that celestial light? Be it so, since he\n  Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid\n  What shall be right.\"\n\nCaedmon's notion of Pandemonium is the prototype of Milton:\n\n  \"But around me lie\n    iron bonds;\n    presseth this cord of chain,\n    I am powerless!\n    me have so hard\n    the clasps of hell\n    so firmly grasped.\n    Here is a vast fire\n    above and underneath;\n    never did I see a loathlier landskip;\n    the flame abateth not\n    hot over hell.\n    Me hath the clasping of these rings,\n    this hard polished band,\n    impeded in my course,\n    debarred me from my way.\n    My feet are bound,\n    my hands are manacled\n    . . . . .\n    About me the\n    huge gratings\n    of hard iron,\n    forged with heat,\n    with which me God\n    hath fastened by the neck.\"\n\nNearly all these ideas are incorporated in Milton's sublime picture--\n\n  \". . . .   down\n  To bottomless perdition, there to dwell\n  In adamantine chains and penal fire.\"\n  . . . . . _Line 48_.\n  \"Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild?\"\n  . . . . . _Line 180_.\n  \"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,\n  As one great furnace, flamed.\"\n        _Line 61_\n  \". . . . torture without end\n  Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed\n  With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.\"\n       _Line 67_.\n\nBut after the death of Caedmon (680), there must have been a great\ndeal of poetry written which is now lost, for we read that Bede, on\nhis {807} death-bed, repeated several passages from national poets,\none of which is preserved in that interesting description of the last\nmoments of the great historian, written by S. Cuthbert, who was with\nhim to the end.  [Footnote 216] But the chivalrous poetry of tradition\ngave way to that of  religion, which is the characteristic of Saxon\nsong after the sixth century.\n\n  [Footnote 216: Asseri Annaies (Gale's Collec.) ann.; 731.]\n\nWe are also told that Aldhelm,\nbishop of Sherbourne, who died in the year 709, was one of the best\npoets of his day. But still at this period, although there was a\nstruggle after a national literature, the great works were all written\nin Latin; and Bede, much as he admired the Saxon poets of his country,\nintrusted his Ecclesiastical History to the only idiom sacred to\nlearning. Gildas and Nennius, who preceded Bede, also wrote in Latin.\nBut the Saxons were the first out of all the barbarians to acquire a\nvernacular literature. Of that literature we are scarcely competent to\njudge; but from what has come down to us, from allusions in history,\nfrom the state of education among them, we may safely conclude that\nalthough little has survived, it was not a poor literature. We must\nremember the continual scenes of devastation which took place during\nthe period of their domination; when monasteries were rifled, books\nburnt, and manuscripts wantonly destroyed. From the time of Alfred,\nonly one Anglo-Saxon writer of any consequence has come down to us,\nOlfric; but from what we know of Saxon progress we may be assured\nthere were many others. It is evident from the state of education\namong them. Before the middle of the seventh century schools had\nsprung up, and toward the latter end an impetus was given to learning\nby the labors of Theodore and Adrian, of whom Bede asserts that they\ngathered together a crowd of disciples, and taught them not only the\nbooks of Holy Writ, but the arts of ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy,\nand arithmetic, and adds in proof that some of their scholars were\nalive in his day who were as well versed in the Greek and Latin\ntongues as their own.  [Footnote 217]\n\n  [Footnote 217: Eccl. Hist. lib., iv., c. 2.]\n\nEven the ladies among the Saxons were well educated, for it was to\nthem that Aldhelm addressed his work De Laude Virginitatis, and\nBoniface corresponded with ladies in Latin. In the ninth century also\nwe find that schools were flourishing in various parts of the kingdom,\nespecially the one at York, under Archbishop Egbert, who taught Greek,\nLatin, and Hebrew to the scholars, amongst whom was Alcuin the friend\nof Charlemagne. From the letters of Alcuin, but more especially from\nhis History of the Church of York, we may learn that for the same\nthere was a renowned library there, and as it is the earliest list of\nbooks--the first catalogue of an English library extant--we may as\nwell subjoin it. Alcuin says that in his library were the works of\nJerome, Hilarius, Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory, Pope Leo,\nBasil, Chrysostom, and others. Bede and Aldhelm, the native authors,\nof course were there. In history and philosophy there were Orosius,\nBoethius, Pompeius, Pliny, Aristotle, and Cicero. In poetry, Sedulius\nJuveneus, Prosper, Arator, Paulinus, Fortunatus, Lactantius; and of\nthe classics, Virgil, Statius, and Lucan. Of grammarians there was a\ngreat number, such as Probus, Phocas, Donatus, Priscian, Servius,\nEutyehius, and Commianus. Boniface was a great book collector, and\nused to send them home to England. So that we may fairly conclude that\nif the Danish depredations and the internal dissensions of the country\nhad not been so fatal to the treasures hoarded up in monastic\nlibraries we should have had much more of Saxon literature. The\ninfluence of Dunstan, too, gave an impulse to learning both in the\ncountry {808} generally and in the church. He himself was a scholar, a\nmusician, an artist, an illuminator, and a man of science;  [Footnote\n218] but the most prominent figure is Bede, who, as we observed, wrote\nin Latin; he was well versed in Greek and Hebrew.\n\n  [Footnote 218: \"Artem scribendi necne citharizaudi pariterque\n  pingendi peritiam diligenter excoluit.\"--Cotton MSS.---Cleop., B\n  xiii., fol., 69. ]\n\nHe wrote many works--thirty-seven according to his own list, including\ncompilations; but the most important was his Ecclesiastical History,\nwhich traces the course of the national church from the earliest times\ndown to 731, within four years of his own death. In his introduction\nhe honestly gives us a list of his materials, from which we can gather\nthat in all parts of the country the bishops and abbots had\ninstinctively turned their attention to historical writing; for he\nsays he was indebted to Albinus, abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury,\nfor the particulars of the Augustinian mission and the history of the\nKentish Church generally, and to Northelm, a priest of London, who had\ndiscovered at Rome the epistles of Pope Gregory upon the subject; from\nDaniel, bishop of the West Saxons, he received much assistance as to\nthe history of that province and the adjoining. Abbot Esius, of East\nAnglia, and Cunebert, of Lindsey, are also mentioned as contributing\nvaluable materials. So that this history of Bede is compiled from the\nmost authentic sources, and forms one of the most valuable collections\nof ecclesiastical annals extant in any nation. It is a fact worthy of\nnote in the history of letters, that these early prelates of the Saxon\nChurch, and in fact the monks in the various monasteries scattered\nover the country from the earliest period, and even down to their\ndecadence, silently and patiently recorded the events of their times\nand of their church, and that their labors, such as have been rescued\nfrom the ravages of the past, form the only true \"materia historica\"\nof modern writers. But we pass on from the time of Bede to that of\nAlfred, under whose influence the Saxon language almost displaced the\nuse of the Latin. The extraordinary vicissitudes of his life have been\nelsewhere recorded, but in literature he was an historian, a\ntheologian, a commentator, and a transcriber. His principal works were\ntranslations of Gregory's Pastoral Care, the Universal History of\nOrosius, Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, Bede's Ecclesiastical\nHistory, and several parts of the Bible; but he not only translated,\nbut interpolated whole pages of his own. In the Pastoral Care he has\ninserted original prayers; in the History of Orosius there is a sketch\nof the state of Germany by him, and the translation of Boethius is\ntesselated with profound and pointed thoughts, which fairly entitle\nhim to the name of philosopher. The greatest achievement of King\nAlfred was perhaps the reviving and restarting the Saxon Chronicle. It\nis probable that from the earliest times of the Saxon rule a national\nrecord of events had been kept somewhere, either from the instinct of\npreservation or by concert. The evidence of Bede proves that it was\ndone in the church as regards ecclesiastical matters, and we know that\nin the time of Alfred there was a short record of bare events, with\nnow and then a genealogy treasured up and handed down from age to age.\nIt was his thought and care to reform these records and restart the\nChronicle as a great national archive. For this purpose, he enjoined\nPlegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, to collect what could be found,\nwrite it out fairly, and commence his labors as the chronicler of the\nperiod. From that time the records are fuller and more in detail, and\ndown to the year 1154 it was kept up by different men in different\nmonasteries, who were eye-witnesses of the events they recorded, and\nout of whose labors there are only six original MSS. extant of this\ngreat national work. The first is called the Plegmund, or Benet MSS.,\nbecause it was, as we have said, compiled by Plegmund at the\ninstigation of Alfred, and is preserved in Benet {809} (Corpus\nChristi) College, Cambridge. From the year 891 it is written in\ndifferent hands and by different people down to the year 1070. The\nsecond copy is in the Cottonian Collection at the British Museum\n(Tiberius, A vi.), written apparently by one hand, which has been\nattributed to Dunstan, and it terminates at the year 977, eleven years\nbefore his death. The third copy is in the same collection (Cotton\nTiberius, B i.), and is thought to have been written in the monastery\nof Abingdon; it reaches down to 1066. The fourth copy is also in the\nCottonian collection (Tiberius, B iv.), written by different men down\nto the year 1079. The fifth manuscript is in the Bodleian library at\nOxford (Laud, E 80), from internal evidence, written in the year 1122,\ncompiled from older materials, and carried down in different hands to\nthe year 1154, showing the gradual degeneracy of the Saxon language\nunder Norman influence, from 1132 to the end. The sixth and last\nmanuscript is in the Cottonian library (Domitian, A viii.). It has\nbeen accredited to a Canterbury monk; it is written in Latin and\nSaxon, and terminates in 1058. Besides these six, one other MS. is\nmentioned as of great value, being a transcription of a Cottonian MS.,\nwhich perished in a fire at Dean's yard in 1731. It is in the Dublin\nlibrary (E, 5-15), and was written by Lombard in 1863-64.  [Footnote\n219]\n\n  [Footnote 219: For a more detailed account of these MSS. see Preface\n  to Bohn's edition of the Translation of Bede and Saxon Chronicle.]\n\nScarcely any country in Europe possesses such an historical treasure\nas this, so authentic and so characteristic. It is a very interesting\nstudy to note its many peculiarities; there are sad gaps in its\nrecords, as though the sorrow of the land was too great to be\nrecorded, and the hand had failed; there are songs of triumph at the\ndefeat of the enemy, and pathetic lamentations over desolated homes;\nthere are noble panegyrics upon men of blessed memory, who had fought\nup bravely for their church and country, and words of bitter scorn for\ntraitors, cowards, and profligates; it contains pious reflections,\nejaculations, and aspirations; it is a most vivid picture of the\nmanners, the thoughts, the joys, the sorrows of the most interesting\nand important period in the history of our country, as though the life\nitself, with its characters and incidents, were made to pass before\nour eyes in a rapid panorama.\n\nSuch was the result of one of Alfred's many plans for the good of his\nkingdom. His own diligence as a writer and translator told vitally\nupon the language, then rapidly improving. Latin manuscripts had for\nsome time previously been interlined with Anglo-Saxon \"glosses\"--that\nis, interpretations of Latin words and passages in Anglo-Saxon--and\nthis gradually led to the complete transcription of Latin MSS. into\nAnglo-Saxon, and the writing of original matter in the vernacular\ntongue.  [Footnote 220]\n\n  [Footnote 220: A specimen of this interlinear translation may be\n  seen in the Cottonian collection--Vespasian, A i.--a Psalter\n  written in the year 1000, in Latin capitals, with an Anglo-Saxon\n  interpretation between the lines.]\n\nAlthough only one writer of any consequence has been handed down to us\nfrom the time of Alfred, yet we may fairly infer that many others\nlived and wrote, whose works were destroyed in the ravages made by the\nDanes from that time to the Norman conquest, and afterward when Norman\nmonks looked with contempt upon Saxon MSS., and used them for other\npurposes, such as binding or transcription after erasure. The Latin\nthen once more became the language of literature in this country.\nStill the Saxon lived, and would not be trampled out by the Normans,\nthough it degenerated sadly until, in the fourteenth century, an idiom\nsprung up by a mingling of the two, which has been called Semi-Saxon.\nOut of this came the early English, from which, after an additional\nSaxon infusion from Puritan times, came the idiom we now use, whose\nstrong Saxon basis bids fair to make it live through all time, and, is\nspreading it in every quarter of the world.\n\n{810}\n\nIt will be interesting to note at this point that two men managed to\npreserve a great deal of literary matter out of the gross Vandalism\nwhich was rife, Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cotton. Parker's\ncollection is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and those of\nCotton in the British Museum, the present reference to which, under\nthe titles of Roman emperor's, arose from the circumstance that in his\nown library they were arranged on shelves, over each of which was a\nbust of one of the Roman emperors. In this way, and by the diligence\nof these two men, many valuable MSS. were rescued which had passed\ninto the hands of private individuals and booksellers.\n\nAll hopes of a national vernacular literature were, however,\nfrustrated by the advent of the Normans. Centuries before, the French\nhad ceased to sing their mournful litany, \"A furore Normannorum libera\nnos Domine,\" and had found it advisable to give these troublesome\nstrangers a settlement. Here they had multiplied and thriven until the\nmiddle of the eleventh century, when they were the most promising\npeople in Europe. There are traits in the Norman character not unlike\nthe Roman. The Gothic tribes generally adopted the language and, to a\ncertain extent, the customs of the countries they conquered; but the\nNormans, like the Romans, always endeavored to graft their own\nlanguage and customs upon their vanquished. As soon, therefore, as\nWilliam had made his tenure sure in England, he began the work of\nSaxon extermination by ordering that the elements of grammar should be\ntaught in the French language, that the Saxon caligraphy should be\nabandoned, and all deeds, pleadings in courts, and laws should be in\nFrench. Saxon then sunk into contempt, and those of the old race who\nwere more politic than patriotic set to work vigorously to acquire the\nelements of the favorite tongue. Then also the custom of writing books\nin Latin was revived, and continued, as regards all important works,\ndown to the sixteenth century; for although books were written in\nEnglish before that time, the language was in a very crude state; for\nas in Germany and other countries, so in England, the event which\nfirst fixed the language was the translation of the Bible into the\nvernacular; the book, which everybody read, soon became an authority,\nand was appealed to on points of language. Still the influence of the\nNormans was beneficial, both upon the manners and the literature of\nthe country. The Saxons, with all their greatness, were not a very\nrefined people; they were given to carousals of which we can scarcely\nform any conception, their diet was coarse, and their manners\nunpolished; but the Normans, if not more simple in their habits, were\nmore refined. Norman extravagance found vent, not in drunken orgies\nand riotous feasting, but in fine buildings, horses, trappings, and\ndress. [Footnote 221] The importation of provincial poetry in the\nshape of Trouv\u00e8re poems, romances, and fabliaux, had a refining effect\nupon the literature, and laid the foundation of English chivalry. But\nthe most beneficial effect was the introduction of two or three master\nspirits into the country, whose friendship William had formerly\ncultivated. Of the two most important we will give a rapid sketch.\n\n  [Footnote 221: There is a very good comparison of the manners of the\n  two races drawn by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum; and,\n  being related to both, he is likely to have given a fair estimate.]\n\nIn the early morning of a day in the first quarter of the eleventh\ncentury, a poor young scholar walked through the gates of Pavia, staff\nin hand, into the open country, and made his weary way across the\nAlps. He was heavy in heart and light in purse; he had lost his\nparents, and had left his native city to seek the scanty livelihood of\na vagrant scholar, and yet bound up in that ragged form, as it were in\nan undeveloped germ, were wealth, power, and influence; he was making\nhis way, {811} as far as he knew, to some of those French schools of\ndisputation which had sprung up, where a poor scholar whose wits had\nbeen sharpened by scanty fare, might, by a happy sophism or a crushing\nconclusion, earn a bed and refreshment for the night; but he was in\nreality making his way to fame, distinction, and wealth, to a\nconqueror's court, and to the episcopal throne of Canterbury. This\nragged scholar, who thus left his native city, was Lanfranc, a name\nfamiliar to English ears and ever memorable in English history, For\nsome years he led this vagrant life, travelling from place to place,\ndisputing and studying, when he once more returned to Pavia and\nestablished himself as a pleader. His eloquence soon brought fame and\ncompetence; but urged by some hidden impulse, he threw up the\nprospects open to him; once more left the city, and once more took his\nway across the Alps and settled at Avranches in Normandy, where many\nschools were established. He soon found disciples; but the secret\nyearning of his heart developed itself--the monastery of Bea was not\nfar distant, and to it he bent his steps, hoping to find that peace\nwhich the cloister alone could afford. But he was not allowed to\nremain in obscurity, his scholars and others, attracted by his fame,\ncrowded around him, flocked to his lectures, and the school of Bea\nbecame so renowned that the attention of the young Duke of Normandy,\nwho also had in him the germ of a glorious career, was attracted to\nthis rising dialectician, and through the medium of intellectual\nintercourse a friendship was engendered which procured for the\nconqueror of England a wise and trusty adviser, and paved the way to\nfortune for, the poor student. The remainder of his career may be\nsummed up in a few words. William had just founded a new monastery at\nCaen, and over it, he placed his friend as abbot. But during the\ntwenty years which had elapsed between the time of his settlement at\nBea and his elevation to the abbacy of Caen, the school he had founded\nhad become most renowned, and some of the great men of after times\nboasted of having sat there at Lanfranc's feet. Among these were\nBishops Guimond, Ives, and another Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm.\nOn one occasion after the elevation of Lanfranc to the primacy of\nEngland, he was obliged to visit Rome and have an audience of Pope\nAlexander II., who paid him such marked respect that the courtiers\nasked the reason, and the Pope replied, \"It is not because he is\nprimate of England that I rose to meet him, but because I was his\npupil at Bea, and there sat at his feet to listen to his instruction.\"\n\nWhile at Caen, however, he entered into the renowned controversy with\nBerenger upon the doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist,\nBerenger admitting the fact but denying the change of substance. The\nresults of this controversy, however, were anticipated by neither\nparty. It led to a thorough change in the mode of investigation of\ntruth, more especially of divine truth. Berenger had adopted the\ncourse of arguing the point upon the grounds of pure reason, a course\nnot unfamiliar to an expert dialectician like Lanfranc, but utterly\nnovel in theological disputation, where authority was omnipotent.\nLanfranc himself says of his opponent that he desired \"relictis saeris\nauctoritatibus ad dialecticam confugium facere.\" But like a true\nathlete, he meets his adversary with his own weapons, and for the\nfirst time in Europe men beheld a vital theological dogma being\ndiscussed by champions who had agreed to throw aside all the weight of\nauthority and rely upon the strength of their own logic. This was the\nfirst signal for the union of scholasticism with theology, which\nprevailed in Europe for centuries, tingeing even the writings of the\nearly reformers. What Lanfranc had done in the pressure of\ncontroversy, Anselm took up with all the ardor of a convert; and the\nchange which passed over the thought of Europe {812} amounted to a\nsort of intellectual revolution. But to return to the fortunes of\nLanfranc;--soon after William had been consecrated he returned to\nNormandy, taking with him Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose\ndeposition he ultimately procured, when he immediately installed his\nfriend and adviser, Lanfranc, into the see of Canterbury. At first,\nhowever, Lanfranc declined the post, upon the grounds that he did not\nknow the language; but his objection was overruled, and in the year\n1070 he was consecrated and took up his residence in England.\n\nTo him at Bea succeeded as teacher, Anselm, who made great advances in\nthe scholastic mode of teaching. He was also prior of the monastery,\nand during this period he wrote six treatises on the Fall of Satan, on\nTruth, on Original Sin, on the Reason why God created Man, the Liberty\nof the Will, and the Consistency of Freedom with the Divine\nPrescience. These great questions were then uppermost in men's minds,\nand they were treated by Anselm in the new and more attractive mode of\nappeal to pure reason. Whilst in the midst of these studies he was\nappointed abbot of his monastery, which he reluctantly accepted, and\nin the year 1093, fifteen years afterward, four years after the death\nof Lanfranc, he was appointed by William II. to the archbishopric of\nCanterbury. His relations with the king were not happy; he opposed\nthat obstinate and rapacious monarch, and a series of\nmisunderstandings ensued, which led him to retire to Rome to consult\nwith the Pope. During his absence he wrote that book by which he is\nmost known, Cur Deus Homo, Why God was made Man. He also took a\nprominent part in the Council of Bari, in 1098, where he procured the\ndecision against the Greek delegates, upon the question of the\nProcession of the Holy Ghost. Upon the death of William he returned;\nbut the rest of his life was occupied in continual disputes on points\nof privilege with the king, Henry, and he died in the year 1109.\n\nBut we will now advance to the consideration of that great change\nwhich came over the thought of Europe, and bears the name of\nscholasticism. The controversy of Lanfranc with Berenger on the\ndoctrine of the real presence, may be accepted as the point where the\nnew method was applied to theology; from that time it became the\nfavorite mode. But although the scholastic philosophers professed to\nrely upon bare reason, they appear to have instinctively felt that\ngreat want of human nature, the want of an oracle, and they found\ntheir oracle in the works of Aristotle, then in use in the university\nand schools of Spain, sadly perverted by being filtered through an\nArabic translation. Men flew to Arabic grammars, and to Spain, to\nArabic versions of Aristotle, and the Stagyrite then became the oracle\nof the Scholastics just as the fathers were of their opponents. But\nstill, as is and must be the case in all religious controversies, both\nparties lay under the same necessity, and, after all, drew their\npremises from the same quarter. The defender and the opposer were\nalike subject to the influence of revelation; without that, the\nopponent would have wanted the subject of opposition, and the defender\nthe object of his defence, so that the premises of both appear to be\ninvolved in the same thing, and in fine the Scholastics fell back also\nupon the fathers, as may be seen in the Sentences of Peter Lombard,\nthe handbook of scholasticism, which is nothing but a mass of extracts\nfrom the fathers and popes, worked up together into a system of\ntheology. In its earliest form it cannot be denied that scholasticism\ndid good. It was a healthy revival of intellectual life, it stimulated\nall classes of thinkers, and created a passion for inquiry; it brought\nout such great minds as Abelard, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas. The\nvery subjects upon which men debated gave an elevation to thought, and\nthe result was an intellectual activity which has rarely been\nequalled. It must be remembered also that the schoolmen did not\ndiscard {813} the facts laid down by the fathers; they were not\ninfidels, but their investigations turned more upon the mode of\noperation--they accepted the divine presence in the Eucharist, but\nwhat they wanted to ascertain was the way in which it manifested\nitself. They believed in the Incarnation, but they desired to know the\nexact mode in which that sacrifice had worked out human redemption.\n\nBut we must return to the development of English literature. After the\nNorman Conquest, we have already observed, the Latin tongue became\nonce more the medium of communication for the learned, and all great\nworks were written in that idiom, so that there were three tongues\nused in England: the Latin by the clergy and scholars, the\nNorman-French by the court and nobles, and the Saxon, which fell to\nthe common people. The literature of that period was rich in some\ndepartments, poor in others. In philosophy, whatever we may think of\nits merit, it was anything but scanty, and a perfect library of\nscholastic writings has come down even to our times, a desert of\nargumentation and reasoning, but containing veins of gold, could a\nmortal ever be found endowed with the patience to dig deep enough, and\nlabor long enough to open them. The Book of Sentences, by Peter the\nLombard, bishop of Paris, to which we have already alluded, was one of\nthe wonders of the twelfth century. It was divided into four parts:\nthe first treated of the Trinity and divine attributes, the second of\nthe Creation, the origin of angels, of the fall of man, of grace, free\nwill, of original and actual sin; the third of the Incarnation, faith,\nhope, charity, the gifts of the spirit, and the commandments of God;\nand the fourth treated of the Sacraments, the Resurrection, the Last\nJudgment, and the state of the righteous in heaven. Although a great\ndeal is borrowed from the fathers, yet there is in this work a marked\ntendency toward the scholastic method; he wanders into abstruse\nspeculations and subtle investigations as to the generation of the\nWord, the possibility of two persons being incarnate in one, sins of\nthe will and of the action. It did much to mould the thought of\nsucceeding writers, and it won for its author the title of Master of\nSentences; it was appealed to as an authority; what the \"Master\" said\nwas a sufficient answer to an opponent. Another great work was the\nSumma of Thomas Aquinas, a book which excites admiration even now.\nDuns Scotus and Occam, also contributed voluminously to the stores of\nscholastic theology. The literature, however, was richer in history.\nWhilst the theologians were debating about questions beyond the reach\nof the human intellect, a band of quiet pious men devoted their time\nto the recording the tale of human actions. Upward of forty men lived\nfrom the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, who have written the\nhistory of the country from the earliest periods down to the dawning\nof the sixteenth century. Probably no country in the world is richer\nin historical material than ourselves; and as an admirable instance of\nmonastic diligence, and evidence of intellectual activity in what has\nbeen usually termed an age of dense ignorance, we subjoin a table of\nthe historical writers, upon whose labors the authentic history of the\ncountry must rest.   [Footnote 222]\n\n  [Footnote 222: We omit in our list the supposititious history of\n  Croyland, by Ingulphus, which has been disposed of by Richard\n  Palgrave, as of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and of little\n  historical value.]\n\n\nMONASTIC WRITERS OF ENGLISH HISTORY.\n\n_Twelfth Century._\n\n  William of Poictiers, History of Conquest--Chaplain to William I.\n\n  Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History to\n  1141--Monk of St. Evroult.\n\n  Anonymous, Gesta Stephani.\n\n  William of Jumi\u00e8ges, History of\n  Normandy--Monk of Jumi\u00e8ges.\n\n  Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex\n  Chronicis to 1119--Monk of Worcestcr.\n\n  Matthew of Westminstcr, Flores\n  Historiarum--Doubtful.\n\n{814}\n\n  William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, Historia\n  Novella, Gesta Pontificum, Vita Anselmi,\n  De Antiquitate Glastoniae--Monk of Malmesbury.\n\n  Eadmer, Historia Novorum, and others--\n  Monk of Canterbury.\n\n  Turgot, Confessor of Margaret, Queen of\n  Malcolm Canmore; wrote her Life and\n  History of Durham (called Simeon of Durham),\n  History of St. Cuthbert, De Rebus\n  Anglorum, and other works--Monk of Durham.\n\n  Ailred, Account of Battle of Standards--Abbot\n  of Rivault, York.\n\n  Geoffrey of Monmouth, British History--Monk of Monmouth.\n\n  Alfred of Beverley, Gestis Regum--Canon of\n  St. John's, Beverley.\n\n  Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriae,\n  Topographia Hiberniae, De Rebus a se Gestis,\n  etc--Politician.\n\n  Henry of Huntingdon, Eight Books History,\n  Julius Caesar to 1154--Archdeacon.\n\n  Roger of Hovenden, Chronicle, 732 to 1202,\n  in continuation of Bede.\n\n  William of Newburgh, Hist. from Conquest to\n  1197--Monk of Newburgh.\n\n  Benedictus Abbas, Chronicle, 1170 to 1192\n --Abbot of Peterboro'.\n\n  Ralph de Diceto, Two Chron., one 589 to\n  1148, and the other to 1199, Hist. of\n  Controversy between Henry and \u00e0 Becket,\n  Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury to\n  1200, in the Anglia Sacra--Archdeacon of London.\n\n  Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicle, from 1100\n  to end of century, three other pieces, Contests\n  between Monks and Archbishop Baldwin,\n  History of the Archbishops, from Augustine\n  to Walter, 1205--Monk of Canterbury.\n\n\n_Thirteenth Century._\n\n  Richard of Devizes, Chron. of Reign of Richard I--Monk.\n\n  Jocelyn de Brakelond, Chron., 1173 to 1202\n --Monk of St. Edmondsbury.\n\n  Roger of Wendover, Hist. to 1235--Monk of St. Albans.\n\n  Matthew Paris, Historia Major. Conq. to\n  1259--Monk of St. Albans.\n\n\n_Fourteenth Century._\n\n  William Rishanger, Continuation of M. Paris\n  to 1322, Wars of the Barons--Monk of St. Albans.\n\n  John of Brompton,  [Footnote 223]\n  Chron. to 1199, from Saxons--Monk of Jerevaux.\n\n  [Footnote 223: Authorship doubtful.]\n\n  Thomas Wickes, Chron., of Salisbury to 1304\n --Canon of Osney.\n\n  Walter Hemingford, Hist. Conquest to 1273\n --Monk of Gisbro'.\n\n  Robert of Avesbury, Hist. Reign of Edward\n  III to 1356--Register of Canterbury.\n\n  Nicholas Trivet, Hist. from 1135 to 1307--Dominican.\n\n  Adam Murimuth, Chron. 1303 to 1337--Monk.\n\n  Henry Knyghton, Hist. from Edgar to Richard II--Canon of Leicester.\n\n  Thomas Stubbs, Chron. of Archbishops of\n  York to 1373--Monk.\n\n  William Thorne, Chron. of Abbots of St.\n  Augustine, 1397--Monk.\n\n  Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon  [Footnote 224] to 1357--Monk.\n\n    [Footnote 224: Caxton printed it, with a\n    continuation of his own, to 1460.]\n\n\n_Fifteenth Century._\n\n  Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Brevis to Hy. of\n  Normandy--Monk of St. Albans.\n\n  Thomas Otterbourne, Hist. to 1420--Franciscan.\n\n  John Whethamstede, Chron. 1441 to 1461--\n  Abbot of St. Albans.\n\n  Thomas Elmham, Life of Henry V.--Prior of Linton.\n\n  William of Worcester, Chron. 1324 to 1491--Monk.\n\n  John Rouse, Hist. Kings of England to 1490--\n  Chaplain to Earl of Warwick.\n\n\n_Monastic Registers._\n\n  Glastonbury,   63 to 1400\n  Melrose,   735 to 1270\n  Margan,  1066 to 1232\n  Waverly,   1066 to 1291\n  Ely,  156 to 1169\n  Abingdon,  870 to 1131\n  Bishops of Durham,  633 to 1214\n  Burton   1004 to 1263\n  Rochester,  1115 to 1124\n  Holyrood,   596 to 1163\n\nAdd to these many historical documents which have been preserved from\ndestruction, such as the Doomsday Book, the Liber Niger, rolls and\npublic registers, and we have a repertoire of historical materials\nsuch as scarcely any other nation in Europe can boast of. From the\ntime when the Saxon Chronicle was commenced down to the age of\nprinting, the pens of the monks were unwearied in recording the\nhistory of their country; and although they had their share of human\nweakness, and were influenced in matters of opinion frequently by the\ntreatment shown to their order, still among such a mass of writers the\ntruth may surely be ascertained. The severity of criticism applied to\nhistory in these {815} days is driving men rapidly to active research\namong these _origines histoicae_. Formerly when a man wrote a history,\nhe framed his work upon other men's labors and his own fancy, as was\ninstanced in the case of Robertson, who coolly tells us that he had\nmade up his mind to write a history of something, but was undecided\nwhether it should be a history of Greece, of Leo X., William III. and\nAnne, or Charles V. At last he decided upon the latter, and we may\ninfer from a letter of his to Dr. Birch in what degree of preparation\nhe was for the work. He says: \"I never had access to any copious\nlibraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors,\nbut I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the\nsubject, and have put them down as _I have found them mentioned in any\nbook I happened to read_.\" In another letter he admits: \"My chief\nobject is to adorn as far as I am capable of adorning the history of a\nperiod which deserves\u00b7 to be better known.\" Hume was no better than\nRobertson, for it appears that the latter had consulted the great\nEnglish historian about Mary, who sent him a version which Robertson\nat once used. But shortly after Hume received some MSS. from Dr.\nBirch, who went more deeply into these things, and in consequence he\nwrote to his friend Robertson to the following effect: \"What I wrote\nto you with regard to Mary, etc., was from the printed histories and\npapers, but I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State Papers\nthe matter is put beyond all question. I got these papers during the\nholidays by Dr. Birch's means, and as soon as I read them _I ran to\nMillar_ and desired him very earnestly to stop the publication of your\nhistory till I should write to you and give you an opportunity of\ncorrecting a mistake so important, but he _absolutely refused\ncompliance_. He said that your book was finished; that the whole\nnarrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again; that it was\nuncertain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same\ncompass with the old; that this change would require the cancelling a\ngreat many sheets; and that there were scattered passages through the\nvolumes _founded on your own theory_.\" [Footnote 225]\n\n    [Footnote 225: Disraeli's Literary Miscellanies.]\n\nWe quote these letters to show how history was written in bygone times\nby men who until the days of Maitland and Froude have been regarded as\nauthorities. The blind led the blind, and the History of Scotland--\nwhole sheets of which ought to have been rewritten, and scattered\npassages founded upon theory erased--was given to the world, because\nthe printer refused to disturb the press, and the author was\ndisinclined to demolish such a fair creation. But the day for\nimaginative history is past, and a new light is dawning upon the\nworld, the necessity of which is apparent from these revelations. For\nthe future the historian must write from manuscripts or printed copies\nof manuscripts, or his theories and his fancies will be soon\ndissipated under a criticism which is becoming daily more powerful,\nand acquiring new compass as fast as the labors of the Record Office\nare being brought to light. The narrative of the most vital periods of\nour country's history will have to be rewritten. We are being\ngradually taught that the dark ages were not so dark as our\nconceptions of them; that some of our favorite historical villains may\nyet be saved; and that many of the gods we have worshipped had very\nfew claims to divinity. The very fact of there being such a repertoire\nof historical materials created by the labors of those forty monks of\ndifferent monasteries; the existence of a voluminous and important\ncontroversy involving the vital questions of religion, and argued with\nscholarship, logical acuteness, wit, and vigor; the works of piety,\nart, and architecture which have come down to us from that age--must\nconvince us that, however rude the physical mode {816} of life may\nhave been, the intellectual activity and mental calibre of the men of\nthose days, when we remember their immense disadvantages, were little\ninferior to those of our day. We produce many things, but not many\ngreat things; but the labors of mediaeval monasticism were not _multa\nsed multum_, and they live now, and probably will live when much of\nthis multiform literature of our times will be obliterated by the\nimpartial, discriminating hand of time.\n\nWe cannot pass over this period of what we may call national Latin\nliterature--that is, when the literatures of all nations were written\nin Latin--without noticing the history of one book which has ever\nstood out prominently from the mass of mediaeval productions, not only\nfrom its intrinsic excellence, but from the unfathomable mystery\nconnected with its authorship. We allude to the treatise De lmitatione\nChristi, popularly attributed to Thomas \u00e0 Kempis. His claim rests\nchiefly upon the fact that the first printed copy was made from a\nmanuscript written by him and signed \"Finitus et completus Anno\nDomino, 1441, per manus patris Thomae Kempis in monte S. Agnetis prope\nSwoll.\" But there is in this subscription no evidence of authorship;\nit was the usual formula appended to copies. Kempis was an inveterate\ncopyist, and it will be a sufficient proof of the untenable nature of\nthis argument if we mention that a copy of the Bible made by him is\nsubscribed in a similar manner--\"Finitus et completus Anno Domini,\n1439, in Vigilia S. Jacobi Apostoli per manus Fratris Thomae \u00e0 Kempis\nad laudem Dei in Monasterio S. Agnetis.\" There is no evidence,\ntherefore, of authorship in the subscription of the MS.\n\nBut doubts existed soon after the publication of the work about its\nauthorship, and another MS. was discovered at Ar\u00f4ne bearing the\ninscription, \"Incipiunt capitula primi libri Abbatis Johannis _Gesen_\nDe Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vauitatum mundi,\" and at the\nend was written \"explicit liber quartus et ultimus Abbatis Johannis\n_Gersen_ de Sacramento Altaris.\" The house in which this document was\nfound belonged to the company of Jesus, but as it had formerly been\nheld by Benedictines, some vigilant members of that active body at\nonce declared it must have been written by one of their order. They\nmanaged to get possession of it, and immediately brought it out with\nthe addition in the title after the name of Gersen of \"Abbatis Ordinis\nSti. Benedicti.\" Then commenced that celebrated controversy between\nthe two monastic orders, the Augustines, who advocated the claims of\nThomas \u00e0 Kempis, and the Benedictines, who fought for Gersen. A volume\nmight be written easily upon the bare history of that controversy, as\nsome hundreds of volumes were during its progress. It began\nimmediately after the publication of this Benedictine claim in the\nyear 1616, and it raged in different countries in Europe for more than\ntwo centuries, the last controversy coming to a conclusion in 1832,\nwhich arose from the discovery of a MS. at Paris, copied in 1550, and\na document purporting that it was bequeathed to one of the De'\nAvogadri family in the year 1347. This further confirmation of the\nantiquity of the work gave rise to the last controversy which ended\nlike all the others in increasing the doubt as to Thomas \u00e0 Kempis's\nauthorship and the uncertainty of the whole question.\n\nWe think it can be shown that the De lmitatione was known before the\nbirth of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis, and about the time of the existence of\nGersen; but the evidence of the claim of the Gersenites is so slender\nthat the mere chronological coincidence is not sufficient to maintain\nit. Passages have been collected from works written long before the\ntime of \u00e0 Kempis word for word the same as in the De Imitatione. In\nthe conferences of Bonaventura to the people of Toulouse, written\nabout 1260, there are many such passages; {817} and in an office\nwritten by Thomas Aquinas for the Pope Urban IV., about the same time,\nthere are many other passages.  [Footnote 226] In fact, in the\nConferences a whole paragraph is quoted verbatim, concluding with the\nphrase, \"as may be seen in the pious book on the 'Imitation of\nChrist.'\" Criticism has labored diligently to discover in its text\nevidences indicative of the nationality of the author, but they have\nended in contradictions which seem to insinuate that it might be the\njoint production of pious minds in different countries, which would\nleave to Thomas \u00e0 Kempis the honor of having collected and arranged\nthem into one form. However, instead of wasting time over a fruitless\ninvestigation, we prefer taking the book as it is with its wealth of\nspirituality, with its calm beauty, its power of soothing the\nperturbed spirit, its subtle analyses of the human heart   [Footnote\n227] and the springs of human action, its encouragement to a godly\nlife, its fervor, its eloquence, and its strange power; and we are\ndriven to the conclusion that it is the most marvellous book ever\nproduced--most marvellous from the universal influence it has exerted\nover the minds of men of all creeds, ages, and countries, and from its\nadaptability to the common yearnings of all humanity. Like the gospel,\nof which it is the exponent, and therefore from which it derives the\nquality, it stands out in its marked individuality, in the midst of\nevery phase of life through which it has passed, a distinct thing,\nhaving nothing in common with the world or worldly pursuits, but\ntrying to wean men from them, or at least from allowing them to gain\nan ascendency over their affections. In the present age this isolation\nis more striking. We are far too philosophical, too scientific, too\nlogical, to attend to the ascetic ravings of this \"monkish\" book. The\nbusiness of life runs high with us, runs too noisily, to allow us to\nlisten to its small voice. We are so deeply engaged in the pursuits of\npleasure and the acquisition of wealth, that we have no time for the\n\"Imitation of Christ.\" We are involved in great undertakings--Atlantic\ntelegraphs, principles of physical science, railway committees,\nparliamentary reforms, and drainage questions, absorb all our\nattention. But philosophy, science, and logic fail to exempt humanity\nfrom its ills. The hour comes when man falls sick, sick unto death;\nthen in that moment when philosophy deserts pain, and science affords\nno consolation; when logic is dumb, and the soul with instinctive\napprehension is clamoring for help, then is the moment for such a book\nas this. And it was in such a moment that La Harpe, cast into a\ndungeon of the Luxembourg, with nothing but death before him,\naccidentally meeting with this book, and opening its pages at the\nwords \"Ecce adsum! Ecce ad te venio quia vocasti me. Lacrymae tuae et\ndesiderium animae tuae, humiliatio tua et contritio cordis\ninclinaverunt me et adduxerunt ad te,\" [Footnote 228] he fell upon his\nface heartbroken and in tears. We must conclude this portion of the\nsubject by repeating that the Latin language retained its position as\nthe language of literature until the time of the Reformation. But\nduring the fourteenth century there was a tendency to blend the two\nvernacular tongues spoken in England--the French and the Saxon. In the\nstruggle for precedence the Saxon conquered, and out of it came the\npresent vigorous idiom spoken by the English; but nothing of any\nconsequence was written in this tongue until it became settled and\nconfirmed.\n\n  [Footnote 226: These passages may be seen collected in parallel\n  columns in a work by M. De Gregory on L'Histoire du Livre de\n  l'Imitation. Paris,1843.]\n\n  [Footnote 227: Vide the analysis of Temptation, lib. I., c. xiii.,\n  and the well-known chapter on the Royal Road of the cross, lib. II.,\n  c xii.]\n\n  [Footnote 228: \"De Imi., lib. III., c. xxi., sec. 6. Behold me!\n  behold I come to thee because thou hast called me. Thy tears and the\n  desire of thy soul, thy humiliation and contrition of heart have\n  inclined and led me unto thee.\"]\n\nWe now advance to the consideration of one of the most beautiful\nemanations of Christianity in the world---her hymns. We take up these\n{818} hymns of the church, and we find that they bear testimony, not\nonly literary but historical, as to the state of the church at any\ngiven time, and certainly one of the best and purest testimonies that\ncan be found. Few, if any, writers have sufficiently investigated this\nbranch of ecclesiastical history, the evidence of the hymnology of the\nchurch. If we appeal to her controversial theology we shall find\ninvariably a mass of one-sided representation, mutual vituperation,\nand invective; if we go to ecclesiastical history we shall find that\nthose histories are written by minds working under the bias of some\ninclination toward sect or theory; but if we take up the hymns of the\nchurch we shall have the pure, free, outspoken voice of the church--we\nshall see, as it were, its internal organization, its emotions, its\naspirations, its thoughts, living, throbbing, palpitating--the very\nheart of the church itself.\n\nThe song of Christianity has never ceased in the world; it has\ncontinued in an unbroken strain. It began at its very outset in the\nsong of the mother of its founder, and it has been going on ever\nsince. As the voice of one age dies away, the strain is taken up by\nthe next. It has sunk at times into a low plaintive melody, and at\nothers mounted into a grand swelling psalm, heard above the noise of\nthe world, which ceases its strife to listen\u00b7 to its music. Of this\nmelody we shall now endeavor to give a brief history. We begin at the\ncoming of our Lord; but the whole worship of the true God is marked by\nthe psalmody of rejoicing hearts. The children of Israel by the Red\nSea broke out into the first recorded song; a considerable portion of\nthe Scripture is in that form; Jesus with his disciples sung a hymn at\nthe Last Supper; the apostles continued the practice, and from\npost-apostolic times there have come down to us three great hymns,\nwhose origin is lost in their remote antiquity--the Ter Sanctus, the\nGloria in Excelsis, and the Te Deum. These hymns were used in the very\nearliest ages of the church. Of the latter there is a legend that it\nwas sung by Ambrose spontaneously at the baptism of Augustine.\n\nThe periods of hymnology may be divided into two great sections--the\nearliest or Greek period, extending to the dawn of the fourth century,\nwhen the second or Latin division commences; and this latter may be\nsubdivided into three parts--the Ambrosian, the Barbarian, and the\nMediaeval. The earliest Greek hymns are anonymous; there is one to\nChrist on the Cross:--\n\n  \"Thou who on the sixth day and hour\n  Didst nail to the cross the sin\n  Which Adam dared in Paradise,\n  Read also the handwriting at our transgressions,\n  O Christ our Lord! and save us.\"\n\nThere is one on repentance, commencing:--\n\n  \"Receive thy servant, my Saviour,\n  Falling before thee with tears, my Saviour,\n  And save, Jesus, me repenting.\"\n\nAnd a simple doxology:--\n\n  \"God is my hope,\n  Christ is my refuge,\n  The Holy Spirit is my vesture.\n  Holy Trinity, glory to thee!\"\n\nThe first name of a hymn-writer which has reached us is that of\nClement of Alexandria, who lived toward. the close of the second\ncentury. One of his hymns is called, Hymn of the Saviour. But it is\nrecorded by St. Basil that a hymn was well known in the first and\nsecond centuries, called, Hail, Gladdening Light! which was sung in\nthe churches at the lighting of the lamps:--\n\n  \"Hail, Jesus Christ! hail, gladdening light\n  Of the immortal father's glory bright!\n  Blessed of all saints beneath the sky,\n  And of the heavenly company!\n\n  \"Now, while the sun is setting,\n    Now, while the light grows dim,\n  To Father, Son, and Spirit,\n    We raise our evening hymn.\n\n  \"Worthy thou, while time shall dure,\n  To be hymned by voices pure.\n  Son of God, of life the giver,\n  Thee the world shall praise forever!\"\n\nThere were several Syriac hymns at this period. Ephraim Syrus, a {819}\nmonk, and deacon of Mesopotamia. wrote, The Children in Paradise, On\nPalm Sunday, The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, and another, called,\nThe Lament of a Father on the death of his Son, which used to be sung\nat the funerals of children. Gregory of Nazianzen is the best known of\nthe Greek hymn-writers. There are two hymns to Christ extant by him,\nand an evening hymn. In one of the hymns to Christ the following\npassage occurs:--\n\n  \"Unfruitful, sinful, bearing weeds and thorns,\n  Fruits of the curse--ah! whither shall I flee?\n  O Christ, most blessed! bid my fleeting days\n  Flow heavenward, Christ, sole fount of hope to me!\n\n  \"The enemy is near--to thee I cling!\n  Strengthen, oh! strengthen me by might divine;\n  Let not the trembling bird be from thine altar driven--\n  Save me--it is thy will, O Christ!--save me, for I am thine.\"\n\nGregory's life was spent in a continual conflict with Arianism. At the\nage of fifty he went to Constantinople, and as all the churches were\nin the hands of the Arians, he preached in the house of a relative. He\nwas soon subject to persecution, was pelted in the streets, arrested,\ntried, and with much difficulty acquitted. Ultimately he succeeded;\nthe Arian heresy passed away; the house where he had so faithfully\npreached became the Church of \"Anastasia;\" the truth had risen there.\nBut time, though it brought success, had left him a sad, lonely old\nman. He was made Patriarch of Constantinople by the Emperor\nTheodosius; but he had lost all his dearest relatives, and he threw up\nhis dignity and retired from the world. In that retirement he wrote a\nbeautiful hymn, which sums up his life. We quote the first and last\nverses:--\n\n  \"Where are the winged words? Lost in the air.\n  Where the fresh flower of youth and glory? Gone!\n  The strength of well-knit limbs? Brought low by care.\n  Wealth? Plundered. None possess but God alone.\n  Where those dear parents who my life first gave,\n  And where that holy twain, brother and sister? In the grave.\n\n  \"This as thou wilt, the Day will all unite,\n  Wherever scattered, when thy word is said;\n  Rivers of fire; abysses without light,\n  Thy great tribunal, these alone are dread.\n  And thou, O Christ my King, art fatherland to me--\n  Strength, wealth, eternal rest, yea all, I find in thee.\"  [Footnote 229]\n\n    [Footnote 229: These extracts from translations of Greek hymns are\n    quoted from The Christian Life in Song, where the full versions may be\n    seen.]\n\nSt. Andrew of Crete, St. John of Damascus, St. Cosmas, Bishop of\nMaiuma, and Chrysostom, were amongst the Greek hymn-writers. Their\nproductions are characterized by the greatest simplicity and fervor,\nreliance upon Christ and love to God being the most prominent topics.\nWe now come to the period of Latin hymns, and we begin with the first\nor Ambrosian division. The principal writers are Ambrose, Hilary, and\nSt. Prudentius. Augustine, in his Confessions, quotes one of Ambrose's\nhymns, as having repeated it when lying awake in bed, \"Atque ut eram\nin lecto meo solus, recordatus sum veridicos versus Ambrosii tui: Tu\nes enim.   [Footnote 230 ]\n\n  [Footnote 230: August. Confess., lib. ix., c. 12.]\n\n  \"Deus creator omnium\n  Polique rector, vestiens\n  Diem decoro lumine\n  Noctem sopora gratia.\n\n  \"Artus solutos ut quies\n  Reddat laboris usul,\n  Mentesque fessas adievet\n  Lactusque solvat anxios.\"\n\nAmbrose was born about the year 340; his father was a prefect of Gaul,\nand belonged to a noble family. Before the age of thirty he himself\nwas consul of Liguria, and dwelt in Milan. Up to this time he had no\nnotion of becoming an ecclesiastic. But Anxentius, the Arian bishop,\nhaving died, a dispute arose between the citizens of Milan and the\nemperor, as to who should appoint the successor, each trying to evade\nthe responsibility. It was left to the people; the city was in a state\nof great excitement, and a tumultuous assemblage filled the cathedral,\nin the midst of whom appeared Ambrose in his civil capacity, to\ncommand peace, and it is said that in the lull which ensued, a voice\nwas heard crying, \"Ambrose is bishop,\" which the whole mass of people,\nseized by a sudden impulse, repeated. {820} Soon afterward he was\nordained and consecrated. The majority of the people were opposed to\nArianism, and he was soon involved in a dispute with the Empress\nJustina, who required him to give up the Portian Basilica to the\nArians. He refused, and accompanied by a multitude of people, took\npossession of the church, and fastened the doors. The imperial troops\nbesieged them for several days, during which time the people kept\nsinging the hymns of Ambrose. Monica, the mother of Augustine, is said\nto have been amongst the crowd in the church. One of Ambrose's hymns\nwas used for centuries as a morning hymn, called Hymn at the\nCock-crowing; another Advent hymn, Veni Creator gentium; one for\nEaster, Hic est dies verus Dei. St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles in the\nsixth century, is the next of the Ambrosian period; the best known of\nhis hymns is that to the morning, Lucis largitor splendide. But the\nmost prominent name of the period after Ambrose is Prudentius, who was\nborn about 348, practised in the courts as a pleader, and in his\nfifty-seventh year forsook the world, and spent the rest of his days\nin religious exercises. One of his great hymns is for Epiphany, O sola\nmagnarum urbium, another on the Innocents, Salvete flores martyrum;\nbut the hymn most known is a very beautiful, perhaps his most\nbeautiful composition, a funeral hymn, beginning Jam maesta quiesce\nquerela. After the reformation, this hymn was adopted by the German\nProtestants as their favorite funeral hymn, their version beginning\n\"H\u00f6rt auf mil Trauern und Klagen.\"\n\nThe resurrection of the body is thus expressed--\n\n  \"Non si cariosa vetustas\n  Dissolverit ossa favillis\n  Fueritque cinisculus arens\n  Minimi mensura pugilli:\n\n  \"Nec si vaga flamina et aurae\n  Vacuum per inane volantes\n  Tulerint cum pulvere nervos\n  Hominem periisse licebit\"\n\n  \"For though, through the slow lapse of ages,\n    These mouldering bones should grow old,\n  Reduced to a handful of ashes.\n    A child in its hands may enfold.\n\n  \"Though flames should consume it and breezes\n    Invisibly float it away,\n  Yet the body of man cannot perish,\n    Indestructible through its decay.\"\n\nThe next period of hymnology is what we have termed the barbarian,\nbecause it began at the time when the northern invaders were settling\ndown in the various parts of Europe, which had fallen to their arms.\nThough not so fertile in hymns, yet some beautiful things were\nproduced in this period. We shall only mention three\nhymn-writers--Gregory the Great, Venantius Fortunatus, and Bede. The\nprincipal hymn of Gregory's is the Veni Creator Spiritus; but the most\ndistinguished hymn-writer of this era is Fortunatus; he was an\nItalian, born about 530; a gay poet, the delight of society, until\nQueen Radegunda persuaded him to be ordained, and to settle at\nPoictiers, where she, having left her husband, was presiding over a\nmonastic establishment. There is a beautiful hymn of his, which\ncommences--\n\n  \"Pange lingua gloriosi\n  Praelium certaminis.\"\n\nWe quote two verses (v. i. and viii.) of the late Dr. Neale's\ntranslation:\n\nI.\n\n  \"Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,\n    With completed victory rife.\n  And above the cross's trophy,\n    Tell the triumph of the strife;\n  How the world's Redeemer conquered,\n    By surrendering of his life.\n\nVIII.\n\n  \"Faithful cross, above all other,\n    One and only noble tree,\n  None in foliage, none in blossom,\n    None in fruit, compares with thee;\n  Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,\n    Sweetest weight sustaining free.\"\n\nA portion of one of his poems, on the resurrection of our Lord, was\nsung in the Church for ten centuries as an Easter hymn. It commences,\nSalve festa dies toto venerabilis aevo.  [Footnote 231] In another of\nhis poems, De Cruce Christi, there occurs a beautiful image of the\nCross as the tree around which the True Vine is clinging:\n\n  \"Appensa est vitis inter tua brachia, de qua\n  Dulcia sanguineo vina rubore fluunt.\"  [Footnote 232]\n\n    [Footnote 231: Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 152.]\n\n    [Footnote 232: For the whole see Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p.130.]\n\n{821}\n\nBut his most celebrated hymn is the one written on the occasion of the\nsending the true cross by the emperor to Radegunda, at the\nconsecration of a church at Poictiers. It is called Vexilla Regis\nprodeunt:\n\nI.\n\n  \"The royal banners forward go,\n  The cross shines forth with mystic glow,\n  Where he in flesh, our flesh who made,\n  Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.\n\n  VI.\n\n  \"With fragrance dropping from each bough,\n  Sweeter than sweetest nectar thou:\n  Decked with the fruit of peace and praise,\n  And glorious with triumphant lays.\n\n  VIl.\n\n  \"Hall, altar! hail, O Victim! Thee\n  Decks now thy passion's victory,\n  Where life for sinners death endured,\n  And life by death for man procured.\"  [Footnote 233]\n\n  [Footnote 233: Dr. Neale's Mediaeval Hymns.]\n\nBede the Venerable wrote hymns also; the two best known are the Hymnum\ncanamus gloriae, and Hymnum canentes martyrum.\n\nWe now advance to the last and richest of all the periods of\nhymnology, the mediaeval. The list is headed with the royal name of\nRobert II. of France, who wrote, hymns, one of which is a Veni Sancte\nSpiritus. Peter Damian, the cardinal bishop of Ostia, who died in\n1072, wrote many hymns, but the two greatest are De Die Mortis and Ad\nperennis vitae fontem.  [Footnote 234] Adam of St. Victor was another\nprolific hymn-writer; thirty-six of his productions are extant, and\nwell known.  [Footnote 235]\n\n  [Footnote 234: Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, pp. 278, 315. ]\n\n  [Footnote 235: Ibid., pp. 53. 111, 160, 202, 212, 227.]\n\nPeter the Venerable and Thomas \u00e0 Kempis have also left hymns behind\nthem. But it was reserved for Archbishop Trench to dig out of the\nmouldering relics of the past a hymn written by a monk of Clugny, one\nBernard de Morlaix, the translation of which, by Dr. Neale, has\nsupplied the church of every denomination with favorite hymns; The\nmost general name by which it is known is Jerusalem the Golden. The\noriginal is a poem of about three thousand lines, called De Contemptu\nMundi, a melancholy satire upon the corruptions of the times. The\nfirst appearance of it in print, is in a collection of poems, De\nCorrupto Ecclesiae Statu, by Flacius Illyricus. We cannot speak too\nhighly of this poem of Bernard, nor of the merits of Dr. Neale's\ntranslation. The original is written in one of the most difficult of\nall metres, technically called \"leonini cristati trilices daetylici,\"\na dactylic hexameter, divided into three parts, with a tailed rhyme\nand rhymes between the two first clauses. Dr. Neale gives a specimen\nof this verse in English:\n\n  \"Time will be _ending soon_, heaven will be _rending\n    soon_, fast we and pray we;\n  Come the most merciful; comes the most terrible,\n    watch we while may we.\"\n\nThe imagery in the original poem is gorgeous; but Dr. Neale has\nexceeded the original  [Footnote 236] in many parts of his\ntranslation'. We add a few gems. The opening lines are--\n\n  \"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt vigilemus!\n  Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus.\n  Imminet, imminet, ut mala terminet, aequa coronet\n  Recta remuneret, anxia liberet aethera donet.\"\n\n  \"The world is very evil,\n    The times are waxing late,\n  Be sober and keep vigil,\n    The Judge is at the gate;\n  The Judge that comes in mercy,\n    The Judge that comes with might,\n  To terminate the evil,\n    To diadem the right.\"\n\n  [Footnote 236: The best edition of this poem is the little shilling\n  volume by Dr. Neale, called the Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix,\n  published by Hayes, Lyall-place, Eaton-square. It contains between\n  two and three hundred of the original lines, with Dr. Neale's\n  complete translation.]\n\nDr. Neale has proved himself a true poet in this translation; the\nrendering is most happy, and the whole version forms one of the finest\nsacred poems in the language. The lines--\n\n  \"Patria luminis, inscia turbinis, inscia litis.\n  Cive replebitur amplificabitur lsraelitis\n  Patria splendida, terraque florida, libera spinis\n  Danda fidelibus est ibi civibus, hic peregrinis,\"\n\nare thus happily rendered--\n\n  \"And the sunlit land that reeks not\n    Of tempest nor of fight\n  Shall fold within its bosom\n    Each happy Israelite;\n  The home of fadeless splendor,\n    Of flowers that fear no thorn,\n  Where they shall dwell as children,\n    Who here as exiles mourn.\"\n\n{822}\n\nThen the episode--\n\n  \"Sunt radiantia jaspide moenia clara pyropo.\"\n\n    \"With jaspers glow thy bulwarks,\n      Thy streets with emeralds blaze,\n    The sardius and the topaz\n      Unite in thee their rays;\n    Thine ageless walls are bonded\n      With amethyst unpriced;\n    The saints build up its fabric,\n      And the corner\u00b7stone is Christ.\n      * * * * *\n    Thou hast no shore, fair ocean!\n       Thou hast no time, bright day!\n    Dear fountain of refreshment.\n      To pilgrims far away.\n      * * * * *\n    They stand, those halls of Sion,\n      Conjubilant with song,\n    And bright with many an angel\n      And all the martyr throng;\n    The Prince is ever in them,\n      Their daylight is serene;\n    The pastures of the blessed\n      Are decked in glorious sheen.\n    There is the throne of David,\n      And there, from care released,\n    The song of them that triumph,\n      The shout of them that feast;\n     And they who, with their leader,\n      Have conquered in the fight,\n    For ever and for ever\n      Are clad in robes of white.\"\n\nBut we must pause, for to give all the beauties of this poem would be\nto transcribe the whole. Another St. Bernard, the well-known abbot of\nClairvaux, was a contemporary with him of Clugny. He was one of the\nmost influential men of his age, a man far in advance of it; the\nadviser of popes and the confidant of kings. Many hymns are attributed\nto him, one of the most beautiful being that known as Jesu Dulcis\nMemoria. In Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry there is a selection of\nfifteen verses, but the original consists of forty-eight verses.\n[Footnote 237] It is a fine specimen of the ardent loving poetry so\ncharacteristic of the period. A very beautiful version, or rather\nimitation of this poem, is extant in the Harleian MSS., written in the\nreign of Edward I., and as it is a very good specimen of the English\nof the period, and represents the spirit of the original, we venture\nto quote a verse or two.  [Footnote 238]\n\n  [Footnote 237: Sti. Bernardi Clarae Vallensis Opp: Benedictine\n  edition, vol. ii., p. 895.]\n\n  [Footnote 238: Printed also in the Percy Society's Publications,\n  vol. iv., p. 68.]\n\n\nI.\n\n  \"Jesu, suete is the love of thee,\n  Nothing so suete may be;\n  Al that may with eyen se\n  Haveth no suetnesse ageynes the.\n\n\nXIV.\n\n  \"Jhesu, when ich thenke on the,\n  And loke upon the rode tre;\n  Thi suete body to-toren se,\n  Hit maketh heorte to smerte me.\n\n\nXVIII.\n\n  \"Jhesu, my saule drah the to,\n  Min heorte opene ant wyde undo;\n  This hure of love to drynke so,\n  That fleysshliche lust be al for-do.\n\n\nXLV.\n\n  \"Jesut thin help at myn endyng,\n  Ant ine that dredful out-wendyng\n  Send mi soule god weryying,\n  That y ne drede non eovel thing.\"\n\n\nWe can only notice one other grand hymn, selected also from a long\npoem of Bernard, addressed to the different portions of the body of\nChrist on the cross. This is from the Ad Faciem, and commences--\n[Footnote 239]\n\n    [Footnote 239: For the Latin, see Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p.\n    139.]\n\n  \"Salve caput cruentatum\n  Totum spinis coronatum.\"\n\nAs it is one of the finest mediaeval hymns, and has been translated\ninto nearly all European languages, we give the translation:--\n\n  \"Hail! thou head so bruised and wounded,\n  With the crown of thorns surrounded;\n  Smitten with the mocking reed,\n  Wounds which may not cease to bleed,\n         Trickling faint and slow.\n  Hail! from whose most blessed brow\n  None can wipe the blood drops now.\n  All the flower of life has fled;\n  Mortal paleness there instead.\n  Thou, before whose presence dread,\n        Angels trembling bow.\n\n  \"All thy vigor and thy life\n  Fading in this bitter strife;\n  Death his stamp on thee has set,\n  Hollow and emaciate,\n         Faint and drooping there.\n  Thou, this agony and scorn,\n  Hast for me a sinner borne;\n  Me, unworthy--all for me,\n  With those signs of love on thee.\n        Glorious face appear!\n\n  \"Yet in this thine agony,\n  Faithful shepherd, think of me;\n  From whose lips of love divine\n  Sweetest draughts of life are mine,\n        Purest honey flows,\n  All unworthy of thy thought,\n  Guilty, yet reject me not;\n  Unto me thy head incline.\n  Let that dying head of thine\n        In mine arms repose.\n\n  \"Let me true communion know\n  With thee in thy sacred woe,\n  Counting all beside but dross,\n  Dying with thee on the cross;\n        'Neath it will I die.\n  Thanks to thee with every breath.\n  Jesus, for thy bitter death;\n  Grant thy guilty one this prayer--\n  When my dying hour is near, \tt\n         Gracious God, be nigh.\n\n{823}\n\n  \"When my dying hour must be,\n  Be not absent then from me;\n  In that dreadful hour I pray\n  Jesus come without delay,\n        See and set me free.\n  When thou biddest me depart,\n  Whom I cleave to with my heart,\n  Lover of my soul be near,\n  With thy saving cross appear;\n        Show thyself to me,\"  [Footnote 240]\n\n   [Footnote 240: Quoted in Christian Life in Song.]\n\nThere is an excellent version of this in German in the Passion Hymn of\nPaul Gerhard, beginning--\n\n  \"O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,\n  Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!\"\n\nBut the grandest of all the mediaeval hymns is that attributed to\nThomas of Celano, known as the Dies Irae. Its authorship is uncertain;\nit burst upon the world after a long silence in the church, like some\nstrain wafted over the earth on the winds of heaven. It has always\nbeen the favorite hymn for solemnities in every country. In Germany\nupward of sixty translations have been made of it. Goethe has\neffectively introduced it into the \"Faust\" in the cathedral scene,\nwhere Marguerite is tempted by the evil spirit, who, when the choir\nchanted the words--\n\n  \"Dies irae, dies illa,\n  Solvet saeclum in favilla,\"\n\nwhispers sardonically into her ear--\n\n  \"Grimm fasst dich!\n  Die Posaune t\u00f6nt!\n  Die Gr\u00e4ber beben!\n  Und dein Herz,\n  Aus Aschenruh\n  Zu Flammenquallen\n  Wieder aufgeschaffen\n  Bebt auf;\"\n\nand so on through the whole scene, corrupting the meaning of the hymn\nin the mind of the broken-hearted girl. It was muttered by the dying\nlips of Walter Scott, and has employed the genius of such men as\nSchlegel, Fichte, and Herder. We give one passage--\n\n  \"Recordare, Jesu pie,\n  Quod sum causa tuae viae,\n  Ne me perdas illa die.\n\n  \"Querens me sedisti lassus,\n  Redemisti crucem passus,\n  Tantus labor non sit cassus.\"\n\n  \"Think of me, good Lord, I pray,\n  Who troddest for me the bitter way,\n  Nor forsake me in that day.\n\n  \"Weary sat'st thou seeking me,\n  Diedst redeeming in the tree,\n  Not in vain such toil can be.\"\n\nThe mediaeval period was one rich in art and active in intellectual\nwork. The great difference between that age and this is, that in\nmediaeval times intellectual life was concentrated, and now it is\nspread abroad; we get more books and readers, but less great books and\nthinkers. Perhaps there has never been a time of such vigorous\nintellectual effort in England, unless we except the Elizabethan age,\nthan that of the scholastic controversies of the twelfth, thirteenth,\nand fourteenth centuries. It was in this age, too, that the\nessentially mediaeval art of illumination flourished in all the\nlettered monasteries of Europe, the age when all the great cathedrals\nwere built; and when that enchanting song whose notes we have just\nbeen listening to was improvised and sung. The God who presides over\nthe economy of nature presides also over that of life. His hand is in\nboth, upholding, protecting, guiding. We take up a phase of human\nhistory like this mediaeval phase, and to us it appears contradictory,\nobjectless, useless; but we must remember that it is but one part of\nthe great economy, that as every phase of nature has its separate use,\nso every period in the history of humanity contributes its share to\nthe general result. There are no arid dark wastes in history any more\nthan in nature. Progressing geographical science is gradually\nrevealing to our minds the fact that Central Africa is not the deadly\nuseless desert of our imagination, but is probably belted and\nintersected with rivers, whose fertilizing power has only to be\napplied. So a progressive historical science is rapidly clearing away\nthe darkness of these dark ages, revealing to us treasures which have\nlong lain hidden. We speak of the past as antiquity, and we are apt to\nassociate the idea of age with it, just as we look {824} toward the\npresent as youthful and new. But we must remember that antiquity\nreally belongs to the present as the result of time, and that the past\nwas the youth. So when we go back into these past ages of the church\nwe must regard them as her youth, and instead of quarrelling with the\nfollies and wantonness inseparable from immaturity, endeavour to do\nour best to help on the great consummation of her mission in the\nworld, knowing well that although the hey-day of her youth is past,\nshe has not yet attained her full maturity; and in times of despair,\nwhen schism is rife, when the sons of her bosom desert her, when men\nharden themselves against her love and forsake her, ever bear in mind\nthe promise of her great head and founder, \"Upon this rock I build my\nchurch, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.\"\n\n--------\n\nTranslated from the French.\n\nROBERT; OR, THE INFLUENCE OF A GOOD MOTHER.\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\"O Paris! gulf of evils, on each of thy stones we could drop a tear,\nred with blood, if the sorrows, which thy walls enclose, could appear\nbefore us.\"--J.J. ROUSSEAU.\n\n\nThe city of innumerable wonders, of shining domes, and colossal\ntowers, with its enchanting gardens, palaces, and gigantic monuments,\nwhich one sees in the distance--the first glimpse he gets of Paris\nthrough the blue haze--now appeared to the astonished gaze of the\nlittle mountaineer, and was like a dream of the Arabian Nights. \"O\nParis! Paris!\" shouted he joyously, clapping his hands, and looking\neagerly through the misty veil that still enveloped the city. And, as\nhe approached nearer, his emotions redoubled; for it was there that\nhis mother predicted he would one day be happy. Oh! sweet security,\nblissful trust of childhood, why must it pass away with advancing\nyears? Why is it that devouring inquietude and mental restlessness\nthen comes to our souls, and tortures them without ceasing? It is a\nsad condition of our probation here, that we must see all the bright\ndelusions of early life disappear one by one; and submit unmurmuringly\nto the different phases of life and the different ideas and feelings\nto which time leads us all. And so it may perhaps be for little\nRobert, who now trusts so confidently in the future, and in his\nmother's prediction being fulfilled. Have confidence, like him, dear\nreaders--like him hope, without trying to draw aside the veil which\nhides your destiny--but follow him, step by step, in all the changing\nevents of his life, and perhaps we shall see him fill an enviable\nposition, as the fruit of his good conduct and perseverance. And since\nhe is now radiant with hope, let us not efface, by our indiscreet\nwords, this vision which sustains and comforts all.\n\nAs the travellers neared Paris, the old man's forehead wrinkled, his\nbrows contracted each moment, and flashes of rage burst from his eyes.\nThe sight of the hordes of the enemy's soldiers who had established\ntheir bivouacs before the capital, put him in a transport of fury.\n\nThe detested uniforms of the English, Austrians, Russians, and\nPrussians which he saw before him, made him think he was the victim of\nsome dreadful hallucination, but the insolent air of the conquerors\nawakened him to the frightful reality that the emperor could no longer\nexpel them. In his terrible rage he beat his breast with his fists,\nswore, and uttered words that sounded like distant thunder, gnashing\nhis teeth at the same time most {825} convulsively. Then he walked on\nwith a resolute and hasty step, so that Robert was obliged to run,\nrather than walk, at his side to keep up with him. He was very\ntaciturn, but the boy at once comprehended the reason of his stubborn\nsilence, and he respected the holy indignation of the old warrior,\nwounded, in his national pride and his deepest feelings, when he saw\nall his dreams of glory vanish with the shadow of the great man who\nhad made the fame and splendor of all France. To the ex-soldier of the\nguard there was nothing left but cruel discontent. In Paris there was\nmilitia of all ranks and grades and countries; but there were no brave\nleaders, the old soldiers thought, and most of them were young men who\nhad yet to see the field of battle. The white stripes had replaced the\nthree colors, which disappeared with the glorious exile, Napoleon. The\ndespair of poor Cyprien was as great as his love for his emperor, and\nnothing could soften his rage, so violent was the hatred he felt for\nthe new order of things.\n\nRobert was much excited by the strange and picturesque spectacles\nwhich presented themselves to his view on every side--by the gay\ncostumes of' the people, and the movements of this ocean of of human\nbeings, but he did not address many questions to his sad companion,\nfor he loved him already, and saw the deep sorrow that filled his\nsoul, and it made him timid and reserved.\n\nIt was now time to think of getting lodgings, and Cyprien wanted to go\ninto the most modest quarter of the city, where he was born, and for\nwhich naturally he had the strongest affection. But in the twenty-five\nyears that he had been a wanderer, vast changes had taken place, and\nmost of his family had gone to rest. He found himself alone, separated\nfor ever from his old comrades of glory; but of this he thought\nlittle, so completely was his heart filled with the adored image of\nhis emperor. The most extraordinary thing was that amidst his grave\nthoughts he had found a place for the little orphan, whom chance had\nthrown in his way, and for whom he evinced the strongest attachment,\nwhich grew day by day, for Cyprien did nothing by halves; and when he\ncould for a moment forget his emperor, it was to bestow almost\npaternal care upon his young _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_. One day, when they had been\nhaving a long talk, and he had said things which charmed the sensible\nand loving boy, he asked him to take him to the Church of St. Germain\nl'Auxerrois, for it was there that he was to find the cur\u00e9 to whom his\nletter was addressed. \"Willingly,\" replied Cyprien, \"I will take you\nthere; but I cannot go in, it has been so long since I have made a\nvisit of that kind, that I don't care to go, but I will wait for you.\"\nRobert presented himself alone at the door of the cur\u00e9's house, and\nwas received by him with grace and a touching cordiality. He was a man\nof fine address, with eyes that seemed to penetrate the depths of\none's soul, but his scrutiny was accomplished by a smile so\nbeneficent, that it drew you irresistibly toward the minister of' God.\nThe virtues he had practised appeared in his person, his language was\nfull of purity and goodness, and he appeared ever ready to pardon and\nbless. Such, in general terms, was the man to whom Robert was\nrecommended. When he had read his friend's letter, he made the child\nsit down and tell him all about his journey and the manner in which he\nacquitted himself charmed the good cur\u00e9, and his lively and\nintelligent face set him to reflecting. The purity of his eyes showed\na generous and noble soul, and the good man knew that he was one of\nthose natures that always remain pure, in the midst of corruption.\nThese exiled angels have often sorrowful lives, before they reach the\nglorious end. Deprived of pecuniary means, they see the paths to fame\nclosed for them, while it is open for the rich, and made wide and easy\nof access.\n\n{826}\n\nThe good cur\u00e9, after making these observations mentally, recalled the\nillustrious men who have illumined the earth from time to time with\nthe rays of their genius, and the traces of whose lives are still\nvisible; but the road to fame has, alas! been sown for centuries with\nbitter tears, unknown sufferings, and cries of the despair of\nunrecognized genius. He recalled faces radiant with sublime thoughts,\ncrowned with thorns, the only recompense of their work, and he said\nwith agony, \"O God! if this child should ever be one of the victims,\nif he should ever weep over lost hopes, would it not be better to\nleave him as he is, simple and natural, ignorant of the delights of a\nstudious life; ignorant of knowledge, than to be initiated into the\ncruel deceptions of hope long deferred, and which may be finally lost?\nHow often, like a beautiful dream, youth, glory, and mind fade away in\nthe awful struggle. But no,\" said he, fixing his eyes on the\nexpressive face of Robert, \"his future will not be so sad. Too much\nintelligence burns in his eyes, too much fire is lighted there, to be\nextinguished by the wearying labors of mind, or by hunger and\nfrightful misery. If this diamond in the rough shows so much\nbrilliancy, what will it not be when it is polished? Then will all its\nmarvellous lustre appear, and I will have the holy joy of aiding to\nperfect this work.\" These were his reflections, and so had it always\nbeen with him; from the moment he was ordained to his saintly\nministry, he was always looking for the means of doing good to others;\nand was a beautiful religious type of charity and goodness. It was so\ngreat a happiness to him to make others happy, that he looked upon his\ndays as badly spent if he had not dried a tear, or given another joy;\nand his doing good was so sweet a duty, that he passed his days and\nnights in consoling the unfortunate. But for children especially was\nhe most tenderly solicitous, He said with one who was all love and\ncharity when among men, \"Let little children come unto me.\" Like his\ndivine Master, he drew them to him and pressed them to his heart, his\nhands rested on their young heads, and he called down upon them\ncelestial benedictions. But he did not stop here. He gave them not\nonly his prayers, but aid and protection. When his purse was\nexhausted, and his personal resources no longer sufficed, he had\nrecourse to that of others. He was eloquent and persuasive when he\npleaded the cause of children, and happy in receiving the offerings\nwhich were always deposited in his charitable hands. Thus he was the\nfather of a large family, the benefactor of many children, who,\nbecoming men, repaid his care by unlimited gratitude and\nirreproachable conduct, and by the constant practice of the virtues of\nwhich he had given them so noble an example. Robert found in him a\ntender and devoted protector, who was interested for him, and in whose\nfuture friendship he might trust. The day when this action was\nregistered in heaven, the good man felt a happiness he had never known\nbefore in adopting before God the orphan that his friend, the cur\u00e9 of\nthe village of Bains, had recommended to him in such warm terms. The\nvow which he made himself to protect him, was not like those men\nusually make, and forget as soon as made.\n\nDuring the interview between the child and the cur\u00e9, the old soldier\nwas walking up and down outside, absorbed in reflections of quite an\nopposite nature. Sometimes hope colored his thoughts; oftener they\nwere sombre and cold, like the clouds of the region to which memory\ntransported him, to the fatal soil of Russia, where victory had\nabandoned the French flag. An hour was passed by him in recalling\nthese days of sorrow, but at last he grew tired of waiting, and jerked\nat the bell string, which hung so modestly at the cur\u00e9's door, most\nviolently. In an instant a servant appeared with harsh words on the\nend of her tongue, but the severe face and long moustache of Cyprien\ninduced her to withhold from speaking them. Scarcely was the door\nopened, when a voice, almost of thunder, {827} inquired for Robert.\nHearing it, the cur\u00e9 opened the parlor door, and advancing toward the\nsoldier, with an affable air, invited him in, saying, \"I will be very\nglad to talk with you. You were, I suppose, uneasy about your little\nfriend, whom I have detained a long time, I know, but it is not time\nlost; we have become acquainted and are now old friends, and you have\na share of the affection I have avowed for this interesting child. You\nhave a noble heart, and the Lord will bless you, my friend, you may be\nsure of that, for in the midst of your own sufferings you have had\ncompassion on those of others, and above all you have protected an\norphan!\" The soldier was stunned by this benevolent speech; he, raised\nhis hand mechanically to his forehead, following the cur\u00e9 and\nmuttering the words \"Pardon--excuse--do not pay any attention to me.\"\nRobert had not dared to move, but when Cyprien came near him, he threw\nhimself into his arms. \"There--that will do,\" said he to him--\"pay\nattention, the cur\u00e9 speaks.\" \"Why did you not come in with Robert? You\nhave denied me the pleasure I should have had in talking with I a\nbrave soldier. Our _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_ has spoken of you in most affectionate\nterms, but he did not tell me you were waiting for him, or I should\nnot have suffered you to remain outside the door.\" \"Thank you, M.\nCur\u00e9, but I cannot talk to you, I have so few words, and have not been\naccustomed to much, and all I know is how to use 'Arms.'\" \"Each of us\nhas his profession, my friend,\" replied the cur\u00e9, \"and you have made\nyours glorious. Nevertheless you must allow me to think you know a\ngreat deal besides.\" \"If that is your idea, kind father, I will not\noppose it, but, with respect to you, I must tell you I have not seen a\nbook since I knew, the 'Little Corporal,' and we are old\nacquaintances. Twenty-five years;\" said he, \"impossible to forget\nthat\"--wiping away a tear.\n\n\"Yes, my friend, you have reason to regret your emperor, and even to\nweep for him, for he was a great man, and loved you all as children.\"\n\n\"But, oh! how was he repaid?\" and then he wept again.\n\n\"The love you bear your emperor honors you. Respect and devotion to\nmisfortune fills noble souls, and I understand very well how your\nattachment is augmented in proportion to the sufferings which weigh\ndown your chief; and it is not for me, a minister of peace and\ncharity, to make a crime of your regrets and affection, or to denounce\nthem. But let us leave this sad subject, until you know me better and\nhave more confidence in me. For today we will talk about Robert and my\nplans for him. I am thankful to you for taking a father's place to\nhim; without you he would have been lost in this great city, or might\nperhaps have met persons who would have placed him in contact with\nvice and wickedness. I rejoice that a kind Providence permitted this\nchild to awaken an interest in you, and that he found you so\naffectionate a guide. You must continue your friendship, and I hope to\ngain his, by the care I will take of him.\"\n\n\"Oh! my dear father,\" said Robert, kissing respectfully the hand of\nhis new protector, \"you are too good to me, but I will try to repay\nyour kindness by a full and entire submission to your least wishes.\"\n\n\"Well spoken, little one!\" exclaimed the soldier, \"this is the first\nduty of a conscript.\"\n\n\"I will try to find the mean s of aiding him to fill a high position\nsome day,\" said the cur\u00e9. \"I have acquaintances and friends who will\ngive me of their wealth, for,\" said he, in a tone of regret, \"I am far\nfrom being rich. But no matter, God will help us; I have this sweet\ncertainty, so you may take courage, my little friend, and whatever\ntaste you may have for study, I promise you I will do all that I can\nto advance you. You are in such good hands that I shall have no cause\nfor uneasiness as to how you pass your time; and I will leave you for\na while, {828} and perhaps I may bring back some good news for you.\"\n\nAfter calling at several houses without success, he chanced to see a\nwealthy widow who had but one child, a son. This boy was of a most\nvicious nature, and although young in years, he had every defect of\ncharacter, without a single good quality. He made his poor mother\ndespair, and she often reproached herself bitterly for her weakness\ntoward him, but she knew no means that would reform his bad habits,\nwhich assumed the form of fatal and violent passion. When the cur\u00e9\nspoke of Robert, she said: \"O God! since he is possessed of so many\namiable and virtuous qualities, entrust him to me. He will be treated\nas my own child, will share the studies of Gustave, and have the same\nmasters; and perhaps God may pity a mother's sorrows, and that this\nchild may have so good an influence over him, that Gustave may feel a\ndesire to be good also. I pray you do not refuse me,\" said the mother\nin a supplicating tone; \"I cling to this last hope, as a ship-wrecked\nman would cling to the plank he hopes will save him from perishing.\"\n\nAfter long consideration of the chances of happiness and success in\nthe future if Robert accepted it--of the great dissimilarity of the\ntwo persons who would thus be thrown together, and the disagreements\nand sufferings for Robert; and still worse, if the pure, rich nature\nof the orphan should be corrupted in the society of the wicked child,\nwhom he knew only too well--he was still undecided. But an\nirresistible, though secret, argument spoke in favor of the mother of\nGustave; so that at last her pressing solicitations were acceded to.\nHe reserved for himself the right to watch closely over the precious\ntrust that Providence had confided to him, and after this it was\nagreed that Robert should be presented to Madame de Vernanges (this\nwas the name of Gustave's mother) as soon as he could be informed of\nit, and if he was willing to accept it.\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n  \"The heart of a wicked man sighs for evil, and no\n  one can find pardon before him . . . . .\"\n\n\nRobert was willing to accede to any wish of the good man who had so\ngenerously charged himself with his destiny. We have said before, that\nhe was gifted with noble qualities; he had a lively perception, his\nintellectual faculties were strong, and he seemed to have power to do\nall that was required of him. He had no knowledge of what was not\ngood, and possessed one of those happy organizations which can only be\na gift from God. He felt it his duty to obey all that his protector\nwished; and when he told him that his interest required that he should\ngo to the house of' Madame de Vernanges, and share in the liberal\neducation this lady gave her son, Robert replied: \"If' it is your\nwish, I am ready to go.\"\n\n'The cur\u00e9 was surprised and touched at this eagerness to fulfil his\nwishes, this entire self-abnegation in one who could not but prize the\nsweet liberty of acting for himself, which he had so long enjoyed on\nhis native mountain; and a still further proof of his remarkable\ndisposition was, that he knew, young as he was, the art of sacrificing\nhis tastes to duty, and the necessity of making himself agreeable to\nthose who interested themselves for him. The kind priest did not wish\nto spend Robert's money for things which could be dispensed with, but\nhis clothes were unsuitable to his new position, so he had him a\ncomplete wardrobe prepared, and a woman could not have been more\ncareful about the minutest details.\n\n'When all was in readiness he conducted him to the house of Madame de\nVernanges. As soon as she saw him, she felt as if he was a\nregenerating angel to be placed near her son. She embraced him\naffectionately, and asked him if he \"would love her like a mother?\"\n\"Oh!\" said he, at once becoming serious at such a question, \"I cannot\npromise you that, dear {829} madame, for it would be impossible for me\nto feel for any other woman the same degree of affection that I feel\nfor my mother;\" but, he added, smiling sweetly, \"I think I can assure\nyou that I will love you much.\"\n\nSome author says that a child only loves his mother for the services\nshe renders him. Can this be true? No--it is blasphemy against filial\nlove; and were it so, alas for the happiness of mothers! Far sweeter\nis the idea that one loves the other for the other's sake alone; one\nis the consequence of the other, it is a love eternal like the soul,\nlike its divine author, like God himself: There may be some selfish\nchildren who measure their love for their parents by the services they\nrender them, but they are monsters--sad and rare exceptions--and\ndeserve all our pity. The proof of what we affirm is found in the love\nthat Robert always preserved in his heart for the dear and sacred\nremembrance of his mother. It is the strongest, most lively and\nunalterable of feelings, and has no rival in the other loves God has\ngiven to man in his short life. Who can hear the name of mother spoken\nwithout feeling a delicious sensation, and having a tear-drop moisten\nthe eye?\n\nMadame de Vernanges was so pleased with Robert's frankness, that she\nfelt for him from that moment the most tender sympathy. After a few\nmoments' conversation Gustave was sent for, but the reception he gave\nhis future companion of play and study, was not very encouraging to\nthe latter. At first, from the height of his grandeur he looked down\nupon him with disdain, and received with a very bad grace the amiable\nadvances of Robert, who wished to conquer at once the friendship of\nhis young comrade. He was astonished and sad at the coldness showed\nhim, but little by little Gustave softened, and laid aside his\ninsolent air. The acquaintances of this period of life are easily\nmade. Robert gave himself up with perfect abandon to the new pleasure\nof playing and talking with a child of his own age. He was not\ndistrustful, for he had no experience; and as his own thoughts were so\ngood and pure, he never suspected others. The mother and the cur\u00e9,\nthough seemingly occupied in conversation, followed with observing and\nrestless eyes the movements of the children. The latter feared, and\nnot without reason, to see some awkward blunder made by a child raised\nso far from the world, and in the simple habits of a happy mediocrity.\nBut to his inexpressible satisfaction he saw Robert as easy in his\nmanners as in his language, and he acted as if he had been bred in a\nparlor. His rare intelligence displayed itself in his answers to\nGustave, and he could not have been more sparkling in his repartees.\nHis candor and good nature did not permit him to comprehend the\nperfidious intentions of his saucy interrogator, and it was a cruel\nmortification for the wicked Gustave, not to be able, in spite of his\n_ruses_, to find any fault with Robert. He had counted on a triumph,\nand received a complete humiliation; he thought to show his\nsuperiority to the child who was given him as a model, and his\ndisappointment was that he felt before him his great defects.\n\nDuring this time the good priest inwardly rejoiced at the success of\nthe little orphan, while the poor mother sighed in making a sad\ncomparison between the children of the same age, but so different in\ncharacter; and in spite of her wish to the contrary, she could not but\nsee the low and envious sentiments which ruled the conduct of Gustave,\nand the goodness contained in each word Robert uttered. Her heart was\nwell-nigh broken, and in bitterness she exclaimed: \"Wicked! always\nwicked! he has not one good thought, one blameless moment. I am\ncruelly punished for my guilty weakness toward him. O God! is it too\nlate to reclaim him? Is there no remedy for his wickedness? and must I\nbear all the ills of such a child?\"\n\n{830}\n\nAssured by the way in which Robert had taken the first and most\ndifficult steps in his new abode, the good priest prepared to leave.\nIt was in warm and pressing terms that he recommended his _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_;\nand embracing him, gave him his paternal benediction. \"I will see you\nsoon,\" he said to him, and this promise consoled him, for he felt sure\nhe would always be a generous defender, a tender and devoted. friend.\nThe child flattered himself for some time that he had gained the\nconfidence and friendship of Gustave, but he had soon to renounce that\nbelief, for, in spite of his profound dissimulation, the latter could\nnot always keep up appearances, and Robert suddenly discovered the\ntruth. This made Gustave hate him bitterly, and nothing could diminish\nit; but Robert spoke of it to no one but the priest. Encouraged by his\nsilence, which Gustave mistook for the silence of fear, he was always\nmaking war with him when they were alone. Before his mother, or any\nother person, he did not dare to do so, but changes of manner were no\ntrouble to the young hypocrite, for he could put on a bold air, and\ngive himself the calm serenity of innocence. This premature\ncorruption, this innate science of' evil, he carefully hid, and was\ndeceitful above everything to those before whom he wished to appear\ngood. In the first days of their acquaintance he had conceived a\nviolent hatred to Robert, but he felt the necessity of dissimulating,\nso as not to awaken the suspicions of his mother; so that he did not\nopenly declare war with his rival, for he knew that would be an\nirreparable fault. He trusted to chance, which sometimes helps the\nwicked, and waited for an occasion to present itself.\n\nRobert all this while studied with care the lessons of his different\nmasters, which the goodness of his benefactress gave him the means of\nsharing with Gustave. It was no trouble to him to learn, and his\nprogress was so rapid and so wonderful, that his masters were\nenchanted, and were prodigal of their praises and marks of affection.\nGustave, the lazy, indolent boy, suffered all the torments of envy.\nFor the first time he felt pride, pushing toward emulation, enter his\nheart, and that which neither the prayers nor the tears of his mother\ncould obtain, the odious sentiment of jealousy brought, and he worked\nwith ardor, Rage sustained him in his desperate resolution; his duties\nwere no longer neglected, and his hours for work were so laboriously\nemployed, that even his mother believed for a time in the complete\nreformation of her son, under the happy influence of Robert. This joy\nwas of short duration, and the error soon dispelled, for, if his mind\nprofited on the one hand, his heart remained the same, and in it every\nbad passion was kindled. Sad fruits of a neglected education, of an\ninfancy and childhood abandoned to itself, without care and without\nculture.\n\nNearly a year had passed since Robert entered the house of Madame de\nVernanges, and the time had been most profitable to him in every way.\nStudy opened to his eyes the treasures that are concealed from the\nvulgar, and he was already opening for himself a career sown with the\nseeds of art and science, the flowers of which he longed to gather;\nand in spite of all the cruelty and sarcasm of Gustave, he was very\nhappy, for he felt the love of his benefactress and the good cur\u00e9, and\nthe remembrance of his cherished mother, and under these affections he\nrejoiced, as one rejoices in the sunlight of heaven. From the night\nshe appeared to him in a dream, he was filled with the desire to be\ngood, and worked nobly for this end. Often his thoughts would fly to\nhis mountain home, and to the grave which contained her ashes. Neither\nhad he forgotten the venerable priest of the Baths of Mount Dore, and\nhad often written to him, and from time to time sent him small sums of\nmoney to be employed in charities.\n\nAmong Robert's happiest hours now were those he passed with the cur\u00e9\nhere; but even these he could not long enjoy alone, for the wicked\nGustave discovered that his sadness vanished {831} whenever he reached\nthe cur\u00e9's door, and he took a cruel pleasure in always going with him\nunder various pretexts, and thus snatching these few moments of\nhappiness from his victim. But a smile, a kind word from his\nbenefactor, paid Robert doubly for this painful sacrifice, and Madame\nde Vernanges noticed the hatred her son bore him. She was not to be\nduped by the friendship he feigned for one he detested from his soul.\nMore than once the feeble mother had been a witness to the odious\nwickedness of the one, and the admirable patience of the other. She\nhad seen, but had not corrected the guilty, for his strength\ndiscouraged her; she was too heart-stricken to combat with the bad\ngenius that possessed him. It was easier for her to close her eyes to\nit, though she had the justice to seek by delicate attentions and\ntender caresses to repay Robert for some of his sufferings.\n\nWe have lost the old soldier for a time, but have not forgotten him.\nAt the time of their separation, both he and Robert shed bitter tears,\nand the latter tried to make him promise that he would come sometimes\nto see him in his new abode: \"Not there,\" said the grenadier, \"but I\nwill come sometimes and have a talk with you at the house of the cur\u00e9,\nfor I love him, by the faith of Cyprien Hardy.\" And he kept his\npromise, and many were the talks they had there together. On the 20th\nof March of that year the exile of Elba made an appeal to all faithful\nsoldiers, and it was not made in vain. Cyprien responded at once to\nthe call of his emperor, and when he had buckled on his warlike\nhabits, he forgot for a while the orphan and the priest.\n\nMadame de Vernanges counted her days only by her sorrows. She had no\nrepose--her health was failing so rapidly that the physicians said she\nmust pass the winter in a warmer climate and under a purer sky. This\nwas a sudden blow for Robert, for he had become much attached to his\nbenefactress, and she said he was to go to college with Gustave, who\nsaw with revolting indifference the sufferings of his mother at the\nthought of a separation; but all her friends thought it was best,\nhoping some change in his character might take place from the strict\nand severe discipline of college life. This new arrangement was\nsubmitted to the cur\u00e9, who in all things pertaining to him, was guided\nby the interest of his _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_, and it met with his approbation.\nMadame de Vernanges' was to be absent six months or a year, and Robert\nfelt that he should indeed be isolated from her protective affection,\nand left alone to the wicked designs of Gustave; who, when they were\nthrown together at college, used all his time and his power to turn\nthe students against Robert, and get them to league with him against\nhim, for he was longing for an occasion to avenge the marks of\ntenderness and preference which his mother had shown Robert. Never was\na child's patience put to a more severe test--neither the goodness nor\ngenerosity of the orphan could soften the hatred Gustave felt for him.\nBut though Robert was of so even and calm a temperament, he could not\nbe injured nor oppressed without defending himself, and there was but\none consideration that curbed his indignation, and that was the\ncertainty he felt that Gustave was the author of the persecutions\nwhich each wicked boy inflicted upon him. Had he not been convinced of\nthis, he would have used the same means to punish them which they\nemployed to torture him; but, according to his pure sentiments, this\nwould not have been right, and he would not have the least reproach\nfrom his benefactress for any unkindness toward her son. He did not\noppose his oppressors in any way, but they saw that he felt the\noutrages perfectly, and disdained, and not without reason, to let them\nknow it. In this combat of all against one, the voice of conscience\nwas not always heard, and in spite of his efforts to keep silent,\nthere came a time when it was insupportable. The epithets of  \"lazy\nand coward\" {832} resounding in his ears, filled him with indignation,\nand those who spoke them did not dare repeat them a second time, for\nhe dealt with them in a way that convinced them he could not bear\neverything. Two or three corrections soon put an end to this state of\nthings, and placed Robert high in the esteem of the older collegians.\nIn vain did Gustave try to reawaken the ardor of his partisans.\nFrightened by the vigorous attack of Robert, they refused to unite in\nany new vexations against one they respected and loved, and they all\nvowed they would never take up a prejudice again. Thus Gustave saw, in\nspite of all his odious efforts to the contrary, Robert loved by his\nmasters, respected and esteemed by his companions, who protected him\nand despised his persecutor. Things had reached this point when, one\nmorning, an uncle of Gustave's came and took him hurriedly away,\nleaving Robert at college. This strange conduct affected him very\nmuch, and he wondered what it could mean. Could it be that his\nbenefactress had returned and withdrawn her affection, or was she more\nill? He was lost in sad conjectures for several days, which appeared\nages to him, as he waited in patience to hear. A visit from the cur\u00e9,\nwith a sad countenance, revealed to Robert the misfortune which was to\noppress him. \"Madame de Vernanges suffers no more,\" said he, with a\nvisible effort, drawing to his bosom the weeping child, whose sorrow\nwas certainly more profound and true than that of' Gustave. \"Alas! my\nchild, you have lost your benefactress; before she died she asked to\nsee you, but this wish of a heart devoted to you was denied--God\nwilled it otherwise. But she did not need any further proof of your\nlove, your conduct has spoken it so often; and God will never abandon\nyou. Courage then, your recompense will come sooner or later. I will\nassume from to-day my entire right of father, and my most tender\nsolicitude will be for you. Redouble your ardor at work, triple your\nstrength, and finally the end which I propose for your happiness will\ncome. Your studies, conscientiously finished, will be the magic keys\nwhich will unlock the door to an honorable career. From this time\nGustave will not torment you, for he will not return to college.\"\n\nRobert was too much moved to speak--too many sorrowful remembrances\npressed themselves into his heart, but he had not lost a single word\nthat was spoken to him. Six months after this he stood before the\nabbot of Verneuil, to receive from his hands the crown he so justly\ndeserved. Oh! how his heart beat with joy when he heard his name\nspoken in the sanctuary of science; it seemed then that the sweet\nvoice of his mother spoke to him. Each time he was named, his eyes\nturned towards the cur\u00e9, as if asking him: \"Are you satisfied?\" How\nlight and easy to wear are the laurels won by the victors in every\ngood work! Is it not a bright day in your lives, my dear children,\nwhen you are proclaimed conquerors? What a sweet remembrance it leaves\nin your hearts, that no after thoughts can ever crush out! Our young\nlaureate passed his vacation--that time of repose so dear to\nstudents--with the cur\u00e9. To Robert work was so much more a pleasure\nthan a fatigue, that he was obliged to allow him to study a great\ndeal; but he did not wish him to spend all his time at his books, but\nto take some hours of respite each day. This excellent man, of such\nsimple habits and manners, and of such contentment, really suffered at\ntimes that he could not from his limited means give Robert as many\npleasures as his heart dictated. He knew he needed air and liberty,\nand wished he could send him into the country, where he would be free\nfrom all restraints. \"Poor child!\" he would say to himself, \"how he\nmust long for his native mountain.\" So, before he left, to return to\nhis studies, he thought he would give him an agreeable surprise. The\nweather was lovely, and all nature seemed to rejoice. The cur\u00e9 and his\ncharge started in a _diligence_ for Versailles, the {833} wonderful\nand magnificent palace once used as a royal residence. Robert had\nnever seen this place, once such a gay city, but whose gilded glory\nhas all departed. No more _f\u00eates_, no more balls, in Louis XIV.'s\nbeautiful city. The grand palace is still there, but where are the\nkings and courtiers? Oh! where?\n\nThe gardens charmed Robert, and he bounded about like a young fawn in\nhis native wood, to the great delight of the cur\u00e9, who rejoiced in his\nliveliness and happiness, and allowed this little bird that he had\nfreed to follow his capricious fancies, wherever they led him; for he\nbelieved that all who loved children favored their pleasures; and it\nis one of the sweetest joys God has given to man, that he should try\nto leave no regrets to this age of life. As night was drawing on,\nRobert left off his sports, and they made ready for their departure.\nRobert's mind was filled with beautiful pictures of this visit, of\nwhich the result was so sad. As they were entering Paris, the\nbenediction that the good cur\u00e9 gave the child each evening was\npronounced with much fervor, and it proved the last. They slept in the\nsame room, and Robert had gone happy and trustful to bed, little\ndreaming of the new and terrible misfortune that awaited him, and in\nthe morning wakes to weep over the inanimate body of his loved\nbenefactor, whose calm and serene face is radiant with immortal joy.\nThe angel of death had come softly near the couch on which reposed the\nservant of the Lord; and took him from life, to rest on the bosom of\nhis God, leaving a bright example of a virtuous and godly life.\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n  \"O virtue! gift of God! grace divine! it is thou\n  that givest the saintly and sublime inspirations of\n  devotion, that trample down vice, that elevate above all\n  feebleness and all obstacles.\"\n    ANONYMOUS.\n\n\nWhen Robert realized that he had no longer a protector or friend he\nwas plunged into the depths of despair, but it was not for the\nmiserable consideration of interest, which too often possesses\nhumanity, that he was so full of regret; it was for the wise and\nvirtuous man that he mourned, for the loss of his sweet and persuasive\nlanguage, and his tender and eloquent words, and his indescribable air\nof goodness, united to his pure life, which won all hearts, as a\ntender and delicate flower attracts and ravishes by its perfume.\nStranger to all that was passing around him, shut up in his sorrows,\nmade an orphan once more, Robert had still the happy consciousness of\nhaving fulfilled all his duties to his benefactor. He awakened from\nhis lethargy at the sound of the first shovel of earth that fell on\nthe coffin of his, beloved cur\u00e9. The awakening was frightful. The\ntears and sobs he heard around him from the crowd of poor children and\nunfortunate ones, of every degree, whom he had benefited during his\ntoo short career, recalled with violence to his heart the sad reality.\nAnother sincere mourner for the cur\u00e9 was his faithful old housekeeper,\nwho, when she went in to take her last look of the venerable man, saw\nRobert standing there in silence and sorrow, and she felt that she,\nlike him, was alone in the world, and suffered the same sorrow he did.\nBut his grief and his loss, bitter as it was, was not as fatal for his\nadvancement as might be supposed. His soul was too strongly fortified\nwith the blessing of religion to allow him to be long discouraged. And\nwhen he could for a moment forget his losses, he would look to the\nfuture, and dare to hope, that although deprived one by one of his\nprotectors, the path to success was still open to him. Madame Gaudin\nhad most bitter thoughts. She was now getting along in years, being\nnear fifty, and her age would be a barrier to her finding a home where\nthe work would be light, so that she could live without spending her\nhard earned money. From her own personal thoughts she passed to\nanother subject of solicitude--the future of Robert. If she had not\nfelt any very strong interest in the fate of her master's _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_,\n{834} she was too compassionate a woman not to pity this child, who\nhad been the object of his tender care. She thought of how the saintly\nman had praised the intelligence and amiable qualities of Robert, and\nrepeated his favorite words: \"This child will be something one day.\"\nMoved by these remembrances, she thought she heard him tell her to\nwatch over the orphan. Submission and respect for all the orders she\nreceived was a habit with her, and she had been accustomed to obey\nwith such exactitude, that she took for reality the illusion of her\nheart, and resolved to obey the inspired voice, and replace, if\npossible, the charitable man who had adopted Robert. This resolution\nonce made, she thought of nothing but executing it. Going to Robert,\nshe said, \"I know, my young friend, you are thinking of some way of\ngaining a living for yourself. We can live together, and it will be\nbetter for us both, and we shall each have some one to take care of\nus. I will try to get lodgings and work, and you can be with me when\nnot at your work, and God will assist us. Unfortunately you will be\nobliged to give up your studies for the present, which is my greatest\ngrief; but we will not lose courage, for I feel sure that, sooner or\nlater, God will give you another proof of his goodness. Your\npenmanship, which is so beautiful, you can make useful and by it earn\nmoney. I will go at once and find us a lodging, and will be entirely\nthe gainer by the arrangement, for I shall have for company a good\nchild, who will be like a son; won't he?\" Madame Gaudin half smiled at\nher project, half cried when she repeated the name of the cur\u00e9, then\nsaid, \"Yes! yes! I am sure he inspires me to do this, he inspires me\nwith an interest for this child, whom he loved above everything else.\"\nSome days after they were fixed in a small lodging in the rue des\nFosses, St. Germain. She bought a bed for Robert, and he obtained a\nsituation at twenty-five francs a month. A year passed in this way,\nwithout anything at all remarkable happening. Madame Gaudin worked,\ntook care of things, and sang Robert's praises to all. After he had\nconscientiously finished the day to the profit of his employer, he\nreturned to his lodgings, took his supper, and attended in the\nevenings a gratuitous course of drawing lessons. This art, for which\nhe felt each day a more and more decided taste, made him forget for a\ntime his past delightful life of study, which had opened to his\ndazzled eyes the book with golden leaves, which had as suddenly closed\nto his inexpressible regret. As time wore on, Madame Gaudin's\nattachment for Robert increased so much, that she almost believed he\nwas her son; and well did he merit it all, for he respected her\nsincerely, and was most grateful for all she did for him. Whenever he\nwas out at night, she would await his return with the greatest\nimpatience, and was perfectly happy when she could be near him while\nhe was reading, writing, or drawing; which latter employed most of his\nleisure hours. He imitated with great care the models given him, and\nwould have passed the entire night working at them, but that Madame\nGaudin sweetly forced him to lay them aside and go to bed.\n\nRobert had now reached his sixteenth year, and his salary was\nincreased to forty francs a month, which gave him great joy, as well\nas Madame Gaudin, though she thought that his merit was not yet\nremunerated enough, notwithstanding it was a good opening for him to\nanother career. Some days after he had received this mark of the\nsatisfaction his good conduct had given, his employer handed him a\nletter, with an express recommendation to a celebrated painter, and\nasked him to take it to his studio, and wait for an answer.\n\nArriving there, he introduced himself into the studio where the artist\nsat at his work. He laid down his palette, and when he had finished\nreading the letter that was handed him, he saw to his great surprise\nthe young messenger absorbed before the picture that was on his easel.\nAfter considering {835} him far a few moments in silence, he asked him\nseveral questions, to which Robert replied with an emotion and an\naccent that revealed to the painter the inspiration of his soul. The\nmost striking features of his face were his large and spiritual eyes,\nand his broad open forehead, on which thought sat enthroned. The\nartist was so charmed with his agreeable exterior, his frank and\nexpressive language, that he inquired with interest what he was doing,\nwho were his family, and what were his projects for the future. Robert\nsatisfied all these questions, which were asked in a benevolent tone,\nby the recital of his childhood, of the loss of his mother, of his\nstudies, interrupted by the death of his benefactors, and finished by\ntelling his actual position, his love for drawing, and his ardent\ndesire to come to him to study painting. \"Well, you can came, my boy,\"\nsaid the painter; \"but if you should succeed one day, can you hide\nfrom yourself the bitter deceptions which are the sad shadow of glory\nand renown? Yet why should I frighten you and inspire you with fear,\nwhen you trust so implicitly in the future? You can only hope. This\nword is all-powerful, and with your ideas and wishes you can crush\nunder your feet every obstacle you wish to surmount. From this day\nconsider yourself my pupil, and I doubt not you will do me credit. I\nwill write the answer to the letter you brought me, and tell your\nemployer at the same time that you belong to me now.\" Robert really\nthought he was dreaming, and was afraid to stir for fear his castle\nwould fall, until the painter put the letter he was to take into his\nhand, and said, \"Came back to-morrow.\"\n\nHe ran all the way, and stopped almost breathless before the door of\nMadame Gaudin, opened it hastily, and threw himself into her arms in\nan ecstacy of delight. \"What is it?\" she exclaimed, \"what has happened\nyou? I know it is something good\" Her eyes were so eloquent with\ncuriosity that he at once commenced to tell her, and related, without\nomitting a single word, the recent conversation which he had with the\ncelebrated painter, and his promise to take him as a scholar. This\nunexpected event had filled him with such delight, that he entirely\nforgot the letter that was entrusted to him, but immediately set out\nto deliver it. Contentment gave him wings, and he was delirious with\njoy when he pressed against his breast the letter which was the bond\nof his liberty and his deliverance; and without regret he bade an\neternal farewell to his former insipid labor, though his heart beat as\nhe gave it to his employer, and as he stood waiting for him to read\nit, the minutes were like years. At last he raised his eyes, and said,\n\"So you are to leave me, Robert; I am sorry, for I like you, much, and\nI shall not soon fill your place; still I cannot stand in the way of\nyour promotion.\" Robert's happiness knew no bounds, and he returned\nand dreamed the sweetest dreams that ever came to childhood's pillow.\nFrom this time his life of struggle and of real work commenced. Until\nnow he had lived almost alone, far from the world and its attractions,\nand ignorant of all wickedness. When he finds himself face to face\nwith life's realities, he is like one shipwrecked. He was taken by his\nnew master into the studio, and presented to the other scholars.\nThrown like a timid lamb into this flock, he found they had no respect\nfor sacred things, and his innocence and candor were cruelly railed\nat, his virtue rudely spoken of, and his religion turned into\nridicule; and then sometimes, under the pretext of friendship, they\nwould try to make him take part in their noisy revels. But he always\nrefused, never forgetting that his mother had told him to seek the old\nand wise for advice, and to avoid the company of wicked young men.\nThis enabled him to resist courageously the deceitful pleasures\nproduced by licentiousness and debaucheries. To his pure mind nothing\nwas so delightful as the home friendship, the kindness and the sweet\ncounsels he had with Madame Gaudin. {836} Then he made excursions in\nthe neighborhood of Paris, where he found nature in all her beautiful\nsimplicity; he breathed the pure country air, and made sketches of the\nsurrounding scenery. In a word, he was entirely occupied with his art,\nand it was his true enjoyment. The amusement and excesses of gayety,\nwhich ordinarily delight the young, had for him no charm; and he\nrepulsed with horror the poisoned cup to which so many open eager\nlips. My dear young friends, if you only knew what this bitter cup\ncontained, you would all dash it, far from you, for in drinking it to\nthe dregs, you will sometimes find crime, always remorse, a weariness\nof all things, and a premature old age.\n\nRobert was spared from falling into the snares which are set to allure\nyouth, which blessing can only be attributed to the pious education he\nhad received. First impressions are never effaced, they take deep root\nin a child's heart, and if good, become the fruitful germs of many\nvirtues; if they are bad, they are the source from which vice and\npassion flow. In his tender years Robert had loved God and his works;\nlater, when the good cur\u00e9 had revealed to him the sublimity of\nreligion, the orphan was penetrated with a great love for that God who\nis goodness itself; and when reason and experience confirmed all which\nhis mother and his protector had taught him, he believed more firmly\nstill, and found in all nature visible proofs of the grandeur and\npower manifested by the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. When his\ncompanions were convinced that they could not make him one of their\nband of idlers, they let him alone, and treated him with the most\ncontemptuous indifference, which was a great happiness to him, for he\nwas no longer disturbed in his studies, and applied himself with such\nardor and perseverance that his master was enchanted with his\nprogress, and prodigal of his praises and encouragement, his counsels\nand lessons; and aided to the utmost of his ability this rare talent,\nwhich only demanded for its perfection aid and good direction. Not a\nday passed without his looking over Robert's studies, correcting them,\nand stimulating the generous emulation of the young artist. Robert\nproved his gratitude by his devotion to his studies, and if on the one\nhand the master was proud of his pupil, on the other so sincere,\nexalted, and just was his respect for him, that he would have\nconsidered it but a small sacrifice to have given his life for a man\nwho was so liberal of his time and knowledge to him. This tribute\nwhich his warm heart gave so willingly, was not the only one Robert\nreceived. Madame Gaudin made a duty of continuing the charitable work\nof the Abb\u00e9 Verneuil, who had shown so sublime and disinterested an\naffection for Robert. She spent without regret the sayings of twenty\nyears, and, although an old woman, she worked like a young girl,\ninventing the most ingenious means for hiding the sacrifices she was\nobliged to make. She exhausted herself by her labor; but she loved\nRobert, and said, with a just pride, \"He will be a great painter, and\nwill repay me a thousand times for all I do for him now. What is a\nlittle trouble? Fatigue soon passes over. I am only an old woman, and\nhave no need of anything, but he is so young, so good and easily\ncontented, that if he only has air and sunshine he is happy. He never\nspends a cent improperly, and is economical, charitable, and polite. I\ncould not love him more if I were his mother; and all I ask of God is,\nthat he will spare me yet a while, that I may work for him.\" Robert\nhad not the least idea of the expedients she employed for\ndissimulating the privations she each day imposed upon herself, but he\nworked with devouring energy night and day, and nothing is a trouble\nto him, nothing a fatigue, which brings him nearer to that glorious\nend, an artist! a true, soul-inspired artist! But material life and\nits necessities must be provided for; yet he thinks not of privations,\nso {837} completely is he fascinated with art and dreams of fame. It\nsoon became difficult for Madame Gaudin to hide from Robert her almost\npenniless position, which was all the harder because of her excessive\ntenderness and love for him. She seemed to have but one thought, and\nthat was to spare him all trouble. The courage of women has its source\nin the heart, and if they have love as an incentive, they can\naccomplish ends that place them far above men. So she kept from Robert\nthe knowledge of the obligation he was under to her, and for three\nyears struggled with energy and constancy to give the young painter,\nnot only the necessaries, but also an appearance of luxuries, which\ndeceived him to the last degree. Up to this time her heroic courage\nwas the same, but her health failed suddenly, and religion alone\nsustained her, with a firm and consoling hand, when misfortunes came.\nRobert also needed it to keep up his spirits, for he felt a keen\nanguish when he saw her extended on a bed of pain; but his faith gave\nhim supernatural strength, and he struggled victoriously with poverty,\nabandoning for a time his loved art to attend to the smallest details\nof material life, dividing his time between the sick friend whom he\nsurrounded with delicacies, and upon whom he lavished his tenderest\ncare, and work; monotonous, but productive work; and with his money he\nprocured remedies which he hoped would bring back her health who had\ndone so much for him. In this hour of trial he never despaired, and\nspent sixteen hours out of the twenty-four often in copying miserable\nand ill-drawn pictures, and all for a salary. But he would exclaim, \"I\nwill be an artist.\" He returned sacrifice for sacrifice, and while\nMadame Gaudin was in danger, he had not a moment of repose, and only\nfound calmness and tranquillity when convalescence came. The _r\u00f4les_\nwere changed. The protector became the protected; the kind guardian of\nthe orphan became the object of his earnest solicitude. He became a\nman during her sickness; rendering her the attentions of a devoted\nson, and providing for the expenses of the household. Brought down\nfrom his fairy land of dreams by the realities of life, he is neither\nless amiable nor less good, but stronger, braver, more faithful than\never. The wings of the child have been folded; he is only a man, that\nis all.\n\n------\n\nFrom All the Year Round.\n\n  \"INCONSOLABILE.\"\n\n\n  I am waiting on the margin\n    Of the dark, cold, rushing tide;\n  All I love have passed before me,\n    And have reached the other side:\n  Only unto me a passage\n    Through the waters is denied.\n\n  Mist and gloom o'erhang the river,\n    Gloom and mist the landscape veil.\n  Straining for the shores of promise,\n    Sight and hope and feeling fail.\n  Not a sigh, a breath, a motion,\n    Answers to my feeble wail.\n\n{838}\n\n  Surely they have all forgot me\n    'Mid the wonders they have found\n  In the far enchanted mansions;\n    Out of heart and sight and sound,\n  Here I sit, like Judah's daughters,\n    Desolate upon the ground.\n\n  Strangers' feet the stream are stemming,\n    Stranger faces pass me by,\n  Willing some, and some reluctant,\n    All have leave to cross but I--\n  I, the hopeless, all bereaved,\n    Loathing life, that long to die!\n\n  Be the river ne'er so turbid,\n    Chill and angry, deep and drear,\n  All my loved ones are gone over,\n    Daunted not by doubt or fear;\n  And my spirit reaches after,\n    While I sit lamenting here.\n\n  Happy waters that embraced them,\n    Happier regions hid from sight,\n  Where my keen, far-stretching vision,\n    Dazed and baffled, lost them quite.\n  Dread, immeasurable distance\n    'Twixt the darkness and the light!\n\n  And I know that never, never,\n    Till this weak, repining breast\n  Still its murmurs into patience,\n    Yonder from the region blest\n  Shall there break a streak of radiance,\n    And upon the river rest.\n\n  I shall hail the mystic token\n    Bright'ning all the waters o'er,\n  Struggle through the threat'ning torrent\n    Till I reach the further shore;\n  Wonder then, my blind eyes opened,\n    That I had not trusted more.\n\n------\n\n{839}\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nCHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.   [Footnote 241]\n\n  [Footnote 241: _Poems_, by Christina G. Rossetti. Boston: Roberts,\n  Brothers. 1866.]\n\n\nWe had heard some little of Miss Rossetti, in a superficial way,\nbefore reading this her book. Various verses of hers had met our eye\nin print, and if they themselves left no very decided mark upon the\nmemory, yet we had the firm impression, somehow, that she was one more\nof the rising school of poets. Accordingly we thought it well to take\na retrospect of a few post-Tennysonians--Mrs. Browning, Owen Meredith,\nRobert Buchanan, Jean Ingelow, and so on--supposed fellow\ndisciples--so as to be tolerably sure of ranking the new-comer\nrightly. On reading this volume, we find our labor lost through an\nentirely unforeseen circumstance. Unfortunately, it does not appear\nthat Miss Rossetti is a poetess at all. That there are people who\nthink her one, we infer from the fact that this is in some sort a\nthird edition; why they think so, we are at a loss to see. The book\nwill not answer a single test of poetry. The authoress's best claim to\nconsideration is, that she sincerely, persistently, fervently _means_\nto be a poetess. Only the most Demosthenian resolve could have kept\nher writing in face of her many inherent unfitnesses. For imagination,\nshe offers fantasy; for sentiment, sentimentality; for aspiration,\nambition; for originality and thought, little or nothing; for melody,\nfantastic janglings of words; and these, with all tenderness for the\nill-starred intensity of purpose that could fetch them so far, are no\nmore poetry than the industrious Virginian colonists' shiploads of\nmica were gold.\n\nThe first cursory impression of this book would be, we think, that its\ncardinal axiom was \"Poetry is versified plaintiveness.\" The amount of\nmelancholy is simply overwhelming. There is a forty-twilight power of\nsombreness everywhere. Now, criticism has taken principles, not\nstatistics, to be its province; but we could not resist the temptation\nto take a little measurement of all this mournfulness. Limiting our\ncensus strictly to the utterly irretrievable and totally wrecked\npoems, with not a glimmering of reassurance, we found no less than\nforty-nine sadnesses, all the way from shadow to unutterable\nblackness--\"_nfernam Iumbram noctemque perennem_.\" There is the\nsadness decadent, the sadness senescent, the sadness bereft, the\nsadness despondent, the sadness weary, the sadness despairing, the\nsadness simply sad, the grand sadness ineffable, and above and\npervading all, the sadness rhapsodical. They are all there. Old Burton\nwill rise from his grave, if there be any virtue in Pythagoreanism, to\nanatomize these poems. What it is all about is strictly a secret, and\nlaudably well kept; which gives to the various sorrows that touching\neffect peculiar to the wailings of unseen babies from unascertained\nailments. So sustained is the grief, indeed, that after protracted\nporing, we hang in abeyance between two conclusions. One is that Miss\nRossetti, outside of print, is the merriest mortal in the United\nKingdom; the other, that her health is worse than precarious. That one\nor the other must be right, we know. There is no other horn to the\ndilemma, no _tertiary quiddity_, no choice, no middle ground between\nhilarity and dyspepsia.\n\nPerhaps the reader can judge for himself from these lines, which are a\nnot unfair sample:\n\n{840}\n\n  \"MAY.\n\n  I cannot tell you how it was;\n  But this I know: it came to pass\n  Upon a bright and breezy day,\n  When May was young; ah, pleasant May!\n  As yet the poppies were not born,\n  Between the blades of tender corn;\n  The last eggs had not hatched as yet,\n  Nor any bird foregone its mate.\n  I cannot tell you what it was;\n  But this I know: it did put pass.\n  It passed away with sunny May,\n  With all sweet things it passed away,\n  And left me old and cold and gray.\"\n\nWe may be very unappreciative, and probably are sinfully suspicious,\nbut the above sounded at the first and sounds at the present reading,\nexactly like a riddle. We certainly don't know how it was nor what it\nwas. There is a shadowy clue in its passing away with sunny May, but\nwe are far too cautious to hazard a guess. If there be any conundrum\nintended, all we have to say is, we give it up.\n\nWe do but justice, however, in saying that amid much mere\nlugubriousness there is some real and respectable sadness. The\nfollowing, in spite of' the queer English in its first lines, sounds\ngenuine, and is moreover, for a rarity of rarities, in well-chosen and\nnot ill-managed metre:\n\n  \"I have a room whereinto no one enters\n  Save I myself alone:\n  There sits a blessed memory on a throne,\n  There my life centres.\n\n  While winter comes and goes-Oh! tedious comer!\n    And while its nip-wind blows;\n  While bloom the bloodless lily and warm rose\n    Of lavish summer;\n\n  If any should force entrance he might see there\n    One buried, yet not dead,\n  Before whose face I no more bow my head\n    Or (_sic_) bend my knee there;\n\n  But often in my worn life's autumn weather\n    I watch there with clear eyes,\n  And think how it will be in Paradise\n    When we're together.\"\n\nHere is one of a trite topic--nearly all the good things in this book\nare on themes as old as moonlight--but with a certain mournful\nrichness, like autumn woods:\n\n  \"Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet\n    To shut our eyes and die:\n  Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by\n    With flitting butterfly;\n  Nor grass grow long above our head and feet,\n  Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,\n  Nor sigh that spring is fleet, and summer fleet,\n    Nor mark the waxing wheat,\n  Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.\n\n  Life is not good. One day it will be good\n    To die, then live again;\n  To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane\n  Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,\n  Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,\n  Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood\n    Rich ranks of golden grain,\n  Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:\n  Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.\"\n\nThis is one of her best poems in point of style. The \"waxing wheat\" we\nare just a shade doubtful about; but the mellowness of the diction is\nmuch to our liking, and it is unmarred by any of the breaks of strange\nill taste that flaw nearly all these poems. If not poetry nor novelty,\nat least we find it sadly agreeable verse.\n\nOur professor of rhetoric once astonished his class by a heterodoxy,\nwhich we have since thought sound as well as neat. \"Walter Scott,\"\nsaid he, \"writes verse as well as a man can write and not be a poet.\"\nWe are sorry we cannot say as much for Miss Rossetti; she has\nconsiderable faults as a writer. The chief of these has elsewhere been\ncarped at--her laborious style of' being simple. The true simplicity\nof poets is not a masterly artifice, but a natural and invariable\nproduct where high poetic and expressive powers combine. The best\nthought is always simple, because, it deals only with the essences of\nthings: the best expression--the machinery of thought--is simple,\njust as the best of any other machinery is. But the grand, obvious\nfact to the many is that the best poetry is admired for being simple.\nWriting for this market, Miss Rossetti and unnumbered others have more\nor less successfully attempted to achieve this crowning beauty of\nstyle by various processes that are to the inspiration of' real\nsimplicity as patent medicines to vigorous vitality. Almost all hold\nthe immutable conviction that Saxon words are an infallible recipe for\nthe indispensable brevity. Accordingly the usual process is by an\nelaborate application of' Saxon--if rather recondite or even verging\non the obsolete, so much the more efficacious--to a few random ideas.\nOf course, with such painful workmanship, one must not expect the best\nmaterial. Original, or even well {841} defined thought seldom thrives\nin the same hot-house with this super-smoothness. But without pursuing\nthe process into results at large, we have only to take Matthew\nArnold's distinction as to Miss Rossetti:--she tries hard for\n_simplicit\u00e9_, and achieves _simplesse_. But there is no such thing as\nhard work without its fruits. This straining after effect crops\npainfully out in a peculiar baldness and childishness of phrase that\nis almost original. The woman who can claim The Lambs of Grasmere as\nher own has not lived in vain. This production, with its pathetic\nepisode of the maternal\n\n  \"Teapots for the bleating mouths,\n  Instead of nature's nourishment,\"\n\nhas already been noticed in print, and duly expanded many visages. We\npause rapt in admiration of the deep intuition that could select for\nsong the incident of feeding a sheep with a teapot. It carries us\nback, in spirit, to the subtle humor and delicate irony of Peter Bell,\nand We are Seven. What a burst of tenderness ought we to expect, if\nMiss Rossetti should ever chance to see stable-boys give a horse a\nbolus! . . . . . We shall not cite examples of this _simplesse_; those\nwho like it will find it purer and more concentrated in the bard of\nRydal; or if they must have it, they are safe in opening this book\nalmost anywhere.\n\nOf the individual poems, the two longest, The Goblin Market and The\nPrince's Progress, are rivals for the distinction of being the worst.\nAll the best poems are short, excepting one, Under the Rose. The story\nis of an illegitimate daughter, whose noble mother takes her to live\nwith herself at the inevitable Hall, without acknowledging her. There\nare able touches of nature in the portrayal of the lonely, loving,\noutlawed, noble heart, that, knowing her mother's secret, resolves\nnever to betray it, even to her. In the following passage, the girl,\nalone at the castle, as her mother's favorite maid, describes her\ninner life:\n\n  \"Now sometimes in a dream,\n  My heart goes out of me\n  To build and scheme,\n  Till I sob after things that seem\n  So pleasant in a dream:\n  A home such as I see,\n  My blessed neighbors live in;\n  With father and with mother,\n  _All proud of one another,\n  Named by one common name;\n  From baby in the bud\n  To full-blown workman father;_\n  It's little short of Heaven.\n   . . . . .\n  Of course the servants sneer\n  Behind my back at me;\n  Of course the village girls,\n  Who envy me my curls\n  And gowns and idleness,\n  Take comfort in a jeer;\n  Of course the ladies guess\n  Just so much of my history\n  As points the emphatic stress\n  With which they laud my Lady;\n\n  The gentlemen who catch\n  A casual glimpse of me,\n  And turn again to see\n  Their valets, on the watch\n  To speak a word with me;--\n  All know, and sting me wild;\n  Till I am almost ready\n  To wish that I were dead,--\n  No faces more to see,\n  No more words to be said;\n  My mother safe at last.\n  Disburdened of her child\n  And the past past.\"\n\nThe Convent Threshold--the last words of a contrite novice to her\nlover--has touches of power. There is an unusual force about some\nparts, as for example here:\n\n  \"You linger, yet the time is short;\n  Flee for your life; gird up your strength\n  To flee; the shadows stretched at length\n  Show that day wanes, that night draws nigh;\n  Flee to the mountain, tarry not.\n  Is this a time for smile and sigh;\n  For songs among the secret trees\n  Where sudden blue-birds nest and sport?\n  The time is short, and yet you stay;\n  To-day, while it is called to-day,\n  Kneel, wrestle, knock, do violence, pray;\n  To-day is short, to-morrow nigh:\n  Why will you die? why will you die!\n    . . . . .\n  How should I rest in Paradise,\n  Or sit on steps of Heaven alone?\n  If saints and angels spoke of love,\n  Should I not answer from my throne,\n  'Have pity upon me, ye, my friends,\n  For I have heard the sound thereof?'\n  Should I not turn with yearning eyes,\n  Turn earthward with a pitiful pang?\n  Oh! save me from a pang in heaven!\n  By all the gifts we took and gave,\n  Repent, repent, and be forgiven!\"\n\nThe lines called Sound Sleep, p. 65, we like very well for very slight\ncause. It says nearly nothing with a pleasant flow of cadence that has\nthe {842} charm of an oasis for the reader. Much better is No, Thank\nYou, John! which strikes into a strain of plain sound sense that we\ncould wish to see much more of. The style, as well as the sense, seems\nto shuffle off its affectations, and the last two stanzas especially\nare easy, natural, and neat.\n\nA strange compound of good and bad is the singular one called\n\n\n  \"TWICE.\n\n  I took my heart in my hand,\n    O my love, O my love!\n  I said, \"Let me fall or stand,\n    Let me live or die;\n  But this once hear me speak,\n    O my love, O my love!\n  Yet a woman's words are weak;\n    You should speak, not I.\"\n\n  You took my heart in your hand,\n    With a friendly smile,\n  With a critical eye you scanned,\n    Then set it down\n  And said: \"It is still unripe--\n    Better wait a while;\n  Wait while the skylarks pipe,\n    Till the corn grows brown.\"\n\n  As you set it down it broke--\n    Broke, but I did not wince;\n  I smiled at the speech you spoke,\n    At your judgment that I heard:\n  But I have not often smiled\n    Since then, nor questioned since,\n  Nor cared for corn-flowers wild,\n    Nor sung with the singing-bird.\n\n  I take my heart in hand,\n    O my God, O my God!\n  My broken heart in my hand:\n    Thou hast seen, judge thou.\n  My hope was written on sand,\n    O my God, O my God!\n  Now let thy judgment stand--\n    Yea, judge me now.\n\n  This, contemned of a man,\n    This, marred one heedless day,\n  This heart take thou to scan\n    Both within and without:\n  Refine with fire its gold,\n    Purge thou its dross away;\n  Yea, hold it in thy hold,\n    Whence none can pluck it out.\n\n  I take my heart in my hand--\n    I shall not die, but live--\n  Before thy face I stand,\n    I, for thou callest such;\n  All that I have I bring,\n    All that I am I give,\n  Smile thou, and I shall sing,\n    But shall not question much.\"\n\nThis poem, we confess, puzzles us a little to decide upon it. The\nimitation is palpable at a glance, but it is a very clever one: the\nfirst three stanzas above all catch the mannerism of their model to\nadmiration. But the whole, is a copy, at best, of one of the\narchetype's inferior styles; and yet we fancy we can see, under all\nthe false bedizening, something of poetry in the conception, though it\nis ill said, and only dimly translucent. There is art, too, in the\nparallelism of the first and last three verses. But we do not like the\nrefrain in the fourth verse--somehow it jars. Perhaps the best we can\nsay of it is, that Browning, in his mistier moments of convulsiveness,\ncould write worse.\n\nThere is another imitation of Browning in this book, that is the most\nsupremely absurd string of rugged platitudes imaginable--Wife to\nHusband, p. 61. The last verse is sample enough:\n\n  \"Not a word for you,\n    Not a look or kiss\n      Good-by.\n  We, one, must part in two;\n    Verily death is this,\n      I must die.\"\n\nThe metre generally throughout this book is in fact simply execrable.\nMiss Rossetti cannot write contentedly in any known or human measure.\nWe do not think there are ten poems that are not in some new-fangled\nshape or shapelessness. With an overweening ambition, she has not the\nslightest faculty of rhythm. All she has done is to originate some of\nthe most hideous metres that \"shake the racked axle of art's rattling\ncar.\" Attempting not only Browning's metrical dervish-dancings, but\nTennyson's exquisite ramblings, she fails in both from an utter want\nof that fine ear that always guides the latter, and so often strikes\nout bold beauties in the former. Most of Miss Rossetti's new styles of\nword-mixture are much like the ingenious individual's invention for\nenabling right-handed people to write with the left hand--more or less\nclever ways of doing what she don't wish to do. What possible harmony,\nfor instance, can any one find in this jumble, which, as per the\nprinter, is meant for a \"song:\"\n\n      \"There goes the swallow--\n         Could we but follow!\n           Hasty swallow, stay,\n           Point us out the way;\n  Look back, swallow, turn back, swallow, stop, swallow.\n\n{843}\n\n      There went the swallow--\n        Too late to follow,\n          Lost our note of way,\n            Lost our chance to-day.\n  Good-by, swallow, sunny swallow, wise swallow.\n\n      After the swallow--\n        All sweet things follow;\n          All things go their way,\n          Only we must stay,\n  Must not follow; good-by, swallow, good swallow.\"\n\nWhere on earth is sound or sense in this? Not a suggestion of melody,\nnot a fraction of a coherent idea. People must read such trash as they\neat _meringues \u00e0 la cr\u00eame_: we never could comprehend either process.\n\nTruth to tell, we have in this book some of the very choicest\nbalderdash that ever was perpetrated; worthy to stand beside even the\nimmortal Owl and Goose of Tennyson. There is a piece at p. 41 which we\nwould give the world to see translated into some foreign language, we\nhave such an intense eagerness to understand it. Its subject, so far\nas we have got, seems to be the significance of the crocodile,\nsymbolically considered. We glanced over, or rather at it once, and\nput it by for after reading, thinking the style probably too deep for\nlove at first sight. On the second perusal we fell in with some\nextraordinary young crocodiles that we must have missed before. They\nhad just been indulged in the luxury of being born, but Miss\nRossetti's creative soul, not content with bestowing upon them the\nbliss of amphibious existence, made perfect their young beauty by\nshowing them \"fresh-hatched perhaps, and--_daubed with birthday\ndew_.\"\n\nWe are strong of head--we recovered from even this--we became of the\nvery select few who can say they have read this thing through. There\nwas a crocodile hero; he had a golden girdle and crown; he wore\npolished stones; crowns, orbs and sceptres starred his breast (why\nshouldn't they if they could); \"special burnishment adorned his mail;\"\nhis punier brethren trembled, whereupon he immediately ate them till\n\"the luscious fat distilled upon his chin,\" and \"exuded from his\nnostrils and his eyes.\" He then fell into an anaconda nap, and grew\nvery much smaller in his sleep, till at the approach of a very queer\nwinged vessel (probably a vessel of wrath), \"the prudent crocodile\nrose on his feet and shed appropriate tears (obviously it is the\nhandsome thing for all well-bred crocodiles to cry when a Winged ship\ncomes along) and wrung his hands.\" As a finale, Miss Rossetti, too\nnimble for the unwary reader, anticipates his question of \"What does\nit all mean?\" and triumphantly replying that she doesn't know herself,\nbut that it was all just so, marches on to the next _monumentum aere\nperennius_. In the name of the nine muses, we call upon Martin\nFarquhar Tupper to read this and then die.\n\nThere are one or two other things like this _longa intervallo_, but it\nis reserved for the Devotional Pieces to furnish the only poem that\ncan compete with it in its peculiar line. This antagonist poem is not\nso sublime an example of sustained effort, but it has the advantage\nthat the rhyme is fully equal to the context. Permit us then to\nintroduce the neat little charade entitled\n\n  \"AMEN.\n\n  It is over. What is over?\n    Nay, how much is over truly!--\n  Harvest days we toiled to sow for;\n    Now the sheaves are gathered newly,\n    Now the wheat is garnered duly.\n\n  It is finished. What is finished?\n    _Much is finished known or unknown;_\n  Lives are finished, time diminished;\n    Was the fallow field left unsown?\n    Will these buds be always unblown?\n\n  It suffices. What suffices?\n    All suffices reckoned rightly;\n  Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,\n    Roses make the bramble sightly,\n    And the quickening suns shine brightly,\n    And the latter winds blow lightly,\n  And my garden teems with spices.\"\n\nLet now the critic first observe how consummately the mysticism of the\ncharade form is intensified by the sphinx-like answers appended. Next\nnote the novelties in rhyme, The rhythmic chain that links \"over\" and\nand \"sow for\" is the first discovery in the piece, closely rivalled by\n\"ice is\" and \"spices\" in the last verse. But {844} far above all rises\nthe subtle originality of the three rhymes in the second. A thousand\nliterati would have used the rhyming words under the unpoetical rules\nof ordinary English. Miss Rossetti alone has the courage to inquire\n\"Was the fallow field left _un_sown? Will these buds be always\n_un_blown?\" We really do not think Shakespeare would have been bold\nenough to do this thus.\n\nBut despite this, the religious poems are perhaps the best. They seem\nat least the most unaffected and sincere, and the healthiest in tone.\nThere are several notably good ones: one, just before the remarkable\nAmen, in excruciating metre, but well said; one, The Love of Christ\nwhich Passeth Knowledge, a strong and imaginative picture of the\ncrucifixion; and Good Friday, a good embodiment of the fervor of\nattrite repentance. The best written of all is, we think, this one (p.\n248):\n\n  \"WEARY IN WELL-DOING.\n\n  I would have gone; God bade me stay;\n    I would have worked; God bade me rest.\n  He broke my will from day to day,\n    He read my yearnings unexpressed\n      And said them nay.\n\n  Now I would stay; God bids me go;\n    Now I would rest; God bids me work.\n  He breaks my heart, tossed to and fro,\n    My soul is wrung with doubts that lurk\n      And vex it so.\n\n  I go, Lord, where thou sendest me;\n    Day after day, plod and moil:\n  But Christ my God, when will it be\n    That I may let alone my toil,\n      And rest with thee?\"\n\nThis is good style (no _simplesse_ here) and real pathos--in short;\npoetry. We do not see a word to wish changed, and the conclusion in\nparticular is excellent: there is a weariness in the very sound of the\nlast lines.\n\nIt is remarkable how seldom _thought_ furnishes the motive for these\npoems. With no lack at all of intelligence, they stand almost devoid\nof intellect. It is always a sentiment of extraneous suggestion, never\na novelty in thought, that inspires our authoress. She seems busier\ndepicting inner life than evolving new truths or beauties. Nor does\nshe abound in suggestive turns of phrase or verbal felicities. In\nfact, as we have seen, she will go out of her way to achieve the want\nof ornament. But there is one subject which she has thought out\nthoroughly, and that subject is death. Whether in respect to the\nseverance of earthly ties, the future state, or the psychical\nrelations subtly linking the living to the dead, she shows on this\ntopic a vigor and vividness, sometimes misdirected, but never wanting.\nSome of her queer ideas have a charm and a repulsion at once, like\nghosts of dead beauty: _e.g._ this strange sonnet:\n\n  \"AFTER DEATH.\n\n  The curtains were half-drawn, the floor was swept\n    And strewn with rushes; rosemary and may\n    Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,\n  Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.\n  He leaned above me, thinking that I slept\n    And could not hear him; but I heard him say,\n  \"Poor child, poor child!\" and as he turned away\n  Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept;\n      He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold\n    That hid my face, or take my hand in his,\n  Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head;\n  He did not love me living, but once dead\n    He pitied me, and very sweet it is\n      To know he still is warm though I am cold.\"\n\nThere is some _chiaro-oscuro_ about this. Under all the ghastliness of\nthe conception, we detect here a deep, genuine, unhoping, intensely\nhuman yearning, that is all the better drawn for being thrown into the\nshadow. We do not know of a more graphic realization of death. Miss\nRossetti seems to be lucky with her sonnets. We give the companion\npiece to this last--not so striking as the other, but full of heart's\nlove, and ending with one of the few passages we recall which enter\nwithout profaning the penetralia of that highest love, which\npassionately prefers the welfare of the beloved one to its own natural\ncravings for fruition and fulfilment:\n\n  \"REMEMBER.\n\n  Remember me when I am gone away,\n    Gone far away into the silent land;\n    When you no more can hold me by the hand\n  Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.\n  Remember me when no more, day by day,\n    You tell me of our future that you planned;\n    Only remember me; you understand\n  It will be late to counsel then or pray,\n  Yet if you should forget me for a while\n    And afterwards remember, do not grieve;\n    For if the darkness and corruption leave\n  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had.\n    Better by far you should forget and smile\n    Than that you should remember and be sad.\n\n{845}\n\nAnother marked peculiarity often shadowed forth is our authoress's\nsharply defined idea that the dead lie simply quiescent, neither in\njoy nor sorrow. There are several miserable failures to express this\nstate, and one success, so simple, so natural, and so pleasant in\nmeasure, that we quote it, though we have seen it cited before:\n\n  \"When I am dead, my dearest,\n    Sing no sad songs for me;\n  Plant thou no roses at my head,\n    Nor shady cypress-tree:\n  Be the green grass above me\n    With showers and dew-drops wet;\n  And if thou wilt, remember,\n    And if thou wilt, forget.\n\n  I shall not see the shadows;\n    I shall not feel the rain;\n  I shall not hear the nightingale\n    Sing on as if in pain;\n  And dreaming through that twilight\n    That doth not rise not set,\n  Haply I may remember,\n    And haply may forget.\"\n\nSuch bold insight into so profound a subject says more for the soul of\nan author than a whole miss's paradise of prettinesses.\n\nIn singular contrast with this religious fervency and earnestness, the\nsincerity of which we see no reason to impeach, comes our gravest\npoint of reprehension of this volume. We think it fairly chargeable\nwith utterances--and reticences--of morally dangerous tendency; and\nthis, too, mainly on a strange point for a poetess to be cavilled\nat--the rather delicate subject of our erring sisters. Now, we are of\nthose who think the world, as to this matter, in a state little better\nthan barbarism; that far from feeling the first instincts of Christian\ncharity, we are shamefully like the cattle that gore the sick ox from\nthe herd. The only utterly pitiless power in human life is our virtue,\nwhen brought face to face with this particular vice. We hunt the\nfallen down; hunt them to den and lair; hunt them to darkness,\ndesperation, and death; hunt their bodies from earth, and their souls\n(if we can) from heaven, with the cold sword in one hand, and in the\nother the cross of him who came into the world to save, not saints,\nbut sinners, and who said to one of these: \"Neither do I condemn thee.\nGo, and now sin no more.\"\n\nBut there is also such a thing as misdirected mercifulness; a\ndangerous lenity, all the more to be guarded against for its wearing\nthe garb of charity; and we think Miss Rossetti has leaned culpably\nfar in this direction. Two poems are especially prominent\nexamples--Cousin Kate, and Sister Maude. In each the heroine has\nsinned, and suffered the penalties of discovery, and in each she is\ngiven the upper hand, and made a candidate for sympathy, for very bad\nreasons. There is no word to intimate that there is anything so very\ndreadful about dishonor; that it may not be some one else's fault, or\nnobody's fault at all--a mere social accident. A few faint hinting\ntouches there may be of conventional condemnation, but somehow Miss\nRossetti's sinners, _as sinners_, invariably have the best of the\nargument and of the situation, while virtue is, put systematically in\nthe wrong, and snubbed generally. The Goblin Market too, if we read it\naright, is open to the same criticism. We understand it, namely, to\nsymbolize the conflict of the better nature in us, with the prompting\nof the passions and senses. If so, what is the story translated from\nits emblematic form? One sister yields; the other by seeming to yield,\nsaves her. Again there is not a syllable to show that the yielding was\nat all wrong in itself. A cautious human regard for consequences is\nthe grand motive appealed to for withstanding temptation. Lizzie tells\nLaura, not that the goblin's bargain is an evil deed in the sight of\nGod, but that Jennie waned and died of their toothsome poisons. She\nsaves her by going just so far as she safely can. What, if anything,\nis the moral of all this? Not \"resist the devil and he will flee from\nyou,\" but \"cheat the devil, and he won't catch you.\" Now, all these\nsayings and silences are gravely wrong and false to a writer's true\nfunctions. With all deference then, and fully feeling that we may\nmistake, or misconstrue, we sincerely submit that some of these poems\ngo inexcusably beyond the bounds of that strict moral {846} right,\nwhich every writer who hopes ever to wield influence ought to keep\nsteadily, and sacredly in view. We are emboldened to speak thus\nplainly, because we have some reason to believe that these things have\ngrated on other sensibilities than our own, and that our stricture\nembodies a considerable portion of cultivated public opinion.\n\nIn conclusion, we repeat our first expressed opinion, that Miss\nRossetti is not yet entitled to take a place among today's poets. The\nquestion remains, whether she ever will. We do not think this book of\nhers settles this question. [Greek text], she has done nothing in\npoetry yet of any consequence. These verses may be as well as she can\ndo. They contain poetical passages of merit and promise, but they show\nalso a defectiveness of versification, a falseness of ear, and\noccasionally a degree of affectation and triviality that, we can only\nhope, are not characteristic. To borrow a little of the style and\ntechnology of a sister branch of thought, the case, as now presented,\ncan be accounted for as in essence a simple attack of the old and\nwell-known endemic, _cacaethes scribendi_. Probably it befell her at\nthe usual early age. Only instead of the run of gushing girls, we have\nDante Gabriel Rossetti's sister, Jean lngelow's intimate friend, and a\nyoung lady of intelligence and education, constantly in contact with\nreal literary society, and--what is thoroughly evident in this\nbook--read in our best poets. Add all these complicating symptoms, and\nis there not something plausible about the diagnosis? We do not say,\nobserve, and do not mean to say, that this is Miss Rossetti's case;\nonly all she has done so far seems explicable on this hypothesis. For\nourselves, we lean to the view that she will do more. We judge hers a\nstrong, sensuous, impulsive, earnest, inconsiderate nature, that\nsympathizes well, feels finely, keeps true to itself at bottom, but\ndoes not pause to make sure that others must, as well as may, enter\ninto the spirit that underlies her utterances, and so buries her\nmeaning sometimes beyond Champollion's own powers of deciphering. But\nher next book must determine how much is to be ascribed to talent, and\nhow much to practice and good models; and show us whether genius or\ngilt edges separate her from the [Greek text].\n\n--------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE TEST.\n\n  She stands with head demurely bent,\n    A village maiden, young and comely,\n  And he beside her, talking low\n    And earnestly, is Lord of Bromleigh.\n\n  \"Now raise thine eyes, and look at me,\n    And place thy little hand in mine,\n  And tell me thou my bride will be,\n    And I and Bromleigh shall be thine;\n  In richest silks thou shalt be drest--\n    Have diamonds flashing on each hand,\n  And in all splendor shalt outshine\n    The proudest lady in the land.\n\n{847}\n\n  On softest carpets thou shalt tread,\n    On velvet cushions shalt recline;\n  Whatever is most rich and rare\n    That thou mayst wish for shall be thine.\"\n\n  \"I do not covet silk attire,\n    Nor glittering gold, nor flashing gem;\n  There is no longing in my heart\n    To change my simple dress for them.\n  A village maiden I was born--\n    A Village maiden I was bred--\n  A happy life for eighteen years\n     In that low station I have led.\n  How do I know if I should change\n    My state for one so high, but then\n  The world might change, and never be\n    The thing it is to me again;\n  But from the field, and from the sky,\n    The glory and the joy would go;\n  The greenness from the meadow grass,\n    The beauty from all flowers that blow;\n  The sweetness from the breath of spring,\n    The music from the skylark's song:\n  Content, and all sweet thoughts that bring\n    A gladness to me all day long?\"\n\n  \"Thy fears are idle fears,\" he said;\n    \"Love, loyal heart, and generous mind,\n  Can happiness in lordly halls\n    As well as in a cottage find.\n  For this is of the soul, and bound\n    To no degrees of wealth or state:\n  Then put thy little hand in mine\n    And speak the word that seals my fate!\n  I love thee, Marian, more than life--\n    Have loved thee, ah! thou dost not guess\n  How long, unknown to thee, my soul\n    Hath shrined in thee its happiness.\n  More precious than the light of day,\n    Thy beauty is unto mine eyes;\n  More sweet than all earth's music else\n    Thy voice that now to me replies.\n  Oh! would it speak the words I long\n    More than all other words to hear,\n  I were the happiest man this day\n    That breathes the breath of earthly air.\"\n\n  She raised her head, and in her eyes\n    A tender look his glances met,\n  But 'twas not love--though kin to it--\n    A look of pity and regret.\n\n  \"It pains me more than I can tell\n    To speak the words I ought; but yet\n  They must be said; and for your sake\n    I would that we had never met\n\n{848}\n\n  For if you love me as you say,\n    I can conceive how great the pain\n  I give when I declare the troth,\n    I cannot love you, sir, again.\n  And I should sin a grievous sin,\n    Should do a grievous wrong to you,\n  If I should put my hand in yours\n    Unless my heart went with it too.\n  Not joy and pride, but grief and shame,\n    Go with the bridegroom and the bride\n  Into the house where they shall dwell,\n    Unless love enter side by side.\n  And I, because my heart is given\n    To one I love beyond my life.\n  Could find no joy in Bromleigh Hall\n    Am all unfit for Bromleigh's wife:\n  But did I love you, then, indeed,\n    Although my state be poor and mean,\n  I were as worthy Bromleigh Hall,\n    As were I daughter of a queen.\n  For love hath such divinity\n    That it ennobles every one\n  That owns its mast'ry, and can make\n    A beggar worthy of a throne.\n  This I have learned--love taught me this;\n    The love that is my breath of life:\n  That will not leave me till I die,\n    That will not let me be your wife.\n  Forbear to urge me more, my lord;\n    It gives me pain to give such pain;\n  Here let us part, and for the sake\n    Of both, to never meet again.\"\n\n  \"Stay yet a little, Marian, stay!\n    My heart was wholly thine before.\n  Or what thou sayst would make me swear\n    That now I love thee more and more.\n  A beauty brighter than a queen's,\n    A mind with noble thoughts so graced.\n  Among the highest in the land,\n    Were best esteemed, and fittest placed.\n  Yes, there thy rightful station is.\n    Amongst the noble of the earth:\n  And 'twere a sin unto a clown\n    To mate such beauty and such worth.\n  Thou could'st not live thy truest life;\n    Thy fullest joy thou could'st not find.\n  Chained to a poor cot's drudgery.\n    Wed to a dull, unlettered hind.\"\n\n  Then flushed her face with maiden scorn.\n    And thrilled her voice with proud disdain;\n  And proudly looked her eyes at him\n    Who dared not look at her again.\n\n{849}\n\n  \"For shame! my lord; for shame! my lord;\n    You shame your rank to slander so\n  A man, I doubt if you have seen;\n    A man I'm sure you do not know.\n  The man I love is no base churl,\n    No poor unlettered village hind;\n  But in my soul he lives and reigns,\n    The wisest, noblest of mankind.\n  I grant him poor; I know he works\n    With head and hands for daily bread;\n  And nobler so in my esteem\n    Than if a useless life he led.\n  'Tis not the accident of birth\n    Though with the flood the line began,\n  Nor having lands and countless wealth,\n    That makes and marks the gentleman.\n  For these are earthly, of the earth,\n    And by the vilest oft possessed;\n  But 'tis the spirit makes the man,\n    The soul that rules in brain and breast:\n  The generous heart, the noble mind,\n    The soul aspiring still to climb\n  To higher heights, to truer truths,\n    To faith more heavenly and sublime.\n  These make the noble of the earth;\n    And he I love is one of these:--\n  And shall I for a title fall\n    From such a soul and love as his?\n  Believe me, no! Ten thousand times,\n    A cot with him I'd rather share\n  Than yonder hall with you, my lord,\"\n    And then she turned and left him there.\n  Off fell the curls and thick moustache\n    That hid the true look of his face.\n  A step--and ere she was aware\n    She struggled in a strong embrace;\n  Whilst kisses rained on cheek and lips,\n    She would have cried for help; but, lo!\n  The voice was one she knew so well,\n    Not that which spoke awhile ago.\n\n  \"Forgive me, oh! my dear, true love,\n    If I have seemed thy love to test;\n  I knew 'twas good, and pure, and true,\n    As ever filled a maiden's breast:\n  But I had something to reveal,\n    And so I put on this deceit.\n  Deceit! not so--for now I'm true,\n    The past it is that was a cheat;\n  For I this happy twelvemonth past,\n    This year that gave thy love to me,\n  Have lived a life not truly mine,\n    Have lived it for the sake of thee.\n\n{850}\n\n  And though I Harry Nugent am,\n    The master of the village school,\n  So am I Harry Nugent Vane,\n    Lord of a higher rank and rule,\n  The which I left to win thy love;\n    And now I know that it is mine,\n  I take it back, my own true wife.\n    And Bromleigh Hall is mine and thine.\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nWHAT I HEARD ABOUT RITUALISM IN A CITY CAR.\n\n\n\"It ought to be stopped, and it's all nonsense.\"\n\n\"It is all very well to say 'it ought to be stopped,' and that 'it is\nall nonsense,' but, my dear sir, we cannot stop it, for the people\nwill have it; and I beg leave to differ with you, for I think it is\nvery far from being nonsense.\"\n\nIt was in a Seventh Avenue railway car, and as I sat next to the last\nspeaker, a clerical-looking person, I could not help overhearing the\nconversation. The other appeared to be one of those old gentlemen who\nare positive about everything--who, even in the tie of their cravat,\nsay as plain as can be, \"This is the way I intend to have it, and I\n_will_ have it.\"\n\n\"I perfectly agree with the Bishop of Oxford,\" said he. \"See here\"--\nand he opened a newspaper and read as follows: \"'I have no great fear\nthat as to the majority of the people there is any tendency toward\nRome; and, on the contrary, I believe that in many cases this\ndevelopment of English ritualism tends to keep our people from Rome.\nIt may, however, happen that the tendency of these things is to what I\nconsider to be at this moment the worst corruption of the church of\nRome--its terrible system of Mariolatry.' There, you see what it tends\nto, and it is plain enough, although the bishop did not like to say\nso, of course, that ritualism in our churches will educate our people\nto become Catholics; and so he adds, very properly: 'I regard it with\ndeep distress. My own belief is that to stop these practices it will\nonly be necessary for the bishop to issue an injunction to the\nclergymen to surcease from them--to surcease from incensing the holy\ntable--to surcease from prostration after the consecration of the\nholy elements--to surcease from incensing at the _magnificat_.' My\nopinion precisely.\"\n\n\"Have you ever considered the true sense of these things?\" inquired\nhis clerical friend.\n\n\"Can't see any sense in it at all,\" tartly responded the old\ngentleman.\n\n\"No?\" returned the other; \"surely there must be some good reason for\nthis wide-spread desire of both clergy and laity for a more elaborate\nritual in divine service.\"\n\n\"Fashionable, fashionable--nothing else.\"\n\n\"It gives dignity and solemnity to public worship.\"\n\n\"Mere show.\"\n\n\"It adds to the apparent reality of the sacred functions of religion,\nin the administration of the sacraments particularly.\"\n\n\"Ha! ha! yes, it would be an apparent reality for us. I read about\nthat 'apparent reality' lately in the report of the ordination of one\nof our bishops, and I thought it a very appropriate remark.\"\n\n{851}\n\n\"But you must admit that it tends to edify the worshippers, and afford\nthem more ample means of lifting up the heart to God.\"\n\n\"It don't edify me.\"\n\n\"Then it is, besides, so full of instruction, for every ceremony fixes\nthe mind upon the religious truth to which the ceremony points, as,\nfor instance, making the sign of the cross must keep the truth of\nredemption forcibly before the mind.\"\n\n\"Make the sign of the cross!\" ejaculated the old gentleman, almost\njumping out of his seat, at which movement half a dozen ladies,\nstanding up and holding on the leathern straps, made a simultaneous\nrush for the place.\n\n\"Why not?\" said the other. \"I am ready to do anything that will remind\nme that my Saviour died for me. Then it is only fulfilling the\nprophecy of St. Paul to bow or bend the knee at the mention of his\nholy name, and to genuflect before the altar is very proper and right,\nif we believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in the sacred elements.\"\n\n\"But we Protestants don't believe it.\"\n\n\"You must not be too sure of that; I know many who do. You know the\nScripture is very strong in its favor: 'This is my body--this is my\nblood;' and I, as a good Protestant, who take my belief from the\nBible, may have the right to believe it, may I not?\"\n\n\"H'm, h'm, but our church don't teach any thing of the kind.\"\n\n\"Not as a church, I grant you, but she has no right to trammel private\njudgment; and if I choose to believe it, and act upon my belief, what\nis to hinder me.\"\n\n\"It seems to me that as a minister of the church you ought to\n_minister_ just what the church teaches and no more.\"\n\n\"If you follow that out, my friend, you will become a Romanist. A\nProtestant cannot stand on that ground.\"\n\n\"Oh dear!\" exclaimed the old gentleman drawing a deep breath, and\nscratching his head. \"I don't know what we are coming to. A man don't\nwant to be a papist, and yet he goes to his own Protestant church and\nmust put up with all the bowings and scrapings and genuflections and\ncandies and flowers, and all the rest of the popish fiddle\u00b7de\u00b7dees.\"\n\n\"Now you mention candles and flowers,\" said the clerical gentleman,\n\"what can be more appropriate symbols of joy and festivity? And when\nthe Christian is rejoicing on those solemn and joyful festivals of the\nchurch, as, for instance, the birth of our Saviour at Christmas, and\nhis resurrection at Easter, how very natural it is that the sanctuary\nof religion should be adorned with lights and flowers, than which\nnothing could express more fitly the joy and thankfulness of the\nheart. If you crush out all expression of these sentiments in the\nservice of the church you will render it a dull, cold formality; and\nin this matter the church of Rome has been much wiser than we in\nretaining all those things which, after all, are of apostolic origin,\nand used by the earliest Christians.\"\n\n\"Incense, too, I suppose,\" added the old gentleman with a snarl.\n\n\"Incense too,\" repeated the other, \"not the least doubt of it, as is\nplain from the discoveries in the catacombs, and a beautiful emblem it\nis of prayer. You know the scripture, 'My prayer shall ascend as\nincense in thy sight.'\"\n\nThe old gentleman here looked around the car with an air that seemed\nto say, Will somebody have the kindness to tell me if I am asleep or\nawake? Turning to his friend, he said: \"Then I suppose that all our\nprotestations on this score against the Roman church have no\nfoundation either in reason or in holy Scripture?\"\n\n\"That is not only my own opinion,\" replied the clerical gentleman,\n\"but I have every reason to believe it is the conviction of a very\nlarge number of enlightened Protestants of our day.\"\n\n\"A conviction I sincerely deplore,\" said the old gentleman. \"Good\nmorning,\" and he abruptly rose and left the car.\n\n{852}\n\n\"Excuse me, sir,\" said I, \"if I, as a Catholic, have been deeply\ninterested in your conversation just now; but may I ask on what\nprinciple those ritualistic forms and ceremonies are being adopted by\nProtestants, and being introduced into their services?\"\n\n\"The principle is this, that they are all deeply significant of the\ndifferent truths of the Christian religion, a visible expression of\nthe faith of the worshipper.\"\n\n\"We understand that perfectly as Catholics,\" said I, \"but as your\ncongregations differ so widely in their individual belief, these forms\nand ceremonies would possess no significance to the half of anyone\ncongregation of Protestant worshippers. Now, with us Catholics, the\nceremonies have a universal significance, as all our people are united\nin one faith.\"\n\n\"We will educate our people to it,\" said he.\n\n\"That is, you would make the faith of your worshippers an expression\nof the ceremonies you perform, and not the ceremonies an expression of\ntheir faith. In the Catholic church the faith is all one to start on,\nand the appropriate ceremonies follow as a matter of course.\"\n\n\"I acknowledge,\" returned he, \"that we have not paid sufficient\nattention to the vital necessity of a ritual which would embody and\nshow forth the faith of our church.\"\n\n\"But when you have gotten a ritual which supposes, as it must, certain\ndoctrines, and which, as you said to your friend, instructs the people\nin these doctrines, are you not trammelling the private judgment of\nthose worshippers who do not believe these doctrines and wish to have\na ritual which is consistent with their belief? What right have you to\nimpose a ritual upon them inconsistent with their belief?\"\n\n\"We do not impose any particular ritual,\" he replied; \"if they do not\nlike it they can go elsewhere.\"\n\n\"But then you would have, or ought to have, as many different rituals\nas your people have individual differences of belief, and that would\nend in endless division and dissension.\"\n\n\"It is excessively warm, don't you think so?\" said the minister.\n\n\"It is,\" said I, \"but I think we are going to have a storm soon; I see\nit is getting quite cloudy.\"\n\n------\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nTHE BARREN FIG-TREE AND THE CROSS.\n\n  O hapless tree! which doth refuse\n    Thy fruit to him who thee hath made:\n  Cursed and withered none may use\n    Thy barren limbs for fruit or shade.\n\n  O Cross of death! which man did make,\n    Barren and fruitless though thou be,\n  Thy sapless branches life shall take\n    From that sweet fruit he gave to thee.\n\n  O happy tree! divinely blest!\n    True, thou hast neither leaves nor root;\n  Yet 'neath thy shade a world shall rest,\n    And feast upon thy heavenly fruit!\n\n--------\n\n{853}\n\nMISCELLANY.\n\n\n_A Peculiar Conglomerate_.--Mr. John Keily, of the Irish Geological\nSociety, has addressed a letter to the editor of the _Geological\nMagazine_, describing a peculiar conglomerate bed which is on the\nshore at Cushendeen, in the county of Antrim. The mass is about fifty\nfeet above the sea, and some thirty yards long and wide. It is\ncomposed of round pebbles of quartz rock, from two to four inches in\ndiameter; and they occur so closely packed that everyone is in contact\nwith another, and no room left, except for the sand which cements\nthem, and which fills the openings between the pebbles, when\noriginally heaped together. These pebbles, as just stated, are of\nquartz rock, and therefore all of one kind. There is no actual rock of\nthe same kind, on the shore, nearer than--(1) Malin Head, or Culdaff,\nin Donegal; (2) Belderg, east of Belmullet in Mayo, where it occupies\nthe shore for fourteen miles; and (3) in the twelve bins, near\nClifden, in Connemara, where it forms bands interstratified with mica\nslate. This mass is backed by a hill of brown Devonian grits and\nshales interstratified, which extends from Cushendeen to Cushendal. In\nboth those rocks are a few round pebbles of quartz rock, similar to\nthose in the mass on the shore, but in the rocks of the hill they are\nthinly disseminated, perhaps six or ten of them to a cubic yard. Mr.\nKelly desires to know how the quartz pebbles came together unmixed\nwith any other species of rock. The answer which the editor of the\n_Geological Magazine_ gives in a foot-note seems very like the correct\none. It is to the effect that, in the grinding of the several elements\nwhich were being rubbed together to form the conglomerate, the softer\nones became reduced to powder.--_Popular Science Review_.\n\n\n\n_Old Roman Mines in Spain_.--In the mines of San Domingo, in Spain,\nsome discoveries of Roman mining implements and galleries have been\nmade, which show us the colossal character of the labors undertaken by\nthat ancient nation. In some instances, draining galleries nearly\nthree miles in length were discovered, and in others the remains of\nwheels used to raise water were found in abundance. The wood, owing,\nit is thought, to penetration by copper, is in a perfect state of\npreservation, and there appears to be evidence that the wheels were\nworked by a number of men stepping on the flanges somewhat after the\nmanner of prisoners on a tread-mill. There were eight of these\nwater-wheels, the water being raised by the first into the first\nbasin, by the second into the second basin, and so on, till it was\nconveyed out of the mine. The age of these relics has been set down at\n1500 years.--_Ibid_.\n\n\n\n_Blood Relationship in Marriage_.--At a late meeting of the London\nAnthropological Society, a paper was read by Dr. Mitchell on the above\nsubject. The conclusions arrived at are: 1. That consanguinity in\nparentage tends to injure the offspring. That this injury assumes\nvarious forms: \"as, diminished viability; feeble constitution; bodily\ndefects; impairment of the senses; disturbance of the nervous system;\nsterility.\", 2. That the injury may show itself in the grand-children:\n\"so that there may be given to the offspring by the kinship of the\nparents a _potential defect_ which may become _actual_ in their\nchildren, and thenceforth perhaps appear as an hereditary disease.\" 3.\nThat idiocy and imbecility are more common than insanity in such\ncases.\n\n\n_Gigantic Birds'-Nests_.--Mr. Gould describes the Wattled Talegalla,\nor Bush Turkey, of Australia, as adopting a most extraordinary process\nof nidification. The bird collects together an immense heap of\ndecaying vegetable matter as a depository for the eggs, and trusts to\nthe heat engendered by decomposition for the development of the young.\nThe heap employed for this purpose is collected by the birds during\nseveral weeks previous to the period of laying. It varies in size from\ntwo to four cartloads, and is of a perfectly pyramidal form. Several\nbirds work at its construction, not by using their bills, but by\ngrasping {854} the materials with their feet and throwing them back to\none common centre. In this heap the birds bury the eggs perfectly\nupright, with the large end upward; they are covered up as they are\nlaid, and allowed to remain until hatched, when the young birds are\nclothed with feathers, not with down, as is usually the case. It is\nnot unusual for the natives to obtain nearly a bushel of eggs at one\ntime from a single heap; and as they are delicious eating, they are as\neagerly sought after as the flesh. The birds are very stupid, and\neasily fall a victim to the sportsman, and will sit aloft and allow a\nsuccession of shots to be fired at them until they are brought\ndown.--_Lamp_.\n\n\n\n_The Muscular Fibres of the Heart of Vertebrates_.--We have received\nfrom Dr. J. B. Pettigrew, the accomplished sub-curator of the Royal\nCollege of Surgeons' Museum, a copy of his excellent monograph on the\nabove subject. The memoir is certainly the finest which has yet been\nproduced; for it is comprehensive, clear, and accurate, and is\naccompanied by a great number of beautiful lithographs, which have\nbeen taken from photographs of actual dissections. The arrangement of\nthe muscular fibres, as demonstrated by the author, sheds much light\nupon the peculiar movements of the heart. For this reason the essay\nhas a great physiological importance, and, from the circumstance that\nthe anatomy of the heart in the four vertebrate classes is fully\nexplored by Dr. Pettigrew, it is of equal import and interest to the\ncomparative anatomist. We have also received Dr. Pettigrew's paper on\nthe valvular apparatus of the circulatory system, and we commend it\nlikewise to our readers' favorable notice.--_Science Review_.\n\n----\n\nORIGINAL.\n\nNEW PUBLICATIONS.\n\n\nLIFE OF CATHERINE McAULEY.\nFoundress of the institute of Religious Sisters of Mercy. By a member\nof the order (belonging to the Convent of Mercy, at St. Louis), etc. 1\nvol. 12mo, pp. 500. New York. D. & J. Sadlier & Co., 1866.\n\nThis biography introduces a new, and hitherto generally unknown,\ncharacter to the acquaintance, and, we are sure, to the admiration of\nthe English-speaking Catholic public. The anonymous religious\nauthoress has shown herself well qualified for her filial task, and\nhas conferred a great benefit both on her order and on the cause of\nreligion in general. The nearness of the period in which her venerable\nsubject lived, the testimony of a number of the best informed and most\ntrustworthy witnesses who were personally acquainted with her, and the\nmaterials furnished by other memoirs and letters, have given the\nwriter of this biography an abundance of the most authentic data from\nwhich to produce a truthful and complete sketch of the Foundress of\nthe Sisters of Mercy.\n\nWe have had the pleasure of learning something of the history of\nCatherine McAuley, and of the foundation of her institute, from one of\nher own earliest and most trusted pupils, who has planted the same\ninstitute, and brought it to a flourishing condition in four of the\nNew England States. The portrait of her drawn by her biographer,\ncorresponds with, and completes the preconceived idea of her character\nwe had received from this authentic source.\n\nIt is eighty-one years since Catherine McAuley was born, forty years\nsince she made the first beginning of her institute, and twenty-five\nyears since her death. Her period of active life embraced only\nfourteen years. Yet there are now more than two hundred convents, and\nthree thousand sisters, belonging to the congregation of Our Lady of\nMercy, scattered over Ireland, England, the United States, British\nAmerica, South America, and Australia; although the mortality among\nthe sisters is at the high rate of ten per cent a year.\n\nThese facts prove better than any eloquence the value of the life and\nworks of the foundress of the institute. Her personal history is\nuncommonly interesting and highly romantic. She was the daughter of\nhighly respectable Catholic parents residing in Dublin. Losing her\nparents at an early age, she came under the guardianship of relatives\nwho were strict Protestants and intensely hostile {855} to the\nCatholic religion. Consequently, she was not able to receive any\ninstruction, to go to mass, or much less to receive the sacraments,\nbefore she became a young lady. Her brothers and sisters were easily\ninduced to give up their minds to the influence of Protestant teaching\nand example. Catherine, however, steadily refused to attend the\nProtestant church; and, as soon as she was capable of doing so, made a\nstudious and thorough examination of the grounds of the two religions,\nwhich resulted in establishing her forever in a faith which was not\nonly firm but intelligent. She eventually succeeded in bringing back\nher sister and her nephew and niece to the Catholic church. While\nstill a child, Catherine McAuley was adopted by an elderly couple\nnamed Callahan, who were very kind-hearted, very wealthy, and,\nchildless. They allowed her to practise her religion, although quite\nindifferent to religion themselves, and gave her the means of\npractising many of those acts of charity to which she was always\ninclined.\n\nThis part of her history is strikingly interesting, as throwing light\non the state of the Catholic religion among the higher classes in\nIreland, during the latter part of the last century and the former\npart of the present one. It contains some scenes of tragic pathos\ntaken from domestic life. Few are aware of the hatred, the contempt,\nthe cruelty, the bitter, unrelenting persecution, with which the\nCatholic religion has had to contend in Ireland. Miss McAuley was once\nobliged to fly from the house of her brother-in-law, at night, through\nthe streets of Dublin, to save herself from death at his hands.\nNevertheless, she conquered, as the holy faith has always conquered,\nby undaunted courage joined with angelic meekness. The same\nbrother-in-law who had pursued her with a drawn dagger, declared to\nher on his death-bed, that if he had time he would candidly examine\ninto the Catholic religion, and died repeating acts of contrition,\nfaith, hope and charity, which she suggested to him, leaving his\nchildren to her guardianship.\n\nAt the age of thirty-five Miss McAuley was left, by the death of her\nadopted parents, both of whom had become Catholics during their last\nillness, mistress of a fortune, the exact amount of which is not\nstated, but which appears to have at east equalled the sum of fifty\nthousand pounds sterling. The whole of this fortune was devoted by her\nto the foundation of her institute, which was opened about five years\nafterward, that is, in the year 1827. She does not seem to have\ncherished any aspirations after the religious state for herself,\nduring her youth, much less to have dreamed of becoming the foundress\nof an order. In founding her institute in Dublin, she had in view the\nplan of combining the efforts of charitable ladies for the benefit of\nthe poor, the sick, the ignorant, and particularly servant-girls who\nwere out of place. The community-life, and the whole religious\nroutine, grew up naturally and of itself. After a time, the judgment\nof prelates, clergymen, and other persons of weight, induced Miss\nMcAuley and her associates to adopt a rule, and take perpetual vows.\nThe scope of the institute embraces choir duties to a moderate extent,\nalmost every kind of charitable work for the poor, a particular care\nfor respectable servant-girls out of place, poor-schools, and\nhigh-schools or academies for girls of the middling classes.\n\nThe noble woman who planned all this vast scheme of good works, and\nlavished her fortune with princely generosity to set it in motion,\ndied in the year 1841, at the age of fifty~four, ten years after\nmaking her vows as a Sister of Mercy. It is an interesting\ncircumstance that the great and good Daniel O'Connell was one of her\nwarmest friends during her life, and one of her staunchest supporters\nin her undertakings. These two magnanimous souls who loved their\ncountry, their country's faith, and the patient, oppressed, but\nunconquerable poor of their country, better than all earthly things,\ncould appreciate and honor each other. Our readers will thank us for\nquoting the following description of the scenes which usually occurred\nat the great Liberator's visits to the convents of the Sisters of'\nMercy:\n\n  \"In his journeys through Ireland, O'Connell nearly always visited\n  the convents in his route. On these occasions his reception was a\n  kind of ovation. The Te Deum was sung, the reception-room hung with\n  green, the national emblems--harp, shamrock, and\n  sun-burst--displayed, addresses were read by the pupils, and any\n  request he asked implicitly granted. His manner at such scenes was\n  particularly happy. To a young girl who had delivered q flattering\n  address to the 'Conquering Hero,' he said, very {856} graciously,\n  that he 'regretted her sex precluded her from that distinguished\n  place in the imperial senate to which her elocutionary abilities\n  entitled her.' Then glancing at the girls who surrounded the\n  oratress, he continued with emotion: 'Often have I listened with\n  nerve unstrung and heart unmoved to the calumny and invectives of\n  our national enemies; but to-day, as I look on the beautiful young\n  virgins of Erin, my herculean frame quivers with emotion, and the\n  unbidden tear moistens my eye. Can such a race continue in ignoble\n  bondage? Are you born for no better lot than slavery? No,' he\n  continued, with increasing vehemence, 'you shall be free; your\n  country shall yet be a nation; you shall not become the mothers of\n  slaves.'\" (pp. 146-47.)\n\nWhat a contrast between such genuine heroic characters as these, the\ntrue glory of their people, and the mock-heroic charlatans, whose\ngenius show itself only in gathering in money from laboring men and\nservant-girls, and organizing raids which end only in the death and\nimprisonment of their most unlucky dupes, and bitter mutual\naccusations of treachery and cowardice among the leaders. The worst\nenemies of the Irish people are those who seek to alienate them from\ntheir clergy, and to lead them astray from the true mission given them\nby divine providence, which is identified with their traditions of\nfaith and loyalty to the church. They are like Achaz and the false\nprophets of Judah, who contaminated the people of God with the false\nmaxims of the nations around them. Men and women like Daniel O'Connell\nand Catherine McAuley are the Macchabees and Judiths of their nation.\nThrough such as these, the faith of Ireland may yet conquer England,\nas the trampled faith of Judaea conquered Rome; and her long martyrdom\nobtain the due meed of glory from the children of her old oppressors.\n\nWe recommend this book to all those who claim kindred either in\nnationality or in faith with its subject, and who wish to rekindle\ntheir devotion or renew the memories of their ancestral home. We\nrecommend it especially to our wealthy Catholics, that they may\nmeditate on the example of princely charity given them by this young\nheiress, who gave away a fortune more readily than most others would\ngive one twentieth of a year's income. We request our fair young\nreaders also, to lay aside their novels for a while, and read the life\nof one who was beautiful, gifted, highly educated, beloved of all,\nrich in worldly goods, and with all earthly happiness courting her\nacceptance; and who, amid these allurements and the severest\ntemptations to her faith, shone forth a bright model of all high\nChristian virtues to her sex. We wish that all those who are\nprejudiced against the Catholic faith, and who nevertheless have the\ncandor which pays tribute to virtue, conscientiousness, and\nself-sacrifice, wherever seen, might also read it. The history of\nCatherine McAuley and her institute adds another to the many\npractical, living proofs, more powerful than any speculative\narguments, of the truth and power of the Catholic religion. Such a\nhistory never has been or will be possible outside the fold of the\nCatholic church. Its occurrence in our own times shows that the church\nis now, as of old, the fruitful mother of saints, and that the old\nCatholic ideas which once made martyrs of young maidens, and raised up\nClaras and Teresas, retain all their power over the souls of those who\nhave inherited the same faith. We have no fear of incurring the\ndispleasure of Urban VIII. or of his successor, in giving our judgment\nthat Catherine McAuley was a true Christian heroine, a woman of the\nsame high stamp of character with St. Teresa, whom she resembles in\nmany striking respects.\n\nIt is superfluous to say that this biography will be a most useful\nbook in religious houses. Example is more powerful than precept, and a\nrecent example is more powerful than a remote one. It were to be\nwished that similar biographies were more numerous. There are\nmaterials in the recent history of other orders, as well as in that of\nthe institute of Mercy, which might be used to great advantage. The\nhistory of the American foundress of the Order of the Visitation would\nbe worthy of a place, even in the annals of that ancient order. Books\nof this kind are not only instructive, but, when well written,\nsuperior in that charm which captivate's the feelings and imagination\nof the young, to the romantic tales over which their time and\nsensibilities are too often wasted. The present volume is written in\nthat lively and piquant style, with a dash of humor to flavor it,\nwhich makes a biography most readable and entertaining. Religion wears\nits most cheerful and attractive countenance in {857} these pages, and\neven the couch of the dying sisters are lit up with gayety. Mother\nCatherine's life was a perpetual _Laetare_ Sunday in Lent, spiritual\njoy ever decking with flowers the altar of sacrifice, and changing the\nviolet of penance and self-denial to rose-color. Her tranquil and\nbenignant countenance, as represented in the portrait which graces her\nbiography, expresses this type of spirituality which she communicated\nto her order. The mirthful laugh of the common-room resounds through\nthe pages which relate of the unremitting labors and continual prayer,\nwhose effect decimates the ranks of the Sisters of Mercy every year.\nWe are not treated to any prosy disquisitions or abstracts of ascetic\ntreatises, which make some of the lives of saints such tiresome\nreading, especially to young people. But we have something better; a\npicture of virtue, of piety, of devotion to Jesus Christ, in their\nmost heroic form, blended with a joyousness to which, the boudoir and\nthe drawing-room are strangers, and which may well attract pure and\ngenerous hearts to imitate such an engaging model of sanctity.\n\nThere are numerous episodes and sketches of the many persons with whom\nMother Catherine was associated, such as that of her little niece\nMary; of the good Welsh sister from Bridgenorth; of the English earl's\ndaughter, who entered the convent with her two waiting-maids; of the\naccomplished but somewhat eccentric authoress of Geraldine; and the\ninimitable Dr. Fitzgerald. Some of these are pathetic, and others\ncomic in the extreme. We have but one criticism to make, which is,\nthat a little more restraint and forbearance toward some who are\ndeemed to have erred in their duty to the order, would have added\nanother grace to the narrative. There are also some faults of\ntypography and slight clerical oversights, which will doubtless be\ncorrected in a second edition.\n\nWe hope we have piqued the curiosity of our readers enough to make\nevery reader buy the book, or tease papa to buy it. And if the desire\nto read it is not enough to wake up our somewhat apathetic Catholic\npublic, let them remember that by buying the book they are\ncontributing to that unfailing spring of mercy which flows from the\nconvents of Catherine McAuley's daughters to relieve the poor.\n\n\nROBERT SEVERNE, His Friends and his Enemies. A Novel, by William A.\nHammond. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369.\n\nThis novel has the merit of being written by a scholar and a man of\nscience. The first part of it is well done, and excites no little\ninterest; but as we progress, it is plain that the author has\npermitted his facile pen to have pretty much its own way. The general\nimpression, therefore, left on the mind is that as a novel it has been\nhastily written. The characters are too perfect both in virtue and in\nvice; and although the author is at great pains to describe his\ncharacters, we are obliged to differ with him in our opinion of them.\nThe hero is brought before us as a hard student, yet we have quite\nanother idea of him from his words and actions. He is in effect a\nwealthy gentleman, who moves easily in polite society, and has a fancy\nfor purchasing rare old books at ruinous prices: finds a Caba\u00f1a or\nPartaga cigar equally at hand in Europe and in his elegantly furnished\nstudy at home (where it is true he consumes a great deal of brain and\ntime over his books), but we do not find the student in him when he\ncomes to play his part before us. He has been unfortunate in a first\nmarriage, and becomes violently misanthropical and suspicious. His\nfirst act, however, is marked by surpassing benevolence and verdant\ninnocence. He is swindled in the street out of a ten-dollar gold piece\nby a prostitute, who feigns poverty, and instantly conceives a violent\naffection for this totally unknown person, and most unmisanthropically\ndetermines to catch her, reform and educate her. We may remark, by the\nway, that when our hero does \"tip\" anybody he does it in true Monte\nCristo style: it always is a ten-dollar gold piece, or a\nhundred-dollar bill. Of course he falls violently in love with the\nheroine at first sight, and loses his misanthropy with his heart. Sal\nTompkins, who is to be his _prot\u00e9g\u00e9e_, turns out to have some\nunusually good points, and having come to warn the heroine of a\npremeditated attack upon her grandfather's house by a gang of\nburglars, of one of whom she is the mistress, the utmost cordiality\nand intimacy springs up between herself and the heroine; and, in fact,\nwe are led to believe, from a remark made by the grandfather, {858}\nthat these two ladies occupied the same room that night, if not the\nsame couch. The heroine's father was a bad man, and Sal Tompkins is\nalso a daughter of his, which may satisfy the reader, but should not\nthe parties concerned, seeing they knew nothing of the fact. Sal\nbecomes a very lady-like person in an incredibly short space of time,\nand the discovery of her left-hand relationship is received without\nthe slightest remonstrance or disgust. The villain of the story is the\nhero's lawyer and factotum; a pretty good villain, as far as his\nlanguage and intentions go; but he is represented as so violently\nvillainous that we are led to believe the author is prejudiced against\nhim. He makes use of a written confession of murder penned by the hero\nwhile laboring under hallucination of mind (a real tit\u00b7bit of science,\nwhich the distinguished author could illustrate much better in another\ndepartment of literature than he has done here), and on the strength\nof it arrests him in England, whither Severne arrives after a\ntelegraphic journey around the world. The way in which our author here\ndispatches messengers to Suez and Constantinople from England, quite\ntakes our breath away. The imprisonment, trial, acquittal, and\nsubsequent disgrace of the perjured lawyer quickly follow, to the\nutmost satisfaction of the reader, who being behind the scenes (as he\nis always kindly permitted to be), suffers no pangs of anxiety for the\nresults. The author says the heroine showed no emotion whatever of\nsurprise or annoyance when the self-accusation of murder written by\nher affianced husband was shown to her, undoubtedly genuine as it was.\nHere again we are sorry to differ with him. Of the other characters\nlittle need be said. There is a portrait of \"a lady\" in Grace Langley;\nan attempt at an imitation of Chadband, the renowned apostle of\n\"trewth,\" in Brother Jenkins; and a Mr. Goodall, who is introduced, as\nit would seem, to play a part which he does not find. The story of\nUlrich de Hutten with his wonderful unique copy of an old book, and\nhis magic pentagramme, is made to link in with the principal events of\nthe story, but from its peculiarly romantic character, has no unity\nwith it: the best proof of which is that the whole of it could be\nerased from the book, and the reader would not miss it. What moral we\nare to draw from it we are also at a loss to divine.\n\nThat the author can write well is evident enough, both from this book\nand from others of a high order of merit which he has contributed to\nthe department of science; but that he has accomplished as a novelist\nall that he is competent to do, Robert Severne does not, in our humble\njudgment, bear worthy testimony.\n\n\nTHE SCHOOL OF JESUS CRUCIFIED.\nFrom the Italian of F. Ignatius of the Side of Jesus. Passionist. New\nYork. D. & J. Sadlier & Co.\n\nTo meet with a book like this among so much that is cold, speculative,\nand heartless in the publications of our day, is like meeting with a\nblushing red rose in a cotton bale. Its beauty and its sweetness\npossess a double charm. Its every page glows with that tender piety\nand warm devotion which is the expression of a devout Christian head,\nand it cannot fail of kindling a like holy fire in the soul of him who\nloves to learn the lessons taught from the summit of the Cross. The\nworthy translator speaks thus in the preface: \"The school of Jesus\nCrucified! What Christian would not wish to study therein? to learn\nwisdom and patience and resignation to the divine will, from the\nexample of a God-man, who came on earth and assumed our frail\nmortality to be to us a model, as well as a Redeemer?\" A question\nwhich, we think, will serve to interest very many, and induce them to\nprocure and use this sweet little book. The very appropriate style of\nits publication is quite a noticeable feature about it, and commends\nitself to all lovers of well-printed and well-clothed books.\n\n\nTHE FRENCH MANUAL.\nA new, simple, concise, and easy method of acquiring a conversational\nknowledge of the French Language, including a Dictionary of over Ten\nThousand Words. By M. Alfred Havet. Entirely revised and corrected\nfrom the last English Edition, with a new system of pronunciation. D.\nAppleton & Co., New York.\n\n{859}\n\nThis is certainly an advance on the old progressive system of\nOllendorff. It fully realizes all its title proposes, and is evidently\nthe work of one who is a successful teacher of the French language. We\ncommend it to the notice of all professors of French in our colleges\nand schools, by whom, if we do not mistake, its merits will be duly\nappreciated. We observe an error among the rules of pronunciation,\nhowever, that should not pass unnoticed. The Parisian would not take\nour sound of _wa_ in _waft_, _wag_, and _wax_, to express the sound of\n_oi_ in _fois, soif_, etc. We presume the author has been accustomed\nto hear those words pronounced w\u00f3ft, w\u00f3g, and w\u00f3x, as he dates his\npreface from Edinburgh.\n\n\nTHE PHYSIOLOGY OF MAN.\nDesigned to represent the existing State of Physiological Science, as\napplied to the Functions of the Human Body. By Austin Flint, Jr.,\nProfessor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Hospital\nMedical College, etc., etc. Vol. i., 8vo, pp. 495. D. Appleton & Co.,\nNew York. 1866.\n\nThis work has lain on our table for some time. The delay in writing\nthe notice has been from no lack of admiration or appreciation of the\nbook or its author, but from a desire to write more than an ordinary\nbook notice.\n\nThis we will defer till the work is completed, and in the mean time we\nhasten to express our hearty approval of a literary and scientific\nenterprise, which reflects the highest honor on the profession of\nmedicine and on the literature of the country.\n\nProf. Flint, the young author, has devoted his life to the study and\nteaching of physiology. He steadily refuses the allurements and\nemoluments of practice, and steadily and successfully pursues the\nobject of his ambition. His present work, if completed in accordance\nwith the first volume, will reward him for his past toil, and ensure\nhim an honorable and most enviable future among the leading minds of\nhis profession in this country and the scientific world.\n\nIt will be out of place to enter into any scientific discussion in the\npages of a journal devoted to general literature. It is sufficient to\nsay that Dr. Flint has presented, in elegant language and graphic\nstyle, a correct view of the science of physiology to the time of\nwriting. He displays great erudition, a thorough grasp of the subject,\nand a sincere desire to appreciate and communicate the exact truth. It\nis the best book on the subject for college libraries, and is an\nalmost indispensable necessity to the physician.\n\nWe hope the publication of such works will renew the habit of studying\nthe philosophy of medicine as part of a liberal education, draw closer\nthe bond between the intellectual classes and the profession of\nmedicine, and in this way advance the interests of science, humanity,\nand civilization.\n\nThis work is issued in an elegant form, worthy of its eminent\npublishers.\n\n\nKING REN\u00c9'S DAUGHTER.\nA Danish lyrical drama. By Henrik Hertz. Translated by Theodore\nMartin. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1867.\n\nThis is indeed a poetic gem of the first water, and we venture to\nassert that few critics will contest our judgment. The author of the\nintroductory sketches repeats twice that it is lovely, and we think we\nmight repeat it twice more and it not be too often. He who will\ncommence reading it, and not finish it at one sitting, we pronounce\none of those beings so detested of Shakespeare, who has no music in\nhis soul.\n\nIt forms but one act in seven scenes, but is replete with events,\n\"stirring, surprising, yet harmonious.\" A bit of philosophy peeps out\nhere and there to interest and charm the most unimaginative thinker;\nfor instance, when Martha, the guardian of Iolanthe, the king's'\ndaughter, reasons upon her unconscious blindness:\n\n  \"May it not be, sir, while we darkly muse\n  Upon our life's mysterious destinies,\n  That we in blindness walk, like Iolanthe,\n  Unconscious that true vision is not ours?\n  Yet is that faith our hope's abiding star.\"\n\nThe innocent confession of the hitherto inexperienced passion of love\nwhich springs up in the heart of Iolanthe, at the presence and sound\nof the voice of her unknown betrothed, is a passage of rare beauty and\noriginality. He asks her to place her hand upon his head to mark his\nheight, that when he returns she may remember him. She answers:\n\n          \"What need of that?\n  I know that few resemble thee in height;\n  Thy utterance comes to me as from above,\n  Like all that's high and inconceivable;\n  And know I not thy tone? Like as thou' speakest\n  None speak beside. No voice, no melody\n  I've known in nature, or in instrument,\n  Doth own a resonance so lovely, sweet,\n  So winning, full, and gracious as thy voice.\n  Trust me, I'll know thee well amidst them all!\"\n\n{860}\n\nThe final tableau, in which Iolanthe, with restored sight, recognizes\nher father, and she and Count Tristan, her betrothed, each other, is\nfull of dramatic power. We promise the reader a pleasure in the\nperusal of this poem such as he seldom enjoys.\n\n\nOUT OF TOWN.\n1 vol. 12mo, pp. 311. New York: Hurd & Houghton.\n\nThis is a sprightly book wrought out of a common and everyday subject:\na change from a city to a country life. The story is told in an easy,\noff-hand, and peculiarly attractive way, and engages the attention of\nits readers, particularly those of the rising generation. The writer\ncontrives to invest the most ordinary topics with a zest which keeps\nalive the interest of his reader to the close. It is a perfect _pot\npourri_ of fun and humor, dished to suit all palates and all ages. But\nit has a fatal blemish in our judgment:--a perpetual parade of\ndecanters and pipes. The writer seems to think that there can be no\nsuch thing as conviviality or good cheer without intoxicating\nlibations. Why cannot those who write books for the young avoid this\nrock of offence? Surely there is small need, in these days, of such\ntemptation. Everyday life reeks with the disgusting and pernicious\nhabit of tippling. Why does it become necessary that every new book\nfor our children should be redolent of the fumes of the bar-room? Are\nour book-makers aware what an impetus they are imparting to that wave\nof desolation which is swelling over the fair face of our beloved\ncountry, and which threatens, more than any other one thing, to\nsubmerge and sweep away all those barriers of virtue and morality on\nwhich rely our hopes for the protection of religion and a healthy\nmorality?\n\n\nSADLIER'S CATHOLIC DIRECTORY, ALMANAC, AND ORDO,\nfor the year of our Lord 1867. New-York: D. and J. Sadlier & Co.\n\nThis volume consists of about 647 pages of matter of which 290 pages\nare devoted to the Church of the United States, 100 to the Church of\nBritish North America and Ireland, and 257 to advertisements. As a\npopular Catholic Directory for the United States it may be said that\nat least one half of it is but of partial interest.\n\nThe portion devoted to the United States is apparently very full, and\nas accurate, no doubt, as the publishers have been able to make it. We\nobserve however, that the Church statistics of Ireland and British\nAmerica possess a valuable little summary at the end of each while no\nsuch summary is given for the Church of the United States.\n\nIf one would look anywhere for it we think it would be in just such a\npublication as the one before us, and we must confess to being\ndisappointed in not finding it here.\n\n\nMR. P. O'SHEA, New-York, has in\npress a new edition of The Gentle Skeptic.\nBy Rev. C. Walworth.\n\n\nBOOKS RECEIVED.\n\nFrom D. APPLETON, & Co., New-York. Joseph II. and his Court. By Mrs.\nL. M\u00fchlbach. With Illustrations. 1 vol. 8vo. Cloth, $2 00.\n\n\nFrom LEYPOLDT & HOLT, New-York. King Ren\u00e9's Daughter, a Danish Lyrical\nDrama. By Henrik Hertz. Translated by Theodore Martin. 1 vol. 12mo,\npp. 100. Price $125.\n\n\n\nFrom M'GILL & NOLAN, Georgetown, D.C. The Messenger of the Sacred\nHeart of Jesus, a monthly bulletin of the Apostleship of Prayer. Price\n$2 per annum.\n\n\nFrom BENZlGER BROS. Alte Neue Welt, an Illustrated German Catholic\nMagazine. Price $3 00 per annum.\n\n\n\nFrom HURD & HOUGHTON, New-York. Essays on Art By Francis Turner\nPalgrave. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 330. Price $1 75.\n\n\nFrom D. APPLETON & Co. The French Manual: n. new, simple, concise, and\neasy method of acquiring a conversational knowledge of the French\nlanguage, including a Dictionary of over ten thousand words. By M.\nAlfred Harve. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 188 and 112.\n\n\nFrom D. & J. SADLIER & Co., New-York. Life of Catherine McAuley,\nFoundress and first Superior of the Institute of Religious Sisters of\nMercy. By a member of the Order of Mercy. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 500. Price\n$2 50. Sermons by the REV. THOS. S. PRESTON. Revised and enlarged\nedition. 1 vol. pp. 581. Price $2 50. The School of Jesus Crucified.\nFrom the Italian of Father IGNATIUS, of the Side of Jesus, Passionist.\n1 vol. pp. 334. Price 75 cents. The Christian armed against, the World\nand the Illusions of his own Heart. By FATHER IGNATIUS of the Side of\nJesus, Passionist. 1 vol: 32mo, pp. 320. Price 50c.\n\n\n\nFrom J. D. LIPPINCOTT & Co., Philadelphia. Robert Severne, His Friends\nand his Enemies. A Novel. By William A. Hammond. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369.\nPrice $1 75.\n\n\nMUSIC RECEIVED.\n\nFrom J. L. PETERS & BRO., St. Louis &. Cincinnati. Shamus O'Brien, an\nanswer to Norah O'Neill. By William S. Hayes. Let the Dead and the\nBeautiful Rest. Little Beauty. Pink of Perfection. Mary's Waiting at\nthe Window.\n\n------","title":"The Catholic World, Vol. 04, October, 1866 to March, 1867","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":566603}